Podcast One-Sheet

Bio
Ryan Latta is a consultant that builds exceptional teams and the leaders behind them. His clients include Sysco Foods, Toyota, Jack in the Box, and Sonic Drive-In. He has also worked for several startups, authored a book, and presented at numerous conferences.
Suggested Episode Topics
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High-Performing Teams Quit Low-Performing Leaders. Why your best engineers leave and it's not about comp. What leaders do that drives top talent out, and the specific behaviors that make them stay.
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Build Confidence by Building Predictability. Stakeholders are anxious because they can't predict delivery. The fix isn't better estimates. It's making work visible and building a track record people trust.
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Leaders Win with Results, Not Reports. Status reports, velocity charts, and dashboards are theater if outcomes don't change. What actually moves the needle when an engineering org is stuck.
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What Leaders Get Wrong About Quality. One of the biggest killers of performance for teams and groups is making poor decisions about software quality.
Suggested Interview Questions
- You say high-performing teams quit low-performing leaders. What does that actually look like from inside an organization?
- You've consulted at Fortune 100 companies and startups. What's the pattern you see in engineering orgs that are stuck?
- What's the first thing you do when you walk into a struggling engineering team?
- You transformed a Fortune 100 team in three months that previous consultants took a year to do. What did you do differently?
- What's the difference between a team that needs a manager and a self-managing team? How does a leader get from one to the other?
- You talk about predictability over estimation. What does that mean practically for an engineering leader?
- What's the most common mistake you see engineering VPs make that they don't realize is costing them their best people?
Notable Results
- Built a team of junior developers at a Fortune 100 that delivered software 450% faster than any of the company's hundreds of other teams
- Zero bugs across 2 projects with predictable delivery within 24 hours of projected completion dates
- Produced the company's first ever revenue-generating software
- No team in the company's multiyear history came close to matching the results
- Team member: "Working with you has been the best experience of my career"
- Clients span Fortune 100 (Sysco Foods, Toyota) through mid-market and startups
- 150+ published essays on engineering leadership, team dynamics, and product management
Published Work
- Website: ryanlatta.com
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ryanlatta
- Featured essay: Building Self Managed Teams
- Case study: The High-Performing Team
Contact
- Email: ryan@ryanlatta.com
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ryanlatta