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...
Feb 07, 2025•1 hr 9 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jan 22, 2025•1 hr 3 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jan 09, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Ep 115•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Dec 19, 2024•41 min•Ep 114•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Dec 05, 2024•50 min•Ep 113•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Nov 21, 2024•49 min•Ep 112•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Nov 07, 2024•56 min•Ep 111•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Oct 24, 2024•53 min•Ep 110•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Oct 17, 2024•39 min•Ep 109•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Sep 30, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Ep 108•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Sep 13, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Ep 107•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Aug 30, 2024•49 min•Ep 106•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Aug 16, 2024•51 min•Ep 105•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Aug 01, 2024•59 min•Ep 104•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jul 18, 2024•53 min•Ep 103•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Jul 04, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Ep 102•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
May 16, 2024•58 min•Ep 101•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
May 03, 2024•58 min•Ep 100•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Apr 18, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Ep 99•Transcript available on Metacast 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�...
Apr 05, 2024•54 min•Ep 98•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Mar 14, 2024•50 min•Ep 97•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ...
Feb 29, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Ep 96•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Feb 15, 2024•55 min•Ep 95•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Feb 01, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Ep 94•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jan 18, 2024•53 min•Ep 93•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Jan 04, 2024•57 min•Ep 92•Transcript available on Metacast Empower your team with the right type of autonomy 🚀 as we define the balance in this CTO podcast with Andy Walker, who has years of experience leadings teams at Skyscanner and Google. After 30 years in tech, Andy finally has the time to share what his hard won insights about tech leadership. You will enjoy his nuanced approach to autonomous teams, team size and work-life balance. Listen to find out: Why the more senior you are, the less decisions you should make 🤔 How to give the right amount ...
Dec 14, 2023•47 min•Ep 91•Transcript available on Metacast Invest your engineering resources better by truly understanding the core problem your product needs to solve with this CTO podcast featuring Bob Moesta, co-architect of the Jobs to be Done Theory. As an engineer-turned-product-guru, Bob’s explanation of Product Discovery will delight your nerd brain 🧠 (complete with references to set theory, push-pull forces, and the problem space) while being super practical 🔧about the challenges CTOs are dealing with (like scope creep and tradeoffs). Listen ...
Nov 30, 2023•47 min•Ep 90•Transcript available on Metacast Craft the ideal product strategy in this CTO podcast episode with Melissa Perri, author of “Escaping the Build Trap” and “Product Operations”.Find out how to become truly product-led: from your strategy to your metrics to your tooling. Listen to find out: - How to balance qualitative 😍 and quantitative data 🧪 in product - Were the mass layoffs caused by overhiring? 🫠Is it a natural part of growth or can companies avoid over scaling? - What does the ideal product strategy 🎯look like? - What i...
Nov 16, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Ep 89•Transcript available on Metacast Stay on top of your professional development with these learning and productivity tips from Luca Rossi, whose refactoring.club newsletter 🌀 is read by 50k subscribers every week. After scaling Wanderio to 25M users 🚀 as founding CTO, Luca sat down to distill his experiences and in the process created the tech leadership content 📰 he so badly needed. With diagrams. 🖼️ In this alphalist CTO podcast, Luca shares what he has learned about leadership - including the self-leadership needed to stru...
Nov 02, 2023•52 min•Ep 88•Transcript available on Metacast 
