The Technology Leadership Podcast

About Simon:

Simon Munch- Anderson is CTO at Ultimate.AI, A Series A tech company based in Berlin that offers a virtual customer service agent builder bringing multilingual customer service automation to businesses. He has over 20+ years of experience in building innovative products and teams. Mostly focussed on early-stage start-ups. 

Simon loves technology and how it can shape our future. In his own words he likes to worry about technology, as he believes if we want to have a great future, we have to start thinking about it in the present because when the future is here you won’t have time. Spoken like a true technology leader.

“ A couple of sentences about what you’re focus is right now as a CTO at ultimate.AI. If you could write down your own job spec in 2 sentences, what would it be basically”

Synopsis:

During this episode, Simon takes us through his experience so far with Ultimate.AI, the importance of cross-functional teams. Remote working and keeping teams motivated. Common mistakes in managers and engineers and how you can become better engineers. We also discuss at length what it takes to an engineering leader.

Key Takeaways: 

What are cross-functional team and how to implement them. 

Managing remote team, building teams remotely and also motivating staff remotely. 

Remote interviews/ onboarding. 

How to build social connections in a remote setting.

How to be a good engineering leader and what you can do to become better

How to improve communication between teams. 

00:34- Introduction to Simon Munch-Anderson and Ultimate.AI 

01:35- Why did you join Ultimate? (Team, product, upwards trajectory)

02:46- What does your first 6 months of a new role as a leader look like? 

04:02- What have you introduced in the first 6 months in terms of new tools/processes?

06:40- Cross-functional teams 

Cut out 7:46- What is a functional team?

10:50  First steps to introducing cross-functional teams

15:30- What does your team growth look like?

16:20- how do you keep productivity and momentum when you’re hiring so much? 

19:35- How are you managing your interview and onboarding process remotely? 

21:45- How do you embed staff into your team remotely?

25:29- What skills do you see harder to find in the talent market? 

27:30- Stance on remote work

29:40 How do you build social relationship in remote teams?

33:40- How do you motivate your team?

35:50- What do you see as a common weakness in managers and engineers?

39:35- How do you improve communication between team members 

41:15- what makes a great engineer? 

42:55- What characteristics and traits make an exceptional leader? 

44:25- what advice would you give someone moving into a leadership position? 

48:05- What would you like to tell yourself at the start of your career to better prepare yourself? 

50:30- What do you see to be the biggest challenge for technology companies moving forwards? 

About Oleksii:

Oleksii has more than 15 years of experience in building and leading development teams, as well as collaborating with other business departments to build amazing products. With 10+ years of those in start-ups, his previous roles have spanned a multitude of sectors including insure-tech, healthcare, gaming, real estate and fintech. His knowledge encompasses engineering, web and cloud based applications and developer operations - managing multiple teams and setting strategy and goals.

Synopsis:

During this episode Oleksii explores his career and talks about joining Dentolo, the importance of pivoting, getting product features delivered quickly to enable iteration, the power of hackathons and his role as Head of Engineering during a period of massive change resulting from acquisition.

Key takeaways:

• Perfecting constant communication with your team
• Gathering valuable feedback from users
• Developing iterative process and workflows
• Creating productive remote environments and removal of distractions
• Nurturing empowered teams with a strong sense of ownership, accoutability and decision making responsibility
• Using the power of hackathons 
• Trying out new technologies and tools to improve systems and products

Episode Outline:

[00:58]  Introduction, experience and background

[03:44] Pivoting strategy at Dentolo from price comparison to insurance. 

The importance of building and rapidly launching an MVP

[05.07] Olekskii’s experience of getting funding from Zurich Insurance 

[08.04-11:39 ] Managing rapid iteration, getting products out quickly, the power of Agile and understanding your customers 

[12:24] The importance of empowering your team and giving them decision making responsibility including the example of deciding the best Agile framework to use

[18.26] Reflections on his experience working as a remote developer in eastern Europe and how that prepared Oleksii to manage his team remotely during the pandemic

[24:40] Staying productive, removing distractions and the power of Leapsome (performance management and engagement tool)

[31.28] Moving from a monolithic application to a micro-services architecture 

The advantages of hackathons and trying new technology

[33.28 ] The power of Graphql

[35.43] Using Elixir and why he’s found it particularly useful when working in Ruby

[42:30] Experiences of coping with acquisition when working with Zurich

[50:20] The power of bringing in experts and consultants to help you through the acquisition process

[54:35 ] Areas of focus for development to be a strong future leader 

[57:56] Recommended books: The Culture Code, The Five Dysfunctions Of A Team, The First 90 Days

[59:50] The biggest challenges facing technology right now