This podcast features interviews of CTOs and other technical leadership figures and topics range from technology (AI, blockchain, cyber, DevOps, Web Architecture, etc.) to management (e.g. scaling, structuring teams, mentoring, technical recruiting, product etc.).
Guests from leading tech companies share their best practices and knowledge.
The goal is to support other CTOs on their journey through tech and engineering, inspire and allow a sneak-peek into other successful companies to understand how they think and act. Get awesome insights into the world‘s top tech companies, personalities with this podcast brought to you by Tobias Schlottke.
In this episode, Adam Schuck from Canva discusses the company's hypergrowth, engineering team scaling, and approach to AI. He shares insights into Canva's technology decisions, including real-time concurrent editing and the unified web-based mobile experience. Adam also covers maintaining a startup culture at scale and personal productivity hacks for leaders.
In this episode, Tobi talks with Georg Zoeller, Co-Founder of the Centre for AI Leadership and mercenaries.ai, about the turbulent landscape of AI. Georg, with his background at Meta and deep expertise in AI strategy, cuts through the hype surrounding AI's capabilities and economic impact. They discuss the 'singularity' we're already in, driven by rapid, open-source AI development, and why this makes future predictions impossible. Georg argues that software engineering is being commoditized due ...
In this episode, Tobi talks with Ivan Kusalic, CTO of Enpal, who leads a team of 250 engineers at one of Germany's leading solar energy companies. Ivan shares insights from his extensive technical leadership journey and his recent return to coding after seven years due to his excitement about AI. Ivan discusses how he navigates complexity and ambiguity in the renewable energy sector, where Enpal builds systems to help households manage solar panels, batteries, EV chargers, and heat pumps as inte...
Discover insights into building a high-performance engineering organization with Stefan Richter, founder of freiheit.com technologies. With 25+ years of experience delivering successful software projects for the Who’s Who of European businesses and industries, Stefan shares his philosophy of radical engineering culture and maintaining an exceptionally high bar in recruiting. This episode dives deep into how freiheit.com has achieved their "Never Late, Never Failed" mission through disciplined pr...
AI is moving faster than ever, and staying ahead of the curve is a challenge for every tech leader. In this episode, Dat Tran joins Tobi to break down what’s happening in the AI space, from cutting-edge model releases to AI-powered productivity tools and the global race for AI dominance. Dat has spent years leading AI teams at Idealo and Axel Springer, co-founding AI-driven startups, and now helps companies make sense of AI without the fluff. Together, they explore the latest AI trends, the real...
How do you create an effective platform team and optimize DevOps? Tobi interviews Camille Fournier about her career, technical insights, and best practices in platform engineering. Camille shares her journey from building her own computers and installing Linux in high school to becoming Managing Director at JPMorgan Chase and authoring influential books for engineers 📚. 👩💻 Camille's early fascination with computers and engineering, including building her own systems and installing Linux 📚 A...
Ever wondered how regulated companies like stock exchanges handle tech growth? Dennis Winter (CTO @ Börse Stuttgart) shares how to build engineering organizations in regulated environments. With experience from embedded systems to leading tech at SolarisBank and Börse Stuttgart, he dives deep into scaling teams while maintaining security and compliance standards 🏦 🏗️ Early-stage tech decisions and building engineering culture 🔄 Evolving team structures and processes as you scale beyond 50 emp...
Get insight into the SDK business (and learn about cross-platform performance and developer marketing) with Dr. Daniel Hauschildt (MD & CPTO at IMG.LY). As a client-side offering (no servers!), IMG.LY needs to take extra steps to ensure reliability on all devices 📱, platforms 💻 and browsers 🌐. From crafting developer-friendly documentation to optimizing performance on every device and platform imaginable, Daniel shares hard-earned insights from the SDK business. 👨💻What makes an SDK truly d...
Plan and PRACTICE for better incident response with insights from Tim Armandpour, CTO of PagerDuty. Learn the secrets to resilience from the team that mitigated the impact of a major outage—handling a 250% traffic surge while delivering on their SLA. Listen to find out: - 🛠️ Why planning AND practice are both critical for incident response. - 🚧 How to practice for incident response (e.g Failure Fridays with Chaos Engineering) - 🧑🤝🧑 Ownership: Why tech AND business teams must join post-mor...
Find out about cross-functional team members with Daniel Bartholomae, CTO at optilyz (direct mail SaaS). At optilyz, team members wear multiple hats—whatever hats they need to own the product lifecycle. From product management and design to development and customer engagement, this model eliminates silos and drives efficiency. Daniel breaks down how this innovative approach works, the tools and processes that make it possible, and why it’s a perfect fit for small B2B SaaS companies. Listen to fi...
