hackingborders .com
Format
Podcast · Newsletter
Program
Hacking Borders — Season 1
Release Schedule
A new episode every month
Sponsored by
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Hacking Borders

How leaders build global engineering teams without breaking delivery

Hacking Borders is a podcast and newsletter for leaders turning global hiring into scalable engineering capacity. Each episode breaks down the decisions, systems, tradeoffs, and mistakes behind building teams across borders.

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// ABOUT

What is Hacking Borders

THE SHOW

Hacking Borders is a conversation series for Talent, People, HR, and Engineering leaders building teams across borders.

It goes beyond where to hire. The show gets into how global teams are designed, integrated, managed, and scaled.

Why it exists

Most companies know they can hire globally. Fewer know how to make those teams work.

Every episode explores the operating questions behind global hiring: how to protect the hiring bar, create visibility, integrate distributed engineers, and keep delivery moving.

01 Systems that scale

How companies move from one-off hiring to repeatable global team models.

02 Real decisions

The tradeoffs leaders make when building teams across markets.

03 Engineering capacity

How distributed talent becomes part of the roadmap, not just extra headcount.

04 Operating discipline

How global teams stay aligned on quality, ownership, and speed.

// FORMAT

Inside the conversation

Tony goes beyond polished talking points to uncover what really happened as each guest built and scaled a global team.
Each conversation moves through context, decisions, tradeoffs, lessons, and takeaways. Every episode follows the story from the original challenge to what changed, what broke, and what leaders can apply to their own organizations.
Common areas: the original decision to expand globally, what broke and how you fixed it, org design choices, scaling inflection points, hidden costs, and what you would do differently. Video-first, ~30 minutes, lightly edited.
  • START The starting point Why the guest expanded globally and what the team was trying to solve.
  • DECIDE The critical decisions The choices that shaped hiring, team design, leadership, and integration.
  • BREAK What got difficult The friction, hidden costs, and mistakes that appeared as the team grew.
  • ADAPT What changed The systems, processes, and leadership decisions that made the difference.
  • APPLY The leadership takeaway A practical lesson listeners can bring back to their own teams.
A focused conversation built around real experiences From prep to sign-off
// HOST

Tony Le

Tony_Le_host_photo_compressed
I’ve spent more than 20 years helping technology companies build and scale global engineering teams. On Hacking Borders, I sit down with Talent, People, and Engineering leaders to unpack the decisions behind that growth—what worked, what broke, and what they would do differently.
Tony Le is a Global Talent Executive with 20+ years of experience scaling engineering organizations across North America, LATAM, and APAC. He has led global Talent Acquisition at Mission Cloud, Contentful, Getaround, and IAC/Ask.com, partnering with founders and executive teams to build the hiring systems behind rapid growth.
3× TALENT100 WINNER HIGHER ADVISORY BOARD FOUNDING MEMBER, SYELO
// EPISODES

Season 1 / Episodes

01 Aug 11, 2026

Global Hiring Is Not a Recruiting Problem. It’s an Operating Model Problem

Meet Tracy St. Dic, who joins Tony Le to unpack why global hiring succeeds only when the systems around talent are built to scale.

Tracy St. Dic Head of TA, Zapier
EP 01 · Aug 11, 2026
02 Aug 25, 2026

How to Hire When the Talent Pool Barely Exists

Jason Gingrich joins Tony Le to unpack how recruiting becomes a competitive advantage when companies are hiring scarce talent across robotics, AI, and semiconductors—and what global teams and AI change about the work.

Jason Gingrich Head of Recruiting, Atomic Semi
BOOKED
03 Sept 8, 2026

The Hidden Cost of Scaling Across Borders

Andrew Trout sits with Tony Le to talk about why international expansion requires more than access to lower-cost talent—and how leaders should evaluate geography, coordination, compliance, headcount, and culture before scaling across borders.

Andrew Trout Head of People and Talent, Odyssey
BOOKED

Take the conversation further.
Every Friday.

Each episode becomes two concise Substack issues: one practical breakdown and one deeper look at the decisions, tradeoffs, and lessons behind the conversation.

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hackingborders.substack.com · Season 1