Dennis Nerush
Director of AI Engineering @Elementor
Tel Aviv, Israel
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Dennis Nerush is the AI Director at Elementor and has over 15 years of experience as a developer, manager, director, and advisor. He’s a seasoned leader, writer, public speaker, and mentor. Dennis is passionate about complex technological challenges, culture, and people growth. He constantly looks for ways to improve and optimize team performance and personal skills. Dennis founded dozens of teams and helped countless managers boost their leadership skills. In his free time, Dennis loves cooking and spending time with his kids.
His main goal is to help people get to the next level.
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New Team, Seasoned Leader: The Essential Checklist for Navigating Your Next Leadership Role
In today’s dynamic workplace, experienced managers often face the challenge of transitioning into leadership roles within new teams.
This talk addresses the complexities and nuances of this situation, providing a roadmap for seasoned managers and my checklist to navigate this critical period effectively.
The insights and strategies shared in this talk are applicable in various scenarios, including corporate settings, startups, non-profit organizations, and any situation where an experienced leader is stepping into a new team.
I’m happy to share this information with you after more than 15 years of management experience as a leader and a consultant who founded dozens of new teams and helped countless managers to start their journey with their new team successfully.
10x Engineering: How GenAI Tools Transformed My Team's Productivity
What happens when generative AI isn't just a buzzword but becomes the backbone of how engineering teams actually work? Over the past year, I've led my company's AI strategy as AI Director, guiding my team through a radical transformation in the way we build software. Instead of chasing the hype, we combined off-the-shelf tools with custom-built AI systems and agentic workflows.
The result? We've multiplied productivity, cut delivery times, unlocked new creative workflows that were impossible before, and entirely new ways of collaborating. Many of our tools and practices were so effective that other teams across the company have now adopted them.
In this talk, I'll share real examples of how we combined commercial and in-house GenAI technologies to accelerate coding, testing, documentation, and debugging at scale.
I'll break down the process changes that made AI adoption successful-how we rewired our workflows, onboarded the team, and learned to "pair program" with AI effectively.
Expect practical lessons and battle-tested insights: what worked brilliantly, what failed (and why), and the cultural shifts needed to make GenAI a force multiplier instead of just another shiny tool. Whether you're a team lead, engineer, or product builder, you'll walk away with actionable ideas to supercharge your own team using GenAI without losing the human touch that drives great engineering.
The Myth of the First 90 Days - How to Make an Immediate Impact in a New Management Role
You don't have 90 days when you start a new role.
In today's fast-paced tech environment, waiting even 60 days to make an impact is too long. Challenge the traditional "90 days" transition paradigm and discover how to accelerate your path to success as a new engineering manager. Drawing from real-world experience leading engineering teams, I'll share actionable strategies for delivering quick wins that matter while building long-term momentum. Learn how to balance rapid learning with decisive action, from automating manual processes to establishing effective team rituals. Whether you're stepping into your first management role or transitioning between organizations, you'll gain practical frameworks for building momentum, earning trust, and driving results from day one.
Finding Your Team’s North Star
A company will usually have a vision, mission statement, and values. While they exist as slogans, they might be too broad and disconnected from the actual teams within the company. Separate from a company’s vision, every team also has a culture, values, and purpose. This culture guides them through difficult decisions and motivates them to achieve that vision of themselves. While a vision does not have to be written down in order to exist, documenting it creates an advantage for such teams (and companies) as it aligns everyone on the expected behaviors and the purpose. In this session, I'll share why I believe that it’s important for every team to define how they contribute to the company vision and to align on their specific team values. In addition, I'll share my story of how did we come up with them in my group.
Engineering Management in the AI Era
This talk explores how artificial intelligence is reshaping the landscape of engineering leadership. As AI transforms our technical workflows, engineering managers face both new opportunities and profound challenges in team development.
We'll examine how AI enhances managerial capabilities while potentially altering the skill acquisition journey for engineering teams. Discover practical applications for integrating AI into leadership responsibilities—from enhancing 1:1 conversations and practicing crucial conversations to improving technical mentorship and team communication. Learn strategies to leverage AI for productivity gains while ensuring your team maintains depth of understanding and critical thinking skills.
As Director of AI Engineering at Elementor, I'll share concrete examples and lessons learned from implementing these approaches across engineering teams, offering insights backed by real-world successes and challenges in balancing technological advancement with human-centered leadership.
Beyond Agile: Rituals of High-Performing Engineering Teams
Discover the rituals that transform good engineering teams into exceptional ones. This talk goes beyond traditional Agile practices to reveal four powerful ceremonies that drive team alignment, foster innovation, and ensure strategic success. Through real-world examples and practical implementations, learn how structured meetings for metrics review, ideation, technical innovation, and stakeholder alignment can revolutionize your team's performance. Whether you're scaling a startup or leading an established engineering organization, you'll gain actionable frameworks for implementing these rituals while maintaining team engagement and driving measurable results.
This talk is ideal for leaders who seek to elevate their teams beyond traditional practices.
Drawing from over a decade of engineering leadership experience, I'll share battle-tested insights that have repeatedly proven successful in building high-performing engineering organizations.
Active Learner – How developers keep learning
As software developers, we all solve problems, we handle business and technological challenges almost every day. That makes us grow. However, some developers take their tools, infrastructures and frameworks for granted – they “magically” work. They think that by simply using them, they are considered experts. But actually, they are “expert beginners”. On the other hand, there are developers who constantly keep learning, dig deeper while trying to understand why things work the way they do. They are on the path to become experts. They are “active learners”. In this session, we will talk about the dangerous path of the expert beginner, how to avoid it and how to become an active learner.
Scaling AI: Fault-Tolerant GenAI Solutions for Millions
Building a GenAI product might seem straightforward—until you try to do it at scale. With millions of users, challenges like fault tolerance, vendor flexibility, and developer experience become mission-critical. In this talk, learn how we designed a robust, scalable infrastructure that seamlessly integrates multiple AI vendors and effortlessly switches between them when needed. Packed with real-world examples, this session equips you to navigate the hidden challenges of scaling GenAI products.
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