Technology
**alphalist.CTO Podcast – For CTOs and Technical Leaders**

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.

Latest Episodes:

#88 - Luca Rossi // Creator @ refactoring.club 🌀 Nov 02, 2023

Show notes

Time Management + Continuous Learning Tips for CTO

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 structure one's time and effectively harvest the plethora of ideas published online into action.
Listen to find out:

What is the flaw in the 'State of Flow"?🌊
Why CTOs should write more ✍️
How he structures his day 🌞
Should CTOs be generalists?🤔
How he organises his tech leadership 'news clippings' 🗂️ Tobi getting real 🫣 about recurring 1:1s

BROUGHT TO YOU BY: codecentric, instaffo and WorkGenius

Timestamps (approx..) (00:00:00) What is the alphalist CTO podcasts? (00:02:23) Who is Luca? (00:03:40) - (00:06:23) Luca's Journey to Full-Time Writing (00:06:24) The Growth of the Refactoring Newsletter (00:07:05) Staying in-the-know when no longer an active CTO (00:09:27) How Luca got into Computing (00:11:11) Wanderio as a Italian Startup (hyperlocal) (00:13:39) New CTO Job? Don't refactor everything (00:18:09) The Rise of the Generalist CTO (00:21:09) How Luca Stays Up to Date on Tech Trends (00:22:19) Why Luca Prefers Newsletters (00:23:26) How to organise ideas from content (00:24:50) Structuring His Day (00:26:41) Finding Your Unique Angle and Voice (00:29:01) Productivity Techniques for Solo Work (00:31:21) Overriding Time Boxes (00:31:41) Flaw in the 'State of Flow' (00:30:27) Time Management Tools (00:31:48) Can CTOs Timebox? (00:33:42) Recurring Meetings (00:35:27) Too Many 1-on-1s? (00:36:39) Curriculum of a CTO School (00:39:57) 3 Tips for CTOs (00:40:44) Which Engineering Metrics (00:45:31) A CTO is a Maker (00:46:35) Share your Thoughts Online (00:47:56) Advice To Younger Self

About our sponsors

codecentric

The codecentric Culture and Career Podcast is unique for a company podcast. It is just employees talking freely about their daily life - from IT consulting projects they are working to imposter syndrome. We support this because we think it's pretty cool that codecentric simply lets the colleagues talk about everything, no matter what it's about - project business, Imposter sydrome, further education or parental leave in the consulting business. For us it is definitely worth a recommendation. Listen in - the codecentric Culture and Career Podcast. Note - its in German. Just go to: www.link.alphalist.com/cc

instaffo

Instaffo is a recruiting platform that allows you to hire tech talent in less than 25 days. It is loved by over 600 companies - including HelloFresh, Amazon, and MyPoster.

By leveraging sophisticated matchmaking and allowing you to chat directly with pre-qualified tech talent right on the platform they’ve made the hiring process 3X more effective. From ‘Matched’ to ‘Chat’ in one go.

While classic job portals, in-house active sourcing and headhunters give you the headache of paying upfront, having high setup efforts and dealing with 30% hiring fees, with Instaffo this now history for you.

As an alphalist listener, you get to enjoy the Instaffo recruiting platform absolutely free until you find that perfect hire.

Already over 2.000 tech talents and companies are connected weekly on instaffo, so what are you waiting for? Go to https://instaffo.com/cto to get started.

WorkGenius

Tired of sifting through countless resumes and struggling to find the right tech talent? Look no further! WorkGenius has just acquired Expertlead, known for its innovation in matching tech freelancers with top-tier companies and offering peer-to-peer live coding assessments. Now, they bring even more efficiency to your hiring process. Whether you're a startup or an established enterprise, WorkGenius is now here to turbocharge your hiring process. Say goodbye to the guesswork and endless interviews. WorkGenius matches your candidates experienced senior developers and puts them through tailored, enjoyable, and fair technical interviews. Your company will get the cream of the crop - the most sought-after talents in the industry- while saving your hardworking Tech and HR teams valuable time. Start your journey with WorkGenius - head over to https://link.alphalist.com/work connect with an expert, and find the perfect match for your engineering needs.

#87 - Scott Chacon // Co-founder of GitHub and GitButler Oct 19, 2023

Show notes

The Future of Version Control Systems

Reimagine version control systems with Scott Chacon, Co-founder of GitHub and GitButler. Because, even Scott, a Git Veteran, will admit it:

Git is a pain sometimes. 🫣

There is a serious Merge Conflict ⚔️ between how modern developers code and the workflow ordained by Git in the Linux mailing list days.
Version Control Systems (VCS) need to be taken apart by First Principles 🧩 so they can be better adapted to the needs of modern software teams. And this is the branch he is busy with at GitButler 🔧 - which he invited us to checkout.

