Leadership classes for managers, founders, and execs.
Engineering management, product leadership, founder operating, executive, Octo writes a class weighted to your level and the team you actually run.
New Engineering Manager
You just became an EM and you keep slipping back into IC work because it is comfortable. Learn the judgment, time management, and letting-go work that turns the transition into a real change.
Senior Engineering Manager
You can run a team and the senior EMs run programs. Learn the strategy, narrative, hiring, and exec comms that finally promote you out of first-time-EM territory.
Director of Engineering
The director job is not just managing more people, it is a different role. Learn EM-of-EMs work, manager development, and the parts of the job that nobody else can do for you.
EM Interview Prep
The EM loop is system design plus people plus leadership, and you are weak on at least one. Learn the real questions and rubrics, so the round you dread becomes the round you nail.
Group Product Manager
You ran one team well and now you have three PMs and one strategy that does not hold up. Learn multi-team strategy, talent development, and exec presence, the GPM moves that promote.
Head of Product
You are walking into a head-of-product role and the job is mostly things nobody trained you for. Learn org-building, hiring, ops, and exec relationships, so the first six months land.
CPO & Executive Product
CPO is product at a level that has very few peers and very little playbook. Learn the board narrative, multi-business strategy, and the lonely calls, so you walk in ready to lead, not learn.
First-Time Executive
You crossed into the C-suite and the rules quietly changed. Learn what shifts when you become an exec and what does not, so the first year stops being all surprises.
Executive Communication
Your memos go nowhere and your all-hands fall flat. Learn the writing and speaking craft execs are held to, so the room finally tracks what you are actually saying.
Board Management
Your first board meeting was painful and the second one will be soon. Learn to run boards well as a first-time founder or CEO, so the meeting becomes leverage instead of an audit.
Executive Presence
You hear feedback about presence and nobody can quite define it. Learn what execs actually mean by it, and how to develop it without turning into a corporate caricature.
Hiring Great People
You keep hiring people who looked great in the loop and underperform in the seat. Learn sourcing, interviewing, and closing as a real discipline, so your hires start lining up with the bar you said you had.
Performance Management Without BS
Perf review season is dishonest theater for most managers. Learn rubrics, feedback, and calibrations that hold up, and the hard conversations most managers dodge until it is too late.
1-on-1s That Matter
Your 1:1s are status meetings everyone secretly hates. Learn the simple practice most managers do badly, so 1:1s become the meeting that quietly drives everything else.
Hard Conversations
You have a feedback conversation due and you have postponed it twice. Learn to deliver difficult feedback, handle performance issues, and run terminations with respect and clarity.
Building a Team from Zero
You are hiring your first five and the decisions you make now will compound for years. Learn the founding-team norms, hires, and decisions that quietly decide everything else.
Scaling a Team
You scaled from five to fifty and the team feels worse, not better. Learn what breaks at each stage from 5 to 50 to 200, and what to install before each break, so growth stops costing morale.
Org Design Fundamentals
Your org chart is wrong and you can feel it slowing every project. Learn Conway's law, team topologies, and the org choices that quietly decide product velocity, so you can fix the structure.
Strategy for Builders
You read consulting strategy books and they do not survive contact with your job. Learn strategy as a working tool, bets, narrative, and judgment, calibrated to a builder, not a consultant.
Competitive Strategy
You compete on features and a stronger competitor keeps eating your lunch. Learn where competitive advantage actually comes from, and the moves that build it instead of imitating it.
Strategic Planning & OKRs
Annual planning eats the quarter and OKRs become a chore by week three. Learn to run planning and OKRs that the team actually uses, so the rituals start producing alignment instead of resentment.
Coaching for Managers
You give advice when your reports want to think out loud, and you can feel them disengage. Learn coaching as a real discipline, not therapy or advice, so your team starts solving its own problems.
Exec Coaching Foundations
You coach execs or you are an exec choosing one, and most coaching content is fluff. Learn the foundations seriously, so the engagement produces decisions, not just sessions.