The Technology Leadership Podcast

About Peyman:

Peyman Pouryekta is the Co-Founder and CEO of the House of Creative Entrepreneurship, a company that helps creative entrepreneurs around the world grow their businesses.

He has extensive experience working as the CTO and Director of Engineering in different companies, co-developing AI-operated products for the real estate industry and organising IT Departments. Peyman holds a Master of Arts in Management and has worked in the IT industry since 2005. 

Peyman identifies himself as a quiet leader who’s also held several management positions at Startups and consulted companies to identify and implement fit-for-purpose solutions.

Synopsis:

In this episode of The Technology Leadership Podcast, Peyman Pouryekta discusses creative entrepreneurship and how to assess if your startup ideas would sustain in the long run. We learn about the importance of expanding your knowledge beyond your zone of genius, the critical role of soft skills and decision-making skills, and why to understand the strengths and weaknesses of every team member before designating their responsibilities. Having led several startups in the past, Peyman explains the most significant lessons he’s learned along the journey and what engineering leaders and entrepreneurs of the future need to look up to.

Key Takeaways:

• How to check if your startup idea would take off - check if your idea solves a problem, check if you have the team and resources to build the idea, and figure out if the market really needs your idea.
• Learn more about Neural Jam - an e-learning community that educates people on new technology and business skills.
• Interdepartmental knowledge and cross-functional skills can help you significantly in growing your career.
• Communication is an essential skill to have if you aim to grow in more significant roles in your company.
• Career growth becomes even more straightforward if your individual goals align with your company’s vision.
• It is important to know the strengths and weaknesses of every member of your team.
• You need to give your employees the space to think and act freely for optimal performance.
• As a leader, you need to focus on your entire company - including every department - micromanagement could hamper your overall growth. 

Episode Outline:

[00:39] - Meet Peyman
[06:43] - Peyman explains what he does currently and how she chooses companies and startups to partner with or invest in
[09:34] - How Peyman chooses the startup ideas to back up for
[11:24] - Peyman talks about their creative entrepreneurship learning platform, Neural Jam
[13:40] - Learn more about Neural Jam
[16:16] - Peyman talks about the tech stack he’s currently using and why
[17:59] - Learn about the new tools, libraries, and frameworks that are emerging in the market
[24:06] - Peyman explains the possible skills and situations that helped him scale up into seniormost positions in organisations
[28:13] - Learn about career growth and learning and how to find your path 
[31:01] -  Book recommendations from Peyman
[34:09] - Skills needed by engineering leaders today and why cross-functionality is an important skill for every engineer
[36:32] - The importance of soft skills in engineering leaders
[38:13] - The importance of communication and problem-solving skills among engineers
[39:55] - Peyman talks about the biggest challenges faced by him in his career
[43:00] - What are the most important responsibilities of a CTO?
[45:40] - The biggest challenges to engineering leaders of the future

About Stefan:

Stefan-Theodor Popescu is the Head Of Engineering at Smava GmbH, a leading loan portal in Germany. He graduated from the Imperial College, London, with a Bachelor's in Computer Science.

 In his career spanning over a decade, Stefan has extensively worked on automotive and software technologies, also exploring full-stack engineering and scrum mastering. He's experienced in both the tech and sales side of the business, and has leveraged the same for his role at Smava.

Synopsis:

In this episode of The Technology Leadership Podcast, Stefan-Theodor discusses the past and present of recruitment and the massive drive to digitalisation in tech today. Stefan shares his take on collaborating with outsourcing companies and how to establish a connection with them, so their hiring strategies align with your company's goals. We discuss revolutionising work practices and cultivating new ways to connect and communicate in the virtual space to help improve employee productivity and well-being. Stefan also clearly explains why effective communication and team skills are deciding factors for any passionate engineer to grow in the industry today.

Key Takeaways:

• There's a big drive to digitalisation today - companies are increasingly adopting online work methodologies.
• There's a great scope for innovation and improvement in Berlin
• The right outsourcing company would allow you to use their skills to solve YOUR problem.
• smava managed to create an atmosphere of connection and support by carefully analysing how their employee life was segmented in the remote working scenario and bringing in innovative ways to work and collaborate.
• Productivity levels of people have grown considerably during the pandemic. It could be attributed to the time saved from commuting and spending more time with family.
• It's essential to stay in touch and listen to your employees.
• Do not confine your employees to limited space. Encourage your workforce to think outside of the box and innovate.
• It's important to respect a person's mental health, especially during these trying times of the virus.
• The only way to learn something new is by trying and failing.
• Engineering is more about people than technology.
• It matters more how you work as a team than how you work individually.
• Communication and team skills top the list of skills needed by engineers today.

