Decoding Careers (Sam Yates)

Meet Leo Borges, a multifaceted leader, software engineer, author, speaker, mentor, and tech advocate. Passionate about cultivating healthy engineering organizations, he believes culture is the key to success. Leo loves exploring innovative ideas with motivated individuals, delivering practical solutions on a large scale.

Currently, he serves as Director of Engineering at Canva, the free-to-use online graphic design tool used for social media, presentations, videos, logos, and more. 

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Nicholas Tan is an accomplished technology executive spanning digital/CX transformation, strategy & architecture development, agile delivery, solution design/engineering leadership & global digital IT & Cyber delivery with a strong customer focus.

Nick shares his journey from starting as an Air Force Pilot in the RAAF to now leading the tech as a CTO for the FinTech organisation of the Year 2022, Moonova.

Our guest today is Brandon a technology professional with nearly two decades of experience in software engineering, project management, financial services, and edtech. Brandon's career is a unique blend of deep technical expertise, strategic leadership, and innovative problem-solving. Currently serving as the Engineering Manager at Mathspace, Brandon is keenly focused on mentoring his team and fostering a collaborative environment. He's a believer in the power of continuous learning, encouraging his team to grow their skills and knowledge. With a unique perspective on leadership and a passion for problem-solving, Brandon brings a wealth of insights to our conversation today.

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Paul has been the CTO at Tyro Payments since August 2022. He has over 25 years of experience leading engineering teams from start-ups to large ASX-listed companies. Before joining Tyro, Paul was the VP of Engineering for Nuix, the Head of Group Architecture and Engineering at Qantas, Chief Technology Officer at Airtasker, and Chief Information Officer at Dick Smith Electronics.

Vinny Lawrenson-Woods is a people-first technology leader specialising in engineering and product delivery in start-up and enterprise-level organisations. He’s scaled and coached large local and globally distributed engineering teams across the UK, USA and Australia.

Since his move to Sydney in 2013, Vinny has led large engineering teams at Vodafone, Qantas and Atlassian before moving to Prezzee as the VP of Product Engineering, leading the global Engineering & Delivery function at the Australian-born tech unicorn.

Contact Vinny LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinnylawrensonwoods/

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During this episode, I chat with a super-focused and strategic senior engineering leader, Tomas Stvrtecky. Tomas has climbed the career ladder with promotions left and right, all thanks to his knack for leadership and teamwork. We'll dive into his innovative mindset, how he recognises and drives process improvements, and his passion for IT. Plus, Tomas shares tips on building trust, fostering personal growth, and empowering teams with a growth mindset. If you're into business success stories and IT, this episode is for you!

We’re excited to welcome Pierre Bergamin, CTO at Indebted, as we explore transitioning into various industries, leadership to other leaders, and navigating both the technical and business sides of an organization.

Ricky McAlister is a technology leader with a passion for crafting robust technical solutions and building high performing, collaborative teams. He is fascinated by both the technical aspect of software engineering and the psychology of leading and managing people.
 
Currently, Ricky is the Head of Engineering at Shift. The company looks to him and his engineering teams to deliver value to customers by ensuring finance on demand. This is made possible through a focus on strong in-house development partnering with best of breed tech providers.

Discovered People
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Lambros Phodios was originally a software developer who specialised in building early-stage software products for some of Australia’s largest banks, insurance companies, and government departments.
He founded Adaca in 2015 while at university and grew this over 8 years to a team of 100 software developers. The company was initially founded by a local software development team in Sydney, servicing large corporates experimenting with new product offerings.

Adaca primarily services Australia’s scaleups and mid-market by providing remote teams and resource augmentation, which cost-effectively supplies on-demand access to high-performance software development capabilities.

Jeremy Burton is currently Chief Technology Officer at Hipages Group. He has been messing around with technology for the best part of 40 years before getting his professional start in the heady early days of the internet.

He's worked across a variety of industries and domains, from having launched a failed startup to working in Large Enterprises, and everything in between. Having swung to both ends of the IC/Manager pendulum, he’s experienced the journey from Engineer to manager a few times and picked up plenty of battle scars along the way, learning each time - in such household names as Australia Post and realestate.com.au.

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Kumaresh is the Head of Engineering across Digital at Bendigo & Adelaide Bank.

During this episode, we delve into the challenges engineering leaders can expect to face when leading teams and how they should prioritise their time/tasks.

Kumaresh also delves into the importance of leading a team rather than managing.

