Cillers Developer Experience

Meet Jose Plans, Former Engineering Director at Citrix

Jose Plans is a former Engineering Director at Citrix, where he spearheaded the transition to cloud-based solutions, achieving exceptional system reliability and enhanced security. At Citrix, he managed a large team of 50, focusing on streamlining operations and boosting system performance. Currently, he is on a career break, deepening his skills in big data, AI, and system architecture, while also spending time with his family.

In this episode, we discussed what makes hackathons great and worth investing in. They need to have a clear purpose and a business objective that is interesting to explore, while simultaneously providing insights into technological advancements. We also talked about different lengths of hackathons and what Jose believes is the optimal duration. Our conversation covered how to increase development velocity in day-to-day projects. From Jose’s rich experience, some things stand out: It’s good to know the models of software production, but in reality, it’s important to adapt to circumstances rather than strictly following the rules. Additionally, clarity in expectations and deadlines is crucial. He also revealed his approach to organizing sprints, what has worked best for him, and what has significantly increased his development velocity! Regarding how to write better code faster with AI, we discussed how AI can provide a head start in projects but also what to be careful about... 

Recommended link: https://ollama.com/x/llama3.2-vision

Meet Varun Shrivastava, Senior Software Engineer at AWS

Varun Shrivastava is a seasoned Full Stack Developer at AWS, specializing in the development of scalable enterprise software for the finance and retail sectors. His passion for continuous learning and development is matched only by his belief in the transformative power of collaboration. Working alongside like-minded tech enthusiasts to advance the frontiers of technology thrills him, making him an ideal guest for a podcast themed "World Class Hackathons."

In our discussion, Varun shared insights from his experience creating an AI-powered personal shopper during a hackathon. We also explored strategies for accelerating coding efficiency with AI. If Varun were to create an online course, it would feature these innovative workshops: 1) Prompting Engineering: Learn to master prompt design and its significant impact on Large Language Models (LLM), potentially enhancing effectiveness by a factor of 100. 2) Understanding various AI tools such as Amazon Q and Claude. 3) Developing your own code assistant using established AI platforms, focusing on best practices.

Meet Arhaan Saksena, Head of Customer Engineering, Google Cloud

Arhaan Saksena is a technology leader specializing in cloud solutions and customer success. As Head of Customer Engineering for Google Cloud, he focuses on acquiring new enterprise customers and maximizing their value through innovative solutions. With over 15 years of pre-sales experience, Arhaan excels at building trusted relationships and understanding client needs. He translates those needs into effective technical solutions, leveraging his expertise in cloud-native technologies, SaaS, and data/AI applications.

During his 7+ years at Google, he has consistently delivered impactful results in various customer-facing engineering and leadership roles. Arhaan is passionate about helping businesses harness the power of the cloud to drive growth and solve complex challenges.

His strong academic foundation includes a Master of Science in Information Systems from the University of Maryland and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering. He further honed his business skills through the Stanford LEAD Online Business Program.

In this episode, we talked about how Google runs both hackathons with customers and open hackathons for the entire development community. We also discussed how to increase software development velocity: use the power of AI to write better code faster and optimize your infrastructure with a code assistant. The goal is always to minimize time spent on boilerplate code and instead focus on business logic and user-centric features.

Meet Bernd Drothen, Pre-Sales Expert, former Vice President of Solution Engineering at Salesforce (Austria and Germany)

My guest today spent nearly two decades at Salesforce, most recently as Vice President of Solution Engineering for Germany and Austria. He played a key role in growing Salesforce's presence in these countries from the very early days. Now, he's excited to share his expertise with startups and established companies as an advisor. Bend has been involved in something very interesting: external hackathons where companies looking for a specific software solution asked various competitors to engage in a hackathon in order for them to assess which solution would be a better fit, faster to implement, more adaptable, etc.

In this episode, we talked about how to use hackathons to help potential clients evaluate software systems. Bernd shared how Salesforce won 80% of the deals when they used this method, which they refined over time. This type of activity was targeted towards large customers where the order value was very high. Salesforce would say to the customer, "To truly understand the difference between our system and the competitors, and to experience what it's like to work with us, let us run a hackathon where you get to try setting up the system and perform the most important use cases." Potential customers often found this to be a great idea.

