How to build a strategic and budgetary plan for a technology area

Summary
Building a technology strategy is one thing, turning it into a clear, defensible, and financially aligned plan is something else entirely. This talk breaks down a practical end-to-end framework for engineering leaders who need to connect vision, execution, and budget without drowning in spreadsheets or guesswork.

We’ll start by exploring why every technology organization, no matter the size, needs a well-defined strategy, and how frameworks like balanced scorecards and OKRs can anchor priorities with clarity. From there, we’ll move into the budgetary side: the core financial concepts engineering leaders must understand, the essential documents that guide investment decisions, and a repeatable structure for running annual and quarterly budget cycles.

We’ll also cover tactical techniques for building realistic and efficient plans, avoiding common budgeting traps, and designing cost structures that scale responsibly. The session closes with a practical deep dive into how to run monthly committee reviews: what to measure, what to challenge, and how to keep strategy and finances aligned even as business conditions shift.

About the Speaker
Vitor Oliveira (https://www.linkedin.com/in/imvitoroliveira/) is a seasoned technology leader, CTO, and long-time software engineer with deep experience building and scaling engineering organizations in high-growth environments. He currently serves as CTO of Strides, where he leads technology strategy, budgeting, and multi-product roadmaps while supporting more than 1,500+ engineering and data leaders in the Strides community.

Across his career, Vitor has operated in both startup and enterprise settings, from hands-on engineering roles to managing multi-team initiatives, financial planning, and organizational design. He has led platform rewrites, cloud migrations, AI integrations, budgeting processes, and cross-department alignment between engineering, product, and business operations.

Agenda (in PST)
5:00 – 5:15 PM — Welcoming + Social (small breakout groups)
5:15 – 6:25 PM — Talk + Q&A
6:25 – 6:30 PM — Wrap-up

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