Lisa has over 10 years of experiences in a broad range of organisations. From start ups, to scale ups, to multi-national tech companies. She loves how technology can bring meaningful change and solve real world problems. As a technologist, she loves the opportunities to learn and try new things, so it's never a dull moment.

As a leader, she is passionate about seeing people succeed and achieving their full potential. In her leisure, she enjoys long walks, delicious food and playing board-games. She is currently the GM of Engineering at Open.

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Ken Greef is a creator and a health enthusiast who discovered his passion for web development at 15. In 2013, he started a print and sign business with his youngest brother, which led to the development of a tool for basic production management called Realhub.

For those of you who don’t know, Realhub is a platform that automates the creation of artwork for real estate agencies and manages the production process from manufacturing to installation. In 2020, realhub merged with their biggest competitor, campaigntrack, to form Realbase, which went on to dominate the real estate marketing industry in ANZ.

In 2022, realbase was acquired by Domain Holdings as part of their Agent Solutions offering.

Currently, Ken works at Domain as the Director of Engineering, where he continues to develop and improve the Realbase platforms.

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After moving to Australia from Israel, Nadav Yogev noticed a deficiency of leadership in the technology industry. That leadership gap is therefore an opportunity for IT professionals to exploit with the right attitude and aptitude. 

Nadav Yogev is the CTO of Blueberry Markets, a globally regulated forex broker providing access to trading instruments to thousands of traders.

Nadav explains to host Sam Yates his own journey into technology, which started with the Israeli IT industry; and leadership, which began with a compulsory stint in the Israeli army. Nadav shares what he believes are the attributes of a good leader, the most important of which is to be a continuous learner.

Discovered People
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Sam Yates had the privilege to host a remarkable guest - Vasanth, an eminent Engineering Leader with a stellar track record of nearly two decades in the software industry. 🚀

Vasanth's career journey has been nothing short of awe-inspiring, encompassing experiences across Start-ups, Consulting, and Enterprise, where he played a pivotal role in helping businesses build exceptional products through cutting-edge technology. As of today, Vasanth holds the esteemed position of Engineering Director at OFX, where he is leading the charge in advancing core capabilities engineering.

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Gita Charan is a highly experienced technologist, with a diverse career. Born in Fiji and educated in New Zealand, her career has taken her across the south Pacific and various roles in the technology industry. Gita’s recognised as a skilled leader and she believes in providing the right support to enable people to grow and reach their full potential.

The combination of technical skills, attitude, and team work, she says will get you a long way in a career in tech. The most important quality when she looks to hire for her own team are those soft skills. Gita discusses what you need to do now to prepare for a role as a leader – it’s what you do before you become a leader that’s important. Observe your own leaders – what is it about their leadership you like and don’t like?

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Decoding Careers is a new podcast to help software engineers transition into a leadership role. Hosted by Sam Yates, you’ll hear directly from engineering leaders who have themselves successfully transitioned to their current roles, you’ll discover what they did and the challenges they faced to get there. 

Decoding Careers is proudly brought to you by Discovered People, a recruitment agency matching ambitious companies with software engineers.  

You can listen to Decoding Careers on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts.

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In this episode, Sam Wolski, Head of Engineering at HumanForce, discusses his journey in the tech industry and shares insights on transitioning from an engineering manager to a head of engineering.

He emphasizes the importance of understanding the business and customer needs, rather than just focusing on writing perfect code.

Sam also highlights the challenges of delegating and letting go of ownership as a leader. He provides advice for tech leads looking to transition to leadership roles and emphasizes the need for transparency and trust in remote work.

Chris Wu is a Senior Engineering Manager at Playco, boasting over a decade of engineering experience. What sets him apart is his expertise in remote work, where he excels at providing engineers with guidance and reassurance. His ability to nurture and inspire engineering talent has transformed them into confident leaders in their field.

Join us in this episode as we unpack the secrets to Playco's success and learn from Chris about the art of remote work and talent empowerment. Whether you're a gaming enthusiast or seeking career inspiration, this episode has something for everyone.

Discovered People 
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Looking to understand the transition from engineering to leadership and the innovative world of AI technology?

In this video, Daniel Palmer, founder of Relevance AI, shares his insights and experiences from his unique career journey.

Artem Kolesnikov is the Director of Software Engineering at Cover Genius, a global leader in embedded insurance for the e-commerce business. He has progressed from a Senior Software Engineer to Director of Software Engineering during his time with Cover Genius and he is also now coaching 4 Engineers in his team as they make their first step into leadership.

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In this episode, we delve into the dynamic world of product development and engineering with none other than Jacob Richter, CTO at Propeller Aero.