How do we actually organize people to consistently deliver value and enjoy the process? This, Eric Bowman (CTO @ King) says, is the core challenge facing any CTO. In this thought-provoking episode, Eric shares insights from his remarkable career in gaming (The Sims, King), e-commerce (Zalando), and navigation technology (TomTom), offering a unique perspective on building high-performing teams and effective tech organizations. Listen in to explore: 🔄 Outcome AND Outputs → Impact (ala Kent Beck’s...
Become a more effective team in this CTO podcast featuring Rebecca Murphey, Field CTO of Swarmia and co-author of Build. From her years of experience working in the developer productivity organizations at Stripe and Indeed and now at Swarmia, Rebecca knows this conversation isn’t just about developer metrics and productivity - it’s about the broader picture 🖼️. How do we align🧭 our engineering work with with business outcomes💸, developer experience 😀AND developer productivity⚡. And just as i...
Save Money on Cloud Costs with Claire Fautsch (CTO @ Joblift). Find out how the team at Joblift slashed monthly cloud costs from €100K to €30K without compromising performance. Listen to find out: 📊 How to build dashboards 📈 How to align cloud costs with business KPIs 🤝 How to get the entire team involved in cost optimization (Spoiler Alert: No FinOps team) 🛠 How to optimize resource allocation and avoid over-provisioning ⚙️ Technical tweaks that made an impact: CUDs, Spot instances, SSD usa...
Keep an eye on the latest trends in this CTO podcast episode featuring Hannes Lenke (CEO and Co-founder of Checkly). Hannes shares insights from over a decade of shaping the testing and monitoring landscape. From AI-powered mobile testing to cloud-based browser testing to synthetic monitoring, he has seen it all. Listen to found out: 👀 What is "Monitoring as Code"? How does it differ from traditional observability? 🔄 Has DevOps changed QA forever? Is there still a place for dedicated QA teams ...
Grow the business, not the headcount with insights from Tuomas Artman (CTO of Linear). Saying no to hypergrowth helped Linear succeed, but how did they do it? How did they build a high-quality product with a smaller team? Listen to find out: - How to achieve quality products without increasing headcount 🌱 - Avoiding feature bloat: The pitfalls of customer-driven development ⚖️ - Why you should build for longevity, not acquisition: The downsides of selling too early 🏛 - Why they raised funds af...
Discover new ways to do things with Shyam Sankar, CTO of Palantir, who is working to deprecate backend development using their experience with 150 independent dev teams running a collection of 5,000 microservices. Yet this podcast is more than that (although I was blown away by the demo)—expect great nuggets of wisdom on meritocracy, data, and of course, backend. Think of this podcast as a series of back-to-back nuggets of wisdom that not only help you make sense of what you've observed but also...
Find out how to build trust and accountability in a fully remote team in this CTO podcast featuring Sabrina Farmer, CTO @ GitLab. You will also hear how Sabrina draws on her experience in AI, DevSecOps, and her 19 years at Google to rethink the developer experience. Listen to find out: - How Gitlab's CEO Challenge encourages developers to innovate and automate away historic challenges (e.g. Log4js) = Why DevOps is just problem-solving 🕵️♀️ at all levels of the stack - How to use AI to create t...
Discover the benefits of end-to-end technical independence with Alexander Matthey, CTO of Adyen. Learn why Adyen cherishes its in-house strategy as Alexander shares how Adyen’s extreme technical independence (no third-party vendors) enables efficiency in everything from libraries to security. Listen to find out: - Security First: How Adyen makes security a priority for everyone. 🔒 - Pick Up the Phone📞: How direct communication makes them more efficient. - How Adyen’s long-term vision drives in...
Explore the evolution of both a product and the role of its co-founder in this CTO podcast featuring David Cramer (co-founder + CPO @ Sentry). You will discover the pros and cons of each stage in Sentry's journey (open source -> bootstrap -> VC) and why David's role evolved (CEO -> CTO -> CPO). Listen to find out 🔄 Why his role has evolved: CEO -> CTO -> CPO 🧑💻 DevTool Marketing 101: Inspiration, Attention, and Conversation 💰 How to monetize open source 🎨 How good branding and design can m...
Discover how to leverage platform engineering 🏗️ for convenience, standardization, automation, and reduced cloud costs in this CTO podcast featuring Boyan Dimitrov (CTO @ SIXT). SIXT is a leading global mobility provider serving customers in over 100 countries worldwide. With 800 tech employees globally, they have spent the past eight years standardizing and modularizing their tech stack to achieve unparalleled scalability. Listen to find out: - How to apply the 80:20 rule to Platform ⚖️ - How ...