Episode Outline:

[00:21] - Meet Stefan
[06:02] - Why there is a massive push to digitalisation today
[07:56] - Why Berlin invites a plethora of entrepreneurs to its innovative community
[13:33] - Stefan's ideas on working with outsourcing companies and how to cultivate healthy relationships with them
[14:33] - How do you find the best outsourcing company for your requirements
[15:37] - The difficulty working with remote teams today and ho  Smava managed that effectively
[18:44] - How Smava analysed employee working constraints and mentality to devise effective means to work remotely
[20:36] - How to reinvent your process, work and meetings to offer your employees more flexible ways to work
[23:12] - How do you ensure your employees stay motivated at all times and encourage them to come up with innovative ideas?
[26:58] - The importance of understanding and respecting individual mental health today
[30:50] - The right way to bring changes in working technology or ways
[34:31] - It is only when you fail that you learn something new. Here's why.
[37:48] - Why Stefan feels that the most significant thing in tech today is cloud migration
[38:55] - Why engineering is more people-focussed than tech-oriented
[40:00] - Why communication and team play are the critical skills for any engineer presently
[43:16] - Expanding beyond geographies to grow your talent

About Vinoj:

Vinoj M. Zacharia is a Senior Engineering Manager at FloQast, an accounting workflow automation created by accountants for accountants to work smarter, and not harder.

 Vinoj is a developer-turned-engineering-leader who builds data-driven, empowered, accountable, collaborative teams from the ground up. He is passionate about scaling people, processes, and tech and working with products to make customers happy. He’s worked with many successful and non-successful startups in their early stages, and has a wealth of experience learning and working with them.

Synopsis:

In this episode of The Technology Leadership Podcast, Vinoj Zacharia discusses hiring and retaining employees, explaining how they do it at FloQast. We learn about the changes in hiring that have happened due to the pandemic and how to adapt ourselves to remote hiring and working methods, which would probably also continue in the future. He also explains the shift from EC2 Instances to Lambda, the concept of lead time and how it can help companies grow even further today.

Key Takeaways:

• How Standardization of language (programming) can help engineering teams
• Bring your tech lead PM, engineers in early because having them part of the process of building is essential.
• Many companies have switched to remote hiring methods today and these will continue to be the future for most of them.
• Remote companies attract the most candidates today.
• We need to optimise ourselves around any challenges in software that we haven’t yet already.
• Focus on those pain points, so that it becomes easier for engineers on product teams to focus on their product and customers.
• When you find people that match the type of work that you're doing, and the style of organization you are in, you've already set yourself for success.
• One essential skill for engineers is their ability to drive others to clarity.
• Failure is only part of the process - learn to accept it, as it’s a natural happening, especially in your early stages as an engineer.

Episode Outline:

[01:04] - Vinoj explains his childhood and his fondness for computers
[06:42] - Vinoj explains what FloQast does
[11:13] - How FloQast has scaled, and the themes and patterns of what makes engineering teams move forward.
[15:57] - Vinoj shares how people and team management are done at FloQast
[20:36] - How the hiring process has changed after the pandemic
[24:22] - Vinoj talks about Remote Hiring from the perspective of a company
[28:49] - How do you retain employees for multiple years?
[34:04] - Vinoj explains what leadership means to him
[35:50] - How to scale engineers and cultivate the next leaders
[41:53] - Vinoj shares the shift FloQast has taken from EC2 Instances to Lambda, the concept of lead time and how it can help companies.
[46:03] - Is there something that you would do differently if you were to start over?
[48:16] - What would be the biggest challenges in technology and startups right now?

About Khalil:

Khalil Dimachkie is the CTO at Youtility, a startup that helps consumers save on their home finances without leaving their mobile banking or digital finance apps. Khalil has been in the tech sector for over 17 years now, with expertise in all phases of the software development and Agile delivery.

He is an experienced tech leader and CTO who’s held positions where managing expectations and relationships have been equally important as delivering a robust product. He’s worked with global brands such as BP, VISA, TfL, and Debenhams on technical strategy and go-to market planning.