Pull this episode to find out:

Is the Git Protocol still useful? Does it just need a better client? 🤔
How to maximize the benefits of centralized version control systems 🫀
Can we stream🚿 our code and commit less?
T180 calculator hacks Is there life beyond merge conflicts? 🌈 😅 Listen here to find out.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY: codecentric and WorkGenius

TIMESTAMPS

(00:00) - Intro (02:51) - T180 calculator hacks (05:12) - How Ruby and Git made GitHub (07:00) - Bootstrapping GitHub (07:37) - Monetizing GitHub (08:29) - GitHub’s early days (11:55) - Move to Berlin (13:17) - Scott's passion for teaching (14:46) - How he got back into version control (15:30) - Rethinking the fundamentals of Git (18:19) - Enhancing peer review processes (19:13) - Methods to improve commit (22:16) - The Git Protocol: Revamp or introduce a better client? (24:50) - Why did Pull Request not become part of Git? (26:06) - Innovating Git's virtual branching mechanism (27:52) - The integration branch (29:07) - Challenges of Introducing previews to the workflow (31:38) - How a better Git desktop client will improve things (32:32) - The potential of streaming code (33:35) - Decentralized vs. Centralized VCS: The central point of contact (38:51) - Shifting left - aligning earlier - before you commit (42:29) - Changing lives with a DevTool (43:30) - AI-driven insights in a VCS (45:45) - Rebase vs. Merge vs. ? (47:10) Productivity Hack (52:00) - Advice for Younger Self

codecentric

WorkGenius

#86 - Leading Through A Layoff // feat. Mike Fisher - Former CTO @ Etsy Oct 05, 2023

Show notes

Leading Through A LayOff: How to downsize nicely

Is there a nice way to downsize? Mike Fisher, former CTO of Etsy, shares what he learned when the company downscaled by 27% in 2 rounds of layoffs right before he joined. Find out how you can help your team navigate this sensitive period - both pre- and post-layoff.

How much time⏳ you lose in a layoff (the productivity cost of layoff)
Why you can’t expect to cut costs ✂️ AND grow
Why Availability 🟢 needs to be prioritised as you downsize
Layoffing off Generalists vs. Specialists 🧑‍🔬
How they migrated to the cloud ☁️ Listen here BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Storyblok and WorkGenius

TIMESTAMPS:

(0:00:00) - Intro (0:02:43) - West Point to General Electric to Etsy (0:08:11) - Downsizing's Impact on Employee Morale (0:09:11) - Knowledge Transfer (0:10:13) - Post Layoff Attrition (0:11:40) - How Being a Monolith Helped (0:13:30) - Cloud Migration (0:15:28) - Lift and Shift vs. Kubernetes (0:18:33) - How a new project helped heal (0:19:30) - The Time Costs of LayOffs (0:22:05) - You can't expect to cut costs and grow (0:24:35) - Impact of where the team was cut (0:26:30) - Advice for CTOs about to lay off (0:27:02) - Transparency During Downsizing (0:28:00) - NB: Watch out for Availability (0:31:12) - Layoffs and Stock Prices (0:33:00) - Short Term and Long Term Planning (0:33:40) - 3X Framework and Product Lifecycle Phases (0:35:00) - Laying Off R & D: Specialists vs. Generalists (0:36:24) - The Dedicated FinOps Team (40:02:58) - Keeping up your Knowledge Network

Storyblok

Does your current CMS hinder agile development and deployment?

Storyblok is a cloud-native API-first CMS that minimizes technical dependencies, enables your development team to create frontends with whatever technology they already know, and your business users to create content only once and publish on multiple platforms. There are numbers to back this up: Storyblok cuts down development time by 50% and provides 582%ROI over 3 years, a study by Forrester found.

Go get a free demo of Storyblok and learn how it can improve your speed to market.Just go to: https://link.alphalist.com/cms

WorkGenius

#85 - Thomas Dohmke // CEO @ GitHub Sep 21, 2023

Show notes

The AI-Driven Future of Software Development, Scaling, and the Open Source

git checkout the future of software development with Thomas Dohmke, CEO of GitHub. This broad podcast discusses everything from refactoring and scaling to the CTO/CEO role, from open source to AI as a Dev Tool. Every day Thomas delves into the development of software development - so his 🧠 was a great brain to pick.