Salesforce divided the customer team, which often consisted of technicians, salespeople, and managers, into smaller groups where they were given different challenges. Salesforce was skilled at building a culture with the potential customer, not coming in as teachers, but more as people who helped them along when they got stuck. They became good friends. They handed out swag like mugs, t-shirts, and hoodies, and they set up a Salesforce coffee truck outside the office. At the end of the hackathon, they had internal champions present Salesforce to the decision-makers in the management team.

It's fascinating. Organizing such hackathons with customers is beneficial for everyone involved: good for the customer because they make better choices, good for Salesforce as they learned more about the customer, and good for product development because there's nothing better than spending time "on the floor" with customers and seeing how things really work. 

The question in my head after the interview was: Shouldn't large enterprise systems - especially if your target audience is developers - always be sold like this?

Meet Bassem Dghaidi, Senior Software Engineer at Github

Bassem is a Senior Software Engineer at GitHub. He has led major projects in the Netherlands, USA, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and his native Lebanon. He was a founding member of SE Factory, Lebanon's top coding bootcamp that's been featured in The Guardian, TechCrunch, and Forbes. Additionally, he is a very active content creator, sharing his technical and career insights through his own podcast and social media. He also does a lot of public speaking!

In this episode, we talked about Bassem's experiences when he built software systems for optimizing container handling and unloading from ships. To understand how to build the system, he really needed to observe the port, how the containers were unloaded, ride along with truck drivers, etc. This provided a valuable insight into how important it is to understand what the customers are trying to achieve.

We discussed the SE Coding Bootcamp, where Bassem was a founding partner. In 12 weeks, developers really learned everything about tech fundamentals, how to build an MVP, and how to excel at soft skills like communication. The result was that many got jobs at the world's best tech companies after completing the bootcamp. It was like a 12-week-long hackathon with interspersed lessons.

We also talked about the hackathon culture at Github and the desired outcomes of why they do hackathons: increase collaboration, explore new tech, come up with ideas for improvements on existing products, improve presentation and communication skills, and explore new territories that you are not used to.

A new concept also came up, "Docathons" - 1-day events with the goal of improving essential parts of Github's documentation.

Finally, we concluded by discussing how to increase software developer velocity in day-to-day projects - where everything comes back to the most important question you can ask yourself no matter what you're doing: have we really understood what the customer is trying to achieve?

Link to Bassem's blog: https://blog.bassemdy.com/

Meet Zohaib Hassan Shaikh, Founding Member & Head of Engineering, Krave Mart

Zohaib Hassan Shaikh is the Head of Engineering at Krave Mart, a leading startup revolutionizing the grocery delivery industry in Pakistan. With a background in scalable systems and a passion for using cutting-edge technology to solve real-world problems, Zohaib has spearheaded multiple projects involving AI, ML, and data analytics.

Beyond his professional accomplishments, Zohaib is deeply passionate about social work and is the founder of Meal Donate, an initiative focused on raising awareness about preventing food wastage and providing free groceries to underprivileged communities. He loves participating in hackathons, particularly those that focus on driving positive change in underserved regions. Zohaib enjoys mentoring, contributing to hackathons, and working on social impact-driven technological initiatives in emerging markets.

In this episode, Zohaib shared valuable insights into the significant impact hackathons had on starting his own company. He revealed that he regularly takes his team to participate in external hackathons, with the primary objectives of fostering team building, mastering the art of rapid feature development, and staying up-to-date with game-changing technologies. After each hackathon, the team meticulously evaluates the pros and cons of the newly discovered tech, enabling them to continuously improve their underlying tech stack. Zohaib enthusiastically remarked, "When the entire team returns from a hackathon, it works wonders for their morale and collaboration. They start coding with the same enthusiasm they exhibited during the event!" 

Our conversation also delved into strategies for enhancing software development efficiency in day-to-day work. Zohaib emphasized the importance of automation, intelligent prioritization of critical features, and consistent code reviews to ensure the long-term sustainability and maintainability of the codebase.

Meet Kristofer Vernmark, PhD, MSc, Linköping University.

Kristofer is a well-known researcher at Linköping University and co-author of the groundbreaking book "Dream! Hack! Build!". He is also the creator of the Build for Earth program. In collaboration with the Hack for Earth foundation, Kristofer has worked with diverse and innovative teams from around the globe, united in their mission to develop solutions for a more sustainable planet.

