How to get buy-in to a technical roadmap at a startup

How to get buy-in to a technical roadmap at a startup

One of the primary roles of an engineering leader is to craft and get buy-in to a technical roadmap. Not only does it provide guidance for your team and organization but it ensures everyone is on the same page and moving towards a common goal.

So how do you ensure your technical roadmap aligns with company goals, while still prioritizing technical debt? What is an appropriate level of detail to share? And how does this differ in a startup relative to larger organizations?

We’re excited to welcome Vindhya Joseph, Enterprise Architect at Foodstuffs and previously a Director of Engineering at Unibuddy and Senior Engineering Manager at JumpCloud to help answer these questions.

In this session, Vindhya will share practical insights on:

• How to define a technical roadmap
• The relationship between technical and product roadmaps – should they be combined?
• How to juggle technical debt alongside new feature delivery
• Tips for minimizing technical debt – what is a non-negotiable regardless of the organization's size?
• Using a risk/reward matrix to assess the business value of technical improvements
• Getting buy-in from key stakeholders on your technical roadmap

There will also be ample time for Q&A with Vindhya – feel free to send us your questions in advance or bring them along to the event.

About the speaker

Vindhya is a hands-on technical leader with over 20 years of engineering experience at a wide range of organization sizes, from startups to large enterprises. She’s worked as an engineering leader (both on the technical and the people side) at companies including Foodstuffs, Unibuddy, JumpCloud, Microsoft, and Nokia.

Her experience has given her a deep understanding of software architecture and how to build robust, scalable systems. She is also deeply committed to her own growth and development, doing regular mentoring and mentee chats with CTOs and VPs of engineering that she’s met throughout her career.

When it comes to technical roadmaps in particular, Vindhya has a wealth of experience working with leadership teams to convert their vision and strategic direction into practices that result in a culture of alignment, ownership, accountability, and ultimately, results.