Synopsis:

In this episode of The Technology Leadership Podcast, Khalil Dimachkie talks about the huge role of CTOs in the growth of any organisation. He explains the hiring strategies companies could adopt for junior, mid-level, and senior engineers and why they need to be extensive and optimized for your organisation's requirements. We also look into the importance of virtualisation, inviting healthier team collaboration, the lesser-known facts about hiring expert testing engineers, and the benefits of recruiting through a contingency recruiter. Understand why a CTO's growth strategy is critical for any organisation that wants to scale from a small startup into a global brand.

Key Takeaways:

• Inputs from general user experience of your product are paramount to understanding your design strategies
• It is important to communicate what exactly your team needs to do and what they need to aim for
• Offering a framework for development eases the process of engineering a product
• As a CTO, you need to value the business case first
• Optimise your hiring strategies to align with your business goals 
• Open communication and collaboration becomes easy when you have an encouraging team
• Empower your new team members to communicate and engage better
• While working with fresh minds helps invite new ideas, it’s also easier to work with experienced professionals
• When it comes to hiring for a senior position, it helps if you evaluate on their ability to engage with a team and agile skills
• Hiring a good testing engineer is extremely challenging in today’s times
• The benefits of using a contingency recruiter for your hiring process
• The link between data and machine learning and why the two are here to stay

Episode Outline:

[00:38] - Meet Khalil
[05:13] - Khalil explains the vision and thoughts behind Youtility and the reasons for its success
[09:35] - Khalil expands on the technical details of Youtility product building and how it became an enterprise-scale product
[14:36] -  How did Youtility scale its business?
[19:38] -  What are the benefits of utilizing a virtualized platform?
[23:06] - Why is it important for tech organisations to introduce para-virtualisation?
[25:10] -  Khalil’s key learnings as CTO
[36:12] -  Khalil’s thoughts on hiring good engineers
[38:49] - The importance of communication among engineers
[41:46] - Cultivating a cooperative work environment where no one is afraid to speak up their ideas
[42:26] -  How do you build a collaborative and nurturing environment?
[49:23] - Leveraging professional relationships
[51:13] -  Khalil shares how Youtility built their junior and mid-level teams
[52:20] - Khalil talks about Youtility’s interview process for a software engineer
[55:42] -  How do you improve your team collaboration?
[57:37] -  Why is it the hardest to hire testing engineers?
[01:06:51] - Khalil’s thoughts on hiring through a contingency recruiter
[01:13:53] - What would be the biggest challenges to CTOs in the next couple of years?

About Dragos:

Dragos Nedelcu is the Founder and Expert Software Trainer at Code With Dragos, a renowned software training institute in Berlin, Germany. His passion lies in helping other software developers become industry leaders. Dragos started as a self-taught software developer and spent the first years building custom software for small businesses in Madrid before moving to Berlin.  He progressed quickly, getting promoted to Senior Developer in record time and joining a top technology company, Mister Spex. 

Dragos became a known figure on Linkedin after his posts were read by thousands of software developers, making him one of the most sought-after experts in the industry on the topics of programming and software development.


Synopsis:

In this episode of The Technology Leadership Podcast, Dragos Nedelcu talks about building effective communication skills as a software engineer.  Dragos explains that gaining technical expertise comes first if you are in the initial stages of your career. However, your growth and progress in an organisation are largely dependent on your ability to collaborate with your team, break down suggestions from your peers, and align with the company’s overall vision. Communication is key to achieving all of this in the later stages. Tune in as we also jump into exploring the need to develop technical muscle memory and the points to keep in mind while moving companies - for an engineer at any level!


Key Takeaways:

• Gaining technical expertise should be the primary focus for junior-level engineers anywhere.
• Communicating and establishing relationships with other developers is essential to ease your workflow and collaborate in any environment.
• If you feel you’re an engineer with average technical skills, you could grow into a consultant with exceptional communication skills.
• Effective communication could also translate to faster promotion in any company.
• Engineers often get caught in the spiral of negativity because of their inherent problem-solving and digging-out-bugs nature. 
• Communication skills enable transparency. That, in turn, allows you to deliver more and align yourself better with the company’s vision.
• There is no roadmap/ hierarchy to growing as a software professional. 
• With limited in-person meetings today, the online working atmosphere is demanding practical communication skills more than ever.
• It’s important to build muscle memory for your technical skills - the 80/20 rule applies well in software engineering.