With over 17 years of experience as a psychologist, manager, consultant, author, and researcher in the field of digital mental health, Dr. Vernmark has been a pioneer in making internet-based treatments accessible within the Swedish primary care system. His exceptional contributions were recently recognized with the prestigious 2022 eMHIC award for Leadership Excellence in eMental Health Implementation.

In this episode, we delve into the process of transforming hackathon projects into reality. Discover how 8 teams, selected from a pool of 1,000 participants in Hack for Earth's global hackathons, are granted the opportunity to join the 6-month BUILD accelerator program. The transition from a hackathon to establishing a company is a significant leap, and we explore the components of the Build program and the crucial emphasis on fostering psychological safety within the teams. While we merely scratch the surface in this episode (we could easily spend another 4 hours discussing this topic), we provide valuable insights into the distinguishing characteristics of successful start-ups and innovation projects.

Abhinav Mehta, Director Software Engineering, Photon

Photon, a global leader in AI and digital solutions, helps clients accelerate AI adoption and embrace DigitalHyper-expansion® to make tomorrow happen today. Working with 40% of the Fortune 100, Photon enables them to remain agile and future-ready in an era of converging digital and AI boundaries. Powering billions of touchpoints daily, Photon combines AI management, digital innovation, product design thinking, and engineering excellence to drive lasting transformation for F500 clients.

As the Director of Software Engineering at Photon, Abhinav drives innovations in AI and cloud security, transitioning architectures to microservices, and aligning technical initiatives with strategic business goals.

In this episode, we delved into the hackathons at Photon and Abhinav's previous employer, Pandora. We discussed the numerous reasons to participate in a hackathon, such as learning about technology, experiencing roles different from your usual ones, collaborating with others, and driving ideas you believe in. A hackathon could be the perfect platform to demonstrate the validity of your idea to the world. We also explored the various "avenues" within a hackathon, like the "in it to win it" and the "learning" avenues. We examined the elements necessary for a successful hackathon, including a robust platform for finding teammates, presenting ideas, and forming teams; essential resources like test data, APIs, and licenses; and the crucial role of both internal and external mentors. Abhinav shared his best practices for increasing development velocity in day-to-day projects and recounted how a single hour of weekly coaching from an experienced mentor transformed his entire team.

Meet Jesse Ralston, NetSec CTO, Palo Alto Networks

Jesse joined Palo Alto Networks in 2008 as a Software Engineer in the Platform team. Since then, he has held various leadership roles managing PAN-OS and Cloud Delivery Security Services Engineering and Product teams. He is currently the NetSec CTO, focusing on forward-looking technologies including new security offerings, AI security, and the use of AI in products. Prior to joining Palo Alto Networks, he was a Software Engineer doing platform development at Cisco Systems.

In this episode, we talk about the hackathons at Palo Alto Networks, how they are set up, and the desired outcomes. We talked about the judging criteria that involve: How innovative is the product? Could it be a real product? How well was the work done during the hackathon? Is it a cross-functional project? How well was the project presented? We also discussed how to increase software development velocity. According to Jesse, the number one challenge is reducing latency: getting everybody in the same room from the different teams that the project depends on. We discussed the importance of cross-team commitment and the use of “war rooms” to facilitate collaboration and reduce latency.

Meet Satej Mirpagar, Senior Technical Program Manager, Atlassian

Satej is a Senior Technical Program Manager at Atlassian with over 20 years of experience optimizing performance across various tech stacks. His journey has taken him through some of the largest banks and security companies. Currently, he is working on enhancing the performance of Jira Cloud, used by 83% of Fortune 500 companies. Remarkably, Jira even played a key role in NASA's Ensemble project, helping to send the Curiosity rover to Mars.

In this episode, we will explore his tech journey and talk about the innovative hackathon culture at Atlassian, including the quarterly held hackathons called ShipIT and how they foster collaboration among developers across the globe. We discuss the difference between Innovation Sprints and hackathons and explore how to increase the number of projects that turn into real products and tools - what could be done to improve the impact of hackathons even further? We also discuss Satej's ideas around development velocity, what typically slows it down, and what can be done about it: it's about giving developers the best tools, continuously improving code quality, increasing developer joy, and more....