Building an engineering culture isn’t about posters or values on slides. It’s a working system: incentives, habits, standards, and what leaders reward when deadlines hit and things break. In this SphereCast episode, Adin Heric talks with Krzysztof (Kris) Ras about how to design that system from zero and keep it intact while scaling across the Middle East and China—covering the first 100 days, speed vs. stability, and what changes when teams go global.

SphereCast host Adin Heric talks with Nicolas Cava — serial founder, former Zendesk engineering leader, and now a fractional CTO and executive coach — about how to scale teams without burning out. Nicolas breaks down what burnout really looks like for engineering leaders, the early signals most founders miss, the impact of grind culture and AI anxiety, and the leadership habits that keep teams ambitious, healthy, and sustainable through hypergrowth.

Technology leader Wes Ezzeddine joins Sphere’s COO and Director of Talent Delivery, Katya Savenkova, to break down what it really takes to scale engineering teams that last. They unpack the art of balancing speed, quality, and culture — from choosing between in-house hiring and external experts to identifying top performers and keeping accountability clear in hybrid teams. Perfect for CTOs, COOs, and founders looking to scale smarter, not just bigger.