Episode Outline:

[01:43] - Meet Dragos
[04:14] - Dragos talks about helping engineers improve their soft skills
[06:31] - How important are communication skills for engineers?
[10:19] -  Understanding the collaborative side of software engineering
[13:07] - Why should you build effective communication skills as an engineer?
[15:36] -  What do you mean by effective communication?
[17:32] -  Better communication = faster promotion?
[27:35] - What are the skills you need to keep handy to grow as a manager?
[32:27] - There is no roadmap to growing as a software engineer. Understand why and how to make your way yourself.
[37:16] -  The struggles of building effective communication skills as an introvert
[41:10] -  What can junior level engineers do to grow in their career?
[42:53] -  Why is it important to continue to upskill yourself on the technological side?
[43:43] - About building muscle memory
[45:48] - How can you, as a mid-level engineer, grow in a better role at your company or others?
[49:16] - How can you become successful as a software engineer?
[53:08] - Advice for engineers wanting to switch roles or companies
[58:07] - Should money be the key factor to make you move?

About Juha:

Juha Ristolainen is the Chief Technology Officer at Upvest. He is a software leader and technologist with over 20 years of professional experience in delivering and building digital services and applications. Juha has worked for companies of every scale - from startups and operators to mid-size corporations and even large OEMs. He's built high performing software delivery teams using efficient and well developed processes within organisations of varying sizes from tens of employees to several hundreds and thousands of driven professionals.

Juha has extensive experience as a software engineer and app developer, building mobile apps to traditional backends and microservices. Juha is a hands-on leader who can take up coding or DevOps or CI/CD on demand. He’s also passionate about blockchain technologies. 

Synopsis:

In this episode of The Technology Leadership Podcast, Juha Ristolainen discusses modern leadership and onboarding skills for top-rated professionals in the tech industry. While expanding on his experience scaling up as a developer, Juha details the responsibilities that come up with every role in a team. We learn why onboarding lies within the core of a successful organisation, view modern leadership as servant leadership, and mention hiring smart minds to drive towards the organisational vision and mission. On the technological front, Juha gives a quick picture of the various software and methods he’s used, including apps, microservices, and domain-driven designs. Listen in!

Key Takeaways:

• The roles and responsibilities of growing as a senior in your team.
• Onboarding as the fundamental process to building an effective team - unless you’re certain they’re a good fit for your team, it would be hard to have them in your company for long.
• Enabling new joinees to take charge of their onboarding and upskill themselves
• The benefits of having “onboarding buddies” in your organisation
• Modern leadership as being a servant-type leadership - you show them the greater purpose and encourage them to drive forward to it
• Why your future workforce could be largely remote and global
• Empowering employees to exercise their judgement and bonding as a team
• How to keep driving the organisational mission and vision to everybody
• The importance of OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
• The benefits of microservices over monoliths
• Why the war for talent is bigger right now, post-COVID

[00:41] - Meet Juha
[09:27] - Juha talks about the biggest challenges of his career
[11:45] - How do we challenge individual contributors to get to the level of VP of Engineering or Head of Engineering?
[14:38] - How do you quickly and efficiently grow a team?
[17:11] - Juha discusses a brilliant method of onboarding
[17:48] - About the first day stepping into a company as a fresher and modern leadership
[12:20] - What are the traits and skills that leaders need to start to cultivate earlier in their career to be able to become a CTO?
[21:24] - Why hire smart people?
[23:31] - Juha’s thoughts on recruitment and hiring in the coming year
[25:14] - Letting people exercise their judgement and creating a healthy working environment
[27:13] - Aligning employees with the company vision
[28:55] - About KPIs
[30:36] - How do you measure your meeting success?
[32:50] - What advice would you give to people working in startups?
[34:21] - What are your reasons behind building a monolithic and then moving to microservices?
[37:46] - What are your thoughts on bringing on a non-executive director or board member to your company?
[42:21] - Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years?
[44:34] - Juha’s weapon of choice
[47:25] - How difficult is it to hire talent within a team?
[50:02] - The biggest challenges

About Iryna:

Iryna Zhovtobryukh is the Chief Technology Officer at Element Insurance AG, a leading digital insurance company based in Berlin, Germany. She has a decade and a half’s worth of experience building technology teams and companies and has expertise in software development, quality assurance, and end-to-end product development. 

Starting her career as a software developer, Iryna has worked with the likes of Ciklum, Yapital, Censhare, and Element, to name a few. Proving time and again that it’s possible to seal your forte in the tech industry as a female, Iryna clarifies that none of the pervasive male domination needs to startle you if you have the curiosity and willingness to devour new skills. These can glide you forward in any tech-enabled company.