With over a decade of experience in the startup arena, Jacob brings unparalleled insights into the blend of innovation, perseverance, and strategic vision required to thrive in this ever-evolving landscape.

From founding startups to spearheading product initiatives across diverse industries, his journey epitomizes the essence of entrepreneurial spirit.

Welcome back to a new season of Decoding Careers. This week, Claire Tran, VP of Engineering at Sendle, joins for an insightful conversation on taking small and meaning steps into leadership. We dive deep into the evolving landscape of female leadership in tech, the unique challenges women face, and how a leader's legacy can leave a lasting impact on teams and the industry.

Join host Sam Yates as he sits down with Mitchell Dowd, Head of Engineering at Xemplo, to discuss his journey from software developer to leader in the fast-evolving world of tech.

For our inaugural episode of Decoding Careers, we are thrilled to welcome you to an insightful conversation with these industry leaders from Coles Digital.

In this doubleheader 2 Coles Digital leaders spill their career secrets, and we dive deep into the journeys and insights of two dynamic leaders from Coles Digital.

Anton Vishnyakov is Coles Digitals Senior Engineering Manager, shaping the future of e-commerce. With managerial finesse and tech prowess, overseeing Coles Digitals platform.

Vikas Kaushik, on the other hand, is Coles Digital's lead platform engineer. With 15+ years in banking, telecom, and retail, and from a Sysadmin background.

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Steve Krizanovic, a highly respected and people-centric technical leader. With a strong track record of delivering scalable platforms. Steve's leadership style is centred around empowering people and fostering highly engaged engineering teams, creating an environment that encourages collaboration and fuels innovation.

Cashrewards has gracefully transitioned from being a startup to a scaleup. Steve, in his role as GM Engineering, has been guiding the engineering team through this evolution. Cashrewards is a platform providing cashback to customers as they shop at their favourite stores. As the company has grown significantly, Steve and his team have worked to delivered highly scalable platform and expand his team, in response to a rapidly increasing user base.

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Robert Love is currently the CTO of Q-CTRL, Australia's first venture-capital-backed quantum technology startup, and is responsible for leading Q-CTRL's Engineering teams, and delivering value to customers by ensuring scientific R&D translates to product development.
 
Having recently celebrated its fifth birthday, Q-CTRL is focused on accelerating the pathway to quantum advantage by delivering intelligent infrastructure software to correct errors, autonomously stabilize hardware, and build the next trillion-dollar greenfield industry.

Q-CTRL
https://q-ctrl.com/ 

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Join us as we dive into the career of a seasoned tech leader Adam Becker from Coles who has built and led successful teams across diverse industries, including communications, fintech, health tech, manufacturing, and more.

Discover insights on how Adam fosters a people-first culture, the importance of clear objectives, and the power of global, diverse teams in delivering impactful results.

Today host Sam Yates is thrilled to collaborate with an inspiring CTO Huan Huan (HHH) that has recently left a successful startup Safety Culture with over 500 employees, to becoming a board director and CTO at an early-stage startup up with fewer than 10 team members.

She was included in the Logz.io Top 100 Emerging Engineering Leaders globally in 2021.

HHH has an impressive history at the helm of Australia's leading tech unicorns including roles at Thoughtworks, Atlassian, and SafetyCulture, she's now channelling her expertise as the CTO and board director of Super Obvious. In her newest venture, she's laser-focused on crafting an ethical investment platform that resonates with the aspirations of next-gen investors.

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Simon Litchfield is a highly accomplished technology leader with extensive experience in the software engineering industry. With a successful career that spans over two decades, he has worked with a wide range of companies, from start-ups to large corporations. 

Simon discusses with host Sam Yates his career progression and how he’s currently serving as Chief Innovation Officer at Nano, previously their founding CTO. Nano began at the beginning of the pandemic, and built the world’s first 10-minute mortgage, and in a short space of time, lent over half a billion dollars. They’re no longer lending but are now focused solely on providing the technology platform to existing banks. 

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Nano
https://nano.com.au/ 

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Adam Woods has been in the tech industry as a software engineer and leader for over 14 years.  During that time he has worked in a variety of industries across start-ups, scale-ups, and enterprise.  He now serves as the CTO of Clipsal Cortex, which is an energy intelligence platform that empowers homeowners to make smarter energy choices by providing apps that allow them to visualise and understand how power is produced and consumed in their home. He has a passion for mentoring fellow engineers on their career progression.  A father of 2 soon to be 3, and an avid ultimate frisbee player.

Discovered People 
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