Listen to find out:

Why refactoring 🧩 will always be a part of growth (but AI will help)
What was it like being integrated ☂️ into Microsoft post-M&A
What are GitHub’s current challenges 👷

Listen here BROUGHT TO YOU BY: WorkGenius and Storyblok

TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Intro 03:18 from East Germany to Silivon Valley 04:36 Ruby 06:29 From Software Developer to Founder 07:35 What happens after Microsoft aquires a company 10:45 Microsoft’s DevTools Ecosystem 12:18 Power of the Open Source 15:36 What has changed in the last 20 years 18:09 GitHub’s vision 18:51 Refactoring Legacy Code with Generative AI 25:42 DevOps and Deploying GenAI code 29:31 The Futility of Focussing on a Scalability in Earlydays Startup 32:59 What Challenges Are Being Worked art GitHub right now? 34:2o SrategyL Ideas and challefs 34:43 The Role of GitHub CEO 38:42 The generalist role of a CTO 41:57 Being a Tech Leader of DevTool 45:26 Mentorship and Inspiration (Steve Jobs) 48:09 ChatGPT

51:51 Advice to Younger Self as German Techie

OUR SPONSORS WorkGenius Tired of sifting through countless resumes and struggling to find the right tech talent? Look no further! WorkGenius has just acquired Expertlead, known for its innovation in matching tech freelancers with top-tier companies and offering peer-to-peer live coding assessments. Now, they bring even more efficiency to your hiring process. Whether you're a startup or an established enterprise, WorkGenius is now here to turbocharge your hiring process. Say goodbye to the guesswork and endless interviews. WorkGenius matches your candidates experienced senior developers and puts them through tailored, enjoyable, and fair technical interviews. Your company will get the cream of the crop - the most sought-after talents in the industry- while saving your hardworking Tech and HR teams valuable time. Start your journey with WorkGenius - head over to https://link.alphalist.com/work connect with an expert, and find the perfect match for your engineering needs.

Storyblok Does your current CMS hinder agile development and deployment?

Go get a free demo of Storyblok and learn how it can improve your speed to market.Just go to: https://link.alphalist.com/cms

#84 - Abi Noda // Co-Creator of the DevEx Metrics Framework Sep 07, 2023

Show notes

DX: The Developer Metrics that Unlock Developer Productivity

Find out the best way to measure Developer Experience 🧑‍💻in a way that truly enables ⚡ your developers (i.e. Developer Productivity) in this CTO podcast with Abi Noda - co-creator of the DevEx Framework and founder of Pull Panda. For years Abi has been on a quest to discover what developer metrics are the key to happier and more productive developers. He tried PR Analytics (he created Pull Panda🐼 - acquired by GitHub) and DORA, before teaming up with other Developer Productivity researchers 🧑‍🔬 to create a new framework which focuses on improving developer experience (DevEx) to improve productivity.

Listen to find out:

Why do companies measure Developer Productivity? 🤷(from both CTO and developer perspective)
How to survey your developers? (Sampling, Frequency and Length)📝
How DORA is done wrong in most companies
Why he prefers bootstrapping -🥾 but got a unique type of funding for his 4th company.

Listen here TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 Introduction 05:09 His Bootstrapping Inspiration 06:29 When investment is good 09:07 Why measure developer productivity? 13:28 Pull Analytics Approach 16:47 How it backfired at GitHub 17:13 Companies Misuse of Data 19:01 Why DORA didn’t work 20:40 'Shiny New Object Syndrome' 22:10 The right and wrong way to do DORA 24:39 How Developer Metrics have Evolved 33:28 Small Teams and Measuring DX 34:32 Measuring DX in larger companies 36:09 Creating a survey (frequency, length, and sampling) 41:21 Honesty in survey responses 43:48 Tips for getting started

BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Storyblok and WorkGenius

Storyblok Does your current CMS hinder agile development and deployment?

Go get a free demo of Storyblok and learn how it can improve your speed to market.Just go to: https://link.alphalist.com/cms

WorkGenius WorkGenius provides a unique freelance hiring and management solution that covers the entire process from start to finish. We use advanced technology to make it easier and faster for businesses to find skilled freelancers who have been thoroughly vetted. With WorkGenius, you get a comprehensive solution for managing freelancers throughout their engagement. We simplify the hiring process, project management, payroll, and reporting, allowing organizations to make the most of their freelance talent pool and effortlessly manage their existing freelancers. Start your journey with WorkGenius - head over to www.workgenius.com/alphalist connect with an expert, and find the perfect match for your engineering needs.