Synopsis:

In this episode of The Technology Leadership Podcast, Iryna and I discuss the workflow and processes at Element, also Germany's only 100% cloud-based InsurTech company. Speaking as both a recruiter and a candidate, Iryna shares why an enthusiastic and cooperative environment needs to be developed by both parties to create a healthy work environment. We also learn how a two-way interview process, transparent work requirements, and supportive work culture can help retract and retain the best gender-neutral technical talent in any company.

Key Takeaways:

• The importance of Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery for enabling faster product development.
• Deploying with very small batches to support the culture of embracing mistakes and ensuring transparency.
• The formula to retracting and retaining exceptional talent - autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
• Pointers to attracting new people to your company - make your company a good place to be in, aim for a direct connection between candidates and recruiters from the beginning, be honest and let them know what they’re signing up for.
• Ensuring a gender-neutral workforce - empowering female employees by providing leaves, knowledge transition, and pre-integration plans to support them through their maternity periods and motivating females to join the tech space.
• Continuous learning to stay ahead in the game always.
• Holding your systems together to avoid a collapse.
• Securing your systems and processes at all times and staying updated with any technological advancements to keep away from fraud.

[00:32] - Meet Iryna

[01:51] - Iryna gives an overview of Elements and her role as the CTO there

[03:10] - Do insurance companies get a competitive advantage by building their own tech?

[04:53] - What is the role of a CTO in getting the business and teams ready?

[06:34] - How did Iryna's tech team help ensure the stability of their platform?

[09:32] - What are the benefits of not having a QA team?

[12:20] - How do companies function without a QA team?

[15:38] - How do you retract and retain the best technical talent for your company?

[20:09] - The decentralized structure of operation at Elements and how it helps them.

[22:55] - What can you do to encourage more women to join the tech space?

[28:42] - What can you do to help entry-level or university-level women feel motivated to grab their dream jobs in the tech space?

[32:48] - Advice for people who're at the start of their careers in the tech industry. 

[40:55] - How do you keep yourself motivated to work longer hours even, sometimes?

[43:34] - Iryna's talks about her most significant achievements in her career so far

[46:45] - Some important lessons that helped Iryna grow into a strong leader

[53:22] - What is the biggest challenge within the technology and startup space 

About Chris:

Chris is Director of IT Operations, Previously Head of Database at Adjust GmbH. His team is responsible for managing data and building the next generation of products for Adjust, a leading global marketing analytics platform.

With 20+ years of experience, Chris takes us through how he moved through the ranks at Adjust, from starting as a Data Admin to building teams directly without the use of recruiters - something that can be very difficult in the data industry! His management style quickly got him noticed and he started taking over a number of teams until he found himself responsible for all the teams managing data and data admin.

Synopsis:

During this episode, Chris shares his experience on recruitment without using agencies and how to grow and develop teams who can arrive at innovative solutions to problems as well as sharing his experience of working remotely and dealing with mental health challenges. He talks about the benefits of contributing to open source technology and attending conferences and events to engage with the tech community. 

Key Takeaways: 

The power of Postgres

The importance of contributing to the open-source community to be a market leader

Showcasing your tech at conferences, events and the tech community

Building a team through networking at events and conference talks and saving on recruitment fees

Managing mental health in your team

The benefit of a remote, global team servicing clients 24/7

Motivating remote teams - decision making, smart hiring choices, ownership of duties across the team

Investing in recruitment to get the right candidates for the role, bringing greater long-term value

Advice on being a successful engineering leader

How to foster a good attitude of innovation and risk-taking that helps teams keep up with technical changes

The importance of communication between teams in scaling start-ups successfully.

0:40- Introduction to Chris-

2:05- What was living in Berlin like

3:40- What Chris is doing with the Data team that allows Adjust to become the leading marketing analytics company

5:15- What Chris is doing with PostgreSQL to help manage data, benefits of PostgreSQL

7:53- Benefits of using PostgreSQL and giving back to the opensource community.

10:40- How does Adjust attract the best talent

16:00- What does Chris’s team look like right now

17:15- How has the past year of Covid and going remote affected the team?

20:40- What has Chris learnt as a manager and implemented to help his team overcome mental health issues during Covid

23:10-  How Chris coaches through stress, anxiety and burnout

25:52 - Benefits to having a global remote team

29:00- How to keep engineers motivated in a remote team.

