Empowering individuals through AI tools, technologies, and custom apps | Chris Engelhardt @ Gen Re

“Empathy, I think, is a hallmark of a well functioning team.” Chris Engelhardt might lead data teams and AI initiatives, but he’s also got a PhD in Social Psychology and a keen interest in helping people work more happily. This episode of the Hangout went to amazing and unexpected places as we talked about AI use cases, getting buy-in from leadership, and building stakeholder trust alongside building psychological safety in your teams, code review anxiety, and team wellbeing. If you’re curious about enterprise level AI use cases, or how Posit integrates with Databricks, there’s lots to learn from Chris! We hope you’ll join us live soon!

Timestamps
02:35 About Chris Engelhardt Sr. Data and AI Operations Manager at Gen Re
05:55 How do you get people engaged in a vision for AI?
08:10 What are some use cases for AI?
11:40 How do you manage international data science teams?
13:15 What one AI skill data analysts should learn?
14:50 What people skills should data analysts and data scientists learn?
16:25 How do you get buy-in from leadership and data scientists for AI initiatives?
18:25 What is AI? Where do I start? What are pitfalls of AI to avoid?
22:40 Integrating Posit with Databricks, Unity Catalog, and pins
25:55 How do you handle it when two different teams manage Posit versus Databricks?
27:30 What if AI tools provide inaccurate results? How do you regain trust with stakeholders?
29:50 How do you protect your own and your data team’s wellbeing at work?
34:20 How has AI changed hiring and job descriptions? Has AI changed data roles?
36:30 Code review anxiety and psychological safety around code critiques and pull requests
40:00 Helping your team feel safe and willing to talk about things and collaborate
41:40 How do you encourage psychological safety in a cross-cultural international team?
47:15 How do you use Posit pins with Databricks?
49:50 Career advice for working in data - you can’t control everything, but you control your effort
51:15 Don’t underestimate the value of connecting with others
53:33 Does using pins with Databricks Unity Catalog present a challenge with data governance?
56:45 How do you encourage learning and upskilling within your team?

Resources mentioned in this episode: