Grit, the vision bottleneck & building for a future where today’s technical constraints may disappear w/ Chrystal Henke Ball #232
The Engineering Leadership Podcast · 2025-10-15 · 49 min
Episode notes
In this episode, we’re addressing one of the biggest challenges current eng leaders are facing - balancing yesterday’s constraints with tomorrow’s potential! Chrystal Henke Ball (VP of Engineering @ Yahoo) shares insights on why it’s important to constantly challenge your assumptions and how vision can sometimes work as a bottleneck for your organization. We dissect how the traditional product lifecycle is evolving to become more fluid and what that means for the collaborative relationship between product, eng, and design. Additionally, Chrystal defines grit, why it’s important for leaders to model it, and strategies for cultivating the trait within your eng team in order to move past short-term challenges and focus on long-term goals! ABOUT CHRYSTAL HENKE BALL Chrystal Henke Ball a seasoned engineering leader, currently serving as VP of Engineering at Yahoo, where she leverages her experience to accelerate product development across core products such as Yahoo.com and the Yahoo News app.
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