How do you apply your leadership skills to a new, mission-driven industry and effectively lead teams across multiple technical domains? In this episode, Simone Kalmakis (VPE @ Viam) shares her playbook for successfully transitioning between industries from health-tech and climate to her current work in robotics and AI. We deconstruct the leadership models she uses to prioritize her time, manage multiple technical experts, and why she focuses on "depth with 1-2 teams > breadth". Plus, her framework for onboarding in a new domain, the lifecycle of a leadership "deep dive," and communication practices that build trust and empower your entire organization to stay aligned and motivated.

ABOUT SIMONE KALMAKIS

Simone Kalmakis is the VP of Engineering at Viam, a platform unlocking AI, data, and automation for devices in the physical world. She has deep experience applying AI and machine learning to big data and big missions, and is known for building healthy engineering organizations that drive business value and real-world progress.

Prior to Viam, Simone was Senior Director of Engineering at Arcadia, a climate tech company building an API platform for residential utility data to power solutions that fight climate change. Before that, she served as Director of Engineering at Flatiron Health, where she helped accelerate the development of cancer treatments through real-world data.

Simone began her career at Microsoft, developing machine-learned relevance algorithms for Bing. She’s also a successful founder––after Microsoft, she built and sold Symbi, a roommate-matching startup. She holds a degree in Mathematics and Economics from Yale University.

ToolHive Unlocks the Full Value of MCP & Your AI Agents

So you’ve invested in AI agents for code generation, but they’re limited to experiments or even stuck on the shelf. To do real, valuable work, those AI agents need access to your data and systems.

ToolHive helps you confidently connect the pieces by making it simple and secure for you to use the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

ToolHive includes a pre-vetted registry of MCP servers, containerizes every MCP server for consistency and leans on built-in security to keep your secrets safe.

Leaders trust ToolHive to put MCP into production and put their AI agents to work.

ToolHive is open source, so get started for free at toolhive.dev

Join us at ELC Annual 2025

ELC Annual is the premier event for engineering leaders. This is our biggest event of the year: 1,000+ CTOs, VPs & Directors in San Francisco @ ELC Annual 2025 for two days of leadership breakthroughs, tactical peer learning & curated connections!

🔗 Get your ticket now → https://sfelc.com/annual2025

SHOW NOTES:

Simone’s eng leadership journey from health-tech to climate to robotics (3:25)
Lessons from being a founder & how it led to Viam (5:27)
Co-founding lessons that Simone continues to apply (7:22)
Navigating the transition from Flatiron Health to Arcadia (9:20)
Transitioning from Arcadia to Viam (12:06)
Use cases of physical devices impacting the environment through data / AI (14:28)
How Simone sees Viam potentially working in a day-to-day capacity (15:42)
How to structure your time when entering a new industry (17:51)
Onboarding with a personal project to build user empathy, alignment & motivation (20:34)
Finding where your expertise is the highest-leverage for your org (22:34)
“The goal is not to maintain the same level of depth in each of your teams” (24:18)
How to decide which teams get your deep focus (27:15)
Building trust through transparent communication about your priorities (29:19)
The lifecycle of a leadership “deep dive” from start to exit (32:20)
Advice for leaders adopting this hands-on, flexible approach (36:15)
Key questions to ask when seeking a more mission-aligned industry (38:01)
Rapid fire questions (40:33)

LINKS AND RESOURCES

Viam - a full-stack solution for the kinds of devices that exist anywhere from your home, your office, in cars or boats, in warehouses or factories, at arenas, or other public places.

This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:

Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host

Jerry Li - Co-Host

Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/

Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/

Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/

Leading across technical domains, strategic deep-dives & applying your skills in new industries w/ Simone Kalmakis #231

The Engineering Leadership Podcast