Get ready for the AI industrial revolution 🦸 in this CTO podcast episode featuring a roundtable of AI AllStars! So much is happening in AI, and you want to be part of it - that is why we asked Jonas Andrulis (Founder and CEO of Aleph Alpha), Rasmus Rothe (Co-founder of Merantix and its AI Campus) and Johannes Schaback (CTO of SumUp) to share with us a broad overview of what CTOs need to know about upcoming AI revolution. Turns out, we aren’t waiting for AGI - we are working on Transformative AI...
Trust your intuition, you will gain a lot from this CTO podcast featuring Jason Fried, co-founder and CEO of 37signals, a company known for having groundbreaking policies and products (Basecamp, HEY, Once, etc.). He is also a bootstrapping hero and author of multiple books (Getting Real, REWORK, REMOTE, It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work). Listen to find out: - Intuitive🔮 over ‘data-driven’ 🔢decision making - Hook 🪝 vs Towel Rail 🎏: The Power of Simple, Versatile Products - CEO-CTO Relation...
Lead a more humane and effective organisation with inspiration from Matthew Skelton, co-author of Team Topologies. Inspired by system design💠, cybernetics🤖 and neuroscience 🧠, Team Topologies allows CTOs to structure their teams in a more humane way that reduces cognitive load 🤯 while increasing user value 🎯. Listen to find out: - Value Flow💦: What, why and how to find it - Team Topologies🪢: The 3 team types,1 grouping, and 3 interaction modes - Why Continuous Stewardship 🛞 is important ...
Embrace the Site Reliability Mindset with Alex Ewerlöf, Sr. Staff Engineer @ Volvo Cars 🚗 and SRE thought leader. Understand how the different aspects of site reliability work together 🪢 and when you need a DevOps vs. Platform Team vs. SRE. Find out how to set your own Service Level Indicators (SLI), Service Level Objectives (SLO), and Service Level Agreements (SLA), as laid out by the creator of the Service Level Calculator. Listen to find out: - SRE 👷 vs. DevOps ⚒️ vs. Platform Engineering�...
Let’s become better Multipliers ✖️ in this CTO Podcast featuring Pat Kua, former CTO of N26 who by popular request now helps CTOs Level Up themselves and their teams. As a sought-after expert in helping ICs transition to leadership roles, Pat shares leadership gems with CTOs. Listen to find out: - Why you should fly high 🕊️and dive deep 🤿 - Why even ICs need leadership skills 🧑💻 - Maker⚒️ to Multiplier🌬️: What you need to unlearn when you move into management. - How to communicate: CRY Pri...
Discover the power of radical transparency🧐 with Charles Gorintin, CTO of Alan (a French InsurTech) and founding force behind Mistral. He may work in a regulated space, but there is nothing typical about Alan’s setup when it comes to internal matters. Public Salary Framework ✅Searchable Board Meetings ✅4 Managers for 90 FTE✅ Listen to find out: - Why the Manager Role is split into Leads🧑💻 and Coaches 🪔 - How Transparent Compensation 💸works with public Salary Levels and Performance Reviews ...
Become a better CTO/CPTO with these insights from David Gebhardt, CTO (and former CPTO) of mobile.de (Germany’s largest car vehicle marketplace). Originally the Head of Tech, David evolved into CPTO, eventually leading the 400-strong Product +Tech teams before evolving business needs led him to bring on a CPO and go back to being ‘just’ the CTO (“only” 250 people). He shares why in this great CTO podcast. Listen to find out: - Why he went from CTO to CTPO and back 🤔 - Self-Efficacy as CTO ✅: Ho...
Let’s hack cybersecurity in 2024 with Melanie Rieback, Co-founder & CEO of Radically Open Security, the world’s first not-for-profit cybersecurity consultancy with a focus on PenTesting🔏. Melanie is on a mission to fix cybersecurity consulting by putting people before profits and empowering internal teams “how to fish” 🎣. Tune in to hear about the current cybersecurity landscape from the person who not only authored a viral RFID paper (“Is Your Cat Infected with a Computer Virus?”), but also P...
Embrace the technical side 🔧 of the CTO role with Allan Leinwand, CTO of Webflow 🖱️ who has combined technical know-how with great products on every layer of the OSI Model: from setting up HP’s first ethernet, CISCO’s early networks, building the world’s first CDN at Digital Island, and continuing up the stack to enterprise cloud ☁️ (ServiceNow), social gaming 🎮 (zynga), communications 💬 (Slack), eCommerce 🛒 (Shopify) and now webdesign 🎨(Webflow). Listen to find out; - Why deep technical...
Want to become a better manager? Then manage yourself better! From managing the time you spend managing, and all the way to managing how you give your team new tasks... Let's get real with Johanna Rothman, whom they don’t call the Pragmatic Manager for nothing. You will love her straight-talking approach to management. After almost 40 years in management, she can boil down things to sharp principles that will make you either hand pump💯, shoot the link to your buddy🤣… or smile sheepishly🫣. Yip...
