ELC Annual 2025

I first learned about Engineering Leadership Community (ELC) in pursuit of community and mentoring opportunities for our managers at Amount. They offered leadership peer groups as a service to connect leaders of similar scope and experience. Liz Sink should get all the credit. She led Amount's investigation, shared the community with me, and eventually became the Chicago local chapter leader.

ELC is the leadership community I've sorely needed. Leadership is already a lonely position, but these days it can be downright depressing: anxiety of ongoing Big Tech layoffs, existential AI dread, and the current culture of anti-leadership.

Community is the only cure I know.

For the last two years I've been a fixture at ELC's local meetups. Last week I attended the ELC's annual conference. It exceeded all my expectations. The agenda was all AI, but content and perspectives varied greatly. In conversation and presentations the firsthand experience of leaders at other organizations mirrored my own experience. My leadership, technical and cultural, was in good company. The resounding choir of my peers brought me back to life. I returned to Chicago with renewed enthusiasm for my chosen vocation.

On the second morning I was surprised when James Birchler's presentation moved me to tears. His story wasn't sad. No one else cried. James fixed a few teams at Amazon with good leadership. I was beyond relieved to hear the fundamentals of Google's effective teams research are still true. Good leadership is not dead. I hadn't realized how lonely I had been in the wilderness.

I'll be at ELC Annual next year. In the meantime, I hope I see you at a local meetup. Whatever you're dealing with – Community is the cure.