Education

Polaris

Software Engineering Leadership
Next Cohort: 29 October 2024

Level up your software engineering career.

Galileo's Polaris is the curated short course for talented software engineers looking to level-up their career to lead teams inside world class tech startups and companies.

✅ Facilitated by experienced CTOs and world-class engineers

✅ Level up your skills with operator know how through a tech VC lens

✅ Learn to Engineering Leadership 101: Managing high-performance teams, hiring, product management, communications and more

✅ Get to know other engineers, top tier tech startups and growth companies

Polaris participants at one of Galileo's CTO dinners.

"Coming from startups, Polaris was an excellent way to gain insights into what works in tech leadership — from small to large teams with different organisational structures." – Brodie

“Having spent many years at a big tech company, attending Polaris was a perfect way to meld my existing knowledge with the startup context” – Participant (hired as Director of Engineering at an AI startup)

What our participants love

Engineers learning from engineers in-person

Robust discussions on real life lessons and problems from engineers in startups to big tech companies.

Strategies for early-stage tech success

Best-practices, resources and approaches to real world problems.

Guest speakers and resources

Past speakers include senior engineers at Open AI, Amber and Airtasker.

Key Dates and Info

Program Start: Tuesday, 29 October 2024 | Program End: 19 November
Application Deadline: 25 October
Format: 4 x Tuesday weeknight, in-person sessions in Sydney CBD + weekly guest speaker. These will be dynamic, instructor facilitated discussions with industry leader guests.
Price: $3,500 + GST per person. (card, bank transfer and payment plans available)
Limited to 10 engineers. We welcome employers and companies to sponsor positions.

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Why Polaris?

Polaris combines the operator know-how with the latest theory for a practical learning experience all through the lens of an early-stage VC.

Utilizing experienced CTOs and world-class engineers, and drawing on their knowledge, Polaris provides the latest best practices that work for technical leaders at technology companies in the early-stages.

Polaris is a unique short course that is context specific to higher-risk careers within an Australian technology landscape.

What we'll cover

Engineering Leadership 101: What does it mean to be a lead engineer or CTO? How does this change over the lifecycle of an organisation?
Culture & Talent: How do you hire and attract exceptional engineers, help them grow in their career, create a world-class engineering culture and structure engineering organisations?
Prioritisation & Decision Making: How do you make the right technology decisions? What and how should you prioritise tech development?
Communication for Engineers: How do you pitch and communicate strategy to non-technical (or formerly technical) founders and operators?
Failure Management: How to take the best learnings from mistakes (or successes)?
Product Management 101: What are best practices? How do you structure Engineer and Product teams?

Plus, career coaching and technical briefings including the latest AI model developments.

About Sam

Sam is an experienced engineer having led diverse teams and built products that have scaled to over 1 billion users.

I'm an experienced, principal engineer and former CTO who works as a startup consultant and technical program coach for Galileo. As well as a variety of other roles, I spent my formative years at Google, where I worked on a range of products as a staff engineer. You can read more of my opinions on my blog.

For me, the most interesting learnings I had from delivering the Polaris course (to our 1^st cohort) were:

Being more flexible with content delivery—because of the engaged conversations of our participants, and where those ideas led the group, we had to work hard to fit all the content in!
Just how diverse the teams our cohort had interacted with—in terms of different work styles (remote, local, asynchronous), management styles (light touch, micromanagement), origin stories (university vs self-taught)—and how there's no one right answer for a successful team.
Following on from that point, that there is no "one weird trick" to get leadership right: you have to work at it!

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Sam's resource suggestions

While we'll cover the how and why of each resource in the Polaris course, some of the resources that have helped me become a better senior leader include:

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Tell me more:
frequently asked questions.

If you have any further questions, Get in touch with our friendly team.

Read the FAQ

What are the Galileo investment terms?

We invest on flexible terms. Our typical investment offer is to lead your pre-seed or seed round with a A$240,000 up to $500,000 investment for approximately 8-12% equity stake in your company. Post-investment we charge a refundable one-off program membership fee of $40,000+GST. This funds our round legal costs, founder support operations and founder conferences (and holds our support accountable to you!).

Typically this equates to a A$2-4 million post-money valuation, but we are flexible on valuation. See our guide to raising your seed round for more information on how to approach your valuation. We wire you the money as soon as diligence is completed and we execute final docs. We prefer an equity investment but can invest with a convertible note or SAFE.

What stage does my company have to be at to receive investment?

Ideally, 'post-idea/concept' with early results in your user or customer traction. Read our 'too early' blog post for more. Startups should have an early product in market (ie a minimum viable product) as the focus of the program is go-to-market strategy.

We aim to invest before many VCs would be comfortable. We do this because we can provide tailored support through our founder support program.
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Regardless, we are always happy to hear from you at any stage of your startup. It might not be a fit right now, but we will happily let you know if that’s the case and help where we can.

Do you invest in US or non-AU companies?

Yes we can invest in non-AU companies but we invest mostly in Australian companies. Our investment mandate requires us to mostly invest in Aussie tech companies, but it does not matter which state or city you are in.

Does my company have to pay for Galileo membership?

Yes. Membership fee is one-off and covers round legal costs, membership program resourcing, events and benefits. It is refundable if you don't think you have received value.

Do we have to relocate to Melbourne or Sydney to receive investment?

No. There are no relocation requirements.

Do you lead the next round?

No. Galileo will help you raise your next round and help you access a large follow-on investor network.

Galileo primarily invests your first round and will follow on our investment in future rounds. Our goal is to help you directly at the early stage, and then connect you to outside investors who can support you as you reach the next stage of growth.

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Polaris