31:40- Biggest learnings from Chris careers- recruiting is hard, challenges and wins in recruitment

39:45- What advice could you give someone moving into a leadership engineering position.

41:40- What Chris see’s to be the biggest challenges in technology right now in 2021 & beyond.

45:18 How do we find and grow engineers to allow them to find innovative solutions

49:36- Chris’s final thoughts on growing teams, how communication is important between departments

Clemens Peters is currently a Technical Team Lead at Honest Food company Part of the Delivery Hero Group. With close 10 years experience in successful start-ups, building products, building teams and helping innovate.

During this episode Clemens takes us through his career, why he joined Honest Food, Why he decided to pursue a Masters and several tools he’s used in his team such as Heroku, Kubernetes and Datadog. He also gives advice on how to choose your next startup, whether you’re a CTO or an Engineer.

Some key take away from this episode include, why you should be nice to everyone you come across in your career as you never know where you will ended up. Important of being bringing in experts to help you with certain aspects of your technical landscape. How to successfully deliver a cloud migration, how to manage teams remotely and bring people together. He then takes us through what are the advantages of breaking down a monolithic architecture and moving to microservices.

This episode is packed full of helpful information to help make your team/company and product more collaborative and efficient!

00:55 Introduction to Clemens and his career so far

05:40- Why did you join your first start-up and what it was like in your first 6-12 months

08:40- What were they key learnings as a technical in the first 6-12 months in a start-up

11:11- Why did Clemens pursue his master

15:00- How pursuing his masters was able to improve his analytical skills

16:55- Advice to people choosing their next start-up

22:30-  What was your challenges in the first 6-12 month joining a start-up as technical lead

24:25- Why would a start-up in it’s infancy choose Heroku over GCP/ AWS/ Azure

27:00- Power of Kubernetes

29:10- Advice to successfully manage a cloud migration(check the timing is the same)

33:30 – What are the advantages of breaking down a monolithic architecture and moving to microservices  

37:30 – Introduction of Datadog, why did they decide to use it and advantages of using it

41:35- How to cultivate learning and development within engineering teams.

50:55- what have you incorporated into your interview process to find the best people and culture right

53:26- Challenges of working in a remote team and how to manage a remote team.

57:50- What do you do at The Honest Food company, Delivery Hero to share knowledge, tools and technology

1:02: 30` what does Clemens think is the biggest challenges in technology right now. 

"Successful people will lead to the success of the company”

 About Rashid:

Rashid Shobaki is a Technology Entrepreneur and Leader. His passion is helping individuals and companies succeed and achieve their goals. He has over 10+ years within tech companies, start-ups and now Management positions. 

Rashid is currently an Engineer manager at Forto, leading multiple teams responsible for transforming the way supply chain processes are being taken care of. His role it to lead and manage teams, nurturing engineers so they can become the best they can be. 

Synopsis:

During this episode, Rashid Takes us through his experience of Forto so far and the importance of managing your team, not only in a professional setting but also in their mental health. He takes us through how he’s growing his team, supporting his staff in their personnel and professional goals and also how to motivate Engineers. 

Key take away’s: 

- Important of looking after the mental health, and the wellbeing of your staff.  

- How to double the size of the team remotely

- How to manage multiple teams rather than just one

- How you can support your team’s personnel/ professional goals 

- Passion and enthusiasm will always prove successful over pure tech skills 

- How to hire remotely, building a friendly recruitment process and make people feel comfortable during interviewing and the first few weeks. 

- The need to keep engineers motivated and How to use OKR’s and progressive achievement criteria to retain staff. 

-How Hackdays can bring the team together and also create new internal tools.

00:38- Introduction 

1:35- Why did Rashid Join Forto and what is unique about them

3:29- What challenges has Rashid faced in the last 18 months

6:51- How did you start to look at your staff’s wellbeing

9:00- What has changed in Rashid’s team and his structure

11:25- Difference to managing multiple teams rather than just one

16:38- How did Rashid strategically adapt his recruitment strategy from pre/ post covid. 

20:19- Process of remote hiring and importance of making candidates feel comfortable 

28:19- Process of remote/ virtual onboarding

39:00- How to manage remote teams and keep them motivated day in day out. 

43:40- How Rashid likes to develop & motivates his engineers within his team. 

55:00- Hackdays- how they can help teams learn technology and create new tools 

59:40- What do you think makes a good engineer and what are the key none technical skills a good engineer needs to have

1:05:33- What are the key challenges engineering need to address moving forwards