Speaker · Engineering Leadership

The talk your
engineering team
actually needs.

I speak on the things most leadership books skip: how to build engineering teams that survive growth, how AI is reshaping team architecture, and what most technical leaders get wrong before it's too late.

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Experience with
Enterprise Scale Series A-C Startups AI-First Teams Global Engineering Orgs Accelerator Programs
Daria Derkach — Engineering Leader & Speaker
About

I've built teams.
I've rebuilt teams.
Now I help others do both.

With 7+ years leading engineering organizations — from scrappy 4-person startups to enterprise-scale departments — I've seen exactly what separates teams that thrive from those that stall. The answer is almost never the technology.

My background spans engineering management, an AI Master's degree, and direct experience building cross-cultural, globally distributed teams. As an immigrant tech leader, I bring a perspective that most advisors simply don't have: I understand what it takes to earn trust across cultural boundaries and build teams that perform beyond borders.

I work with founders, CTOs, and engineering leaders who know their team is the bottleneck — and are ready to do something about it.

7+
Years Engineering Management
0→17
Team Size Framework
Teams That Actually Scale
Books

Writing the books I wish existed

Two books in progress — one for engineering leaders building their first team, one for anyone who's ever tried to leave work at the door and realized they can't.

Book 1 Coming Soon
17 → 0

The Manager at Home

What happens when you stop trying to leave work at the door and realize you're the same person in both rooms? A professional memoir exploring how engineering management skills — building trust, running retrospectives, navigating ambiguity — make you a better parent, not a worse one.

Parenting · Leadership · Identity
Book 2 Planned
0 → 17

Scaling Engineering Teams

The guide for engineering leaders building their first team from scratch. Covering hiring sequencing, manager emergence, culture formation, and the three inflection points most startups navigate badly — drawn from a proprietary framework developed across dozens of real teams.

Engineering Leadership · Startup Growth · Team Architecture
Speaking

Talks that move engineering leaders.

I've been the person in the room trying to figure it out in real time. My talks come from that place — honest, specific, and practically useful from the first slide to the last.

Signature Talk

Building Engineering Teams from 0 to 17

Most engineering leadership advice assumes you already have a team. This talk is for the moment before that — when you're making the decisions that will define your org for years. Based on a proprietary framework for the 0-to-17-person journey, covering hiring sequencing, manager emergence, culture formation, and the three inflection points most teams navigate badly.

45-60 min keynote Workshop version available Startup & accelerator audiences
01

AI Organizational Readiness: The People Problem

85% of AI initiatives stall before production — not because of technology, but because of team structure, leadership gaps, and culture. A framework for diagnosing what's actually blocking your AI execution and what to do about it.

Conferences · CTOs · AI teams
02

The Immigrant Engineering Leader's Edge

Cross-cultural experience creates a distinct leadership advantage that most management books completely ignore. What immigrant tech leaders know about trust, ambiguity, and building belonging — and what any leader can learn from it.

DEI tracks · Leadership summits
03

Engineering Leadership as a System

The best engineering managers think like architects. A practical model for designing high-trust, high-output team systems — including the invisible structures most leaders inherit but never examine.

Manager development · Workshops
04

The First 90 Days as an Engineering Leader

What to do — and what not to do — when you step into an engineering leadership role. Whether you're a first-time EM or a new VP, the moves you make in the first three months set the ceiling for everything that follows.

New managers · Leadership cohorts

I speak at tech conferences, accelerator programs, company all-hands, and leadership offsites. Open to keynotes, panels, fireside chats, and workshop formats.

Invite me to speak
Get In Touch

Let's build something
worth building.

Whether you're looking for a fractional engineering leader, a speaker, or a strategic thought partner — I'd love to hear what you're working on.