#83 - Aviran Mordo // VP Engineering @ Wix Aug 25, 2023

Show notes

The Wix Guild model, Mentorship and Platform-as-a- Runtime

Get inspired about architecture - that of computers and teams - in this CTO podcast with Aviran Mordo, VP Engineering at Wix. I really enjoyed talking with Aviran about both the technical nitty gritty of powering millions of websites as well as the Wix model which - unlike the Spotify model - is still in use at its flagship company over a decade later Listen to find out:

How the Wix model works 🪗(+ hiring, personal development and communication across guilds and companies)
What is Platform-as-a-Runtime 🚄
Why most microservices 🪢 are done wrong (and are costing you money)
How to encourage mentorship 🫶
The infra that powers 7% of the web

Listen here

- Timestamps 2:10 Aviran’s Personal Journey 9:43 Wix secret sauce 12:26 Cost effective serverless environments for millions of customers. 14:58 The Wix Tech Stack 16:00 The mission to iimprove developer experience 17:00 How people do microservices wrong
21:50 Platform as a Runtime 32:00 The Wi Guild model 35:37 Aligning decisions across internal ‘companies’ 38:40 The Operational Guild Model 54:49 Improving the Guilds through Feedback + KPI of Guilds 1:00:24 Mentorship in the Org 1:06:15 Working on his networking skills

BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Storyblok, Zoho and codecentric

Storyblok Does your current CMS hinder agile development and deployment?

Go get a free demo of Storyblok and learn how it can improve your speed to market.Just go to: https://link.alphalist.com/cms

Zoho

You have probably heard of Zoho. They have been around for 27 years and now offer an all-in-one platform with over 50 mission-critical apps that offer everything from sales to marketing and HR to accounting. All in one platform- connecting the entire enterprise, ensuring communication between departments.

But its the user privacy that Zoho offers that makes it stand out. Not only do they not make money by using your data for advertising, but they also have EU datacenters which is a huge win for GDPR compliance

See for yourself. Come to their user conference, named Zoholics on 26th and 27th of September 2023 in Cologne, where you can sit down with experts and get to know the people behind the software. Plus, you get 25% off with the promo code OMR_CTO. Just go to: www.link.alphalist.com/zoho

codecentric

#82 - Gertrud Kolb // CTO @ Eyeo Aug 10, 2023

Show notes

How to restructure a large tech and product organisation

Find out how to restructure your org using a matrix structure with Gertrud Kolb, CTO of eyeo (the company behind common adblockers). You will find out how Gertrud implemented changes across an already large organisation - from the team typologies to team communications. Listen to find out:

How to restructure using team topology 🧩best practices in a large organisation.
How to improve requirements engineering ✅
How to gradually consolidate team communications 💬
How ad-blockers are working advertisers to enable privacy-friendly 🎯 targeting
Behind-the-scenes at the world’s most popular adblocker Listen here

BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Zoho

Timestamps

(1:58) - Gertrud’s Nerd Journey (8:24) - Restructuring your org with Team Topologies (15:04) - Working in an interdisciplinary & cross team way (16:00) - Navigating interdependencies with multiple products, teams and interests
(21:55) - Inside Eyeo’s Matrix Organization (24:09) - Integrating new companies into the org (28:13) - Consolidating Communication Tools (33:02) - The tech behind ad blocking (41:26) - The move to Ad Filtering

#81 - Teresa Torres // Author of 'Continuous Discovery Habits' Jul 27, 2023

Show notes

How to do continuous product discovery sustainably and as a team

Find out how to do continuous product discovery with Teresa Torres who has taught over 12,000 people how to sustainably infuse their daily product decisions with customer input. You will find out why product should not be just a job title, but a mindset that the entire C-suite needs to share.

Listen to find out:

What is an outcome-orientated mindset? Do we need OKRs?✅
How to build a continuous feedback loop with customers 🪢
Business success 👔 vs product discovery success 🫶
What mistakes people make with product discovery 🕵️
The pitfalls of founder-led product 🤳 (and how to avoid them)

Listen here

BROUGHT TO YOU BY: WorkGenius

WorkGenius provides a unique freelance hiring and management solution that covers the entire process from start to finish. We use advanced technology to make it easier and faster for businesses to find skilled freelancers who have been thoroughly vetted. With WorkGenius, you get a comprehensive solution for managing freelancers throughout their engagement. We simplify the hiring process, project management, payroll, and reporting, allowing organizations to make the most of their freelance talent pool and effortlessly manage their existing freelancers. Start your journey with WorkGenius - head over to www.workgenius.com/alphalist connect with an expert, and find the perfect match for your engineering needs.

#80 - Sarah Polan // Field CTO @ Hashicorp Jul 13, 2023

Show notes

Platform Engineering 101: Why you need it and how to do it

Find out how to use platform engineering to scale your DevOps 🚀with this hands-on podcast with Sarah Polan, Field CTO at HashiCorp. Sarah is passionate about 2 things: DevSecOps 🔏 and automating everything 🔁 (she even automates aspects of her childcare :)). Which is why this podcast episode is all about scalability 📈 - from attrition-proof DevOps to automated audits. This is a must-listen podcast for both CTOs who are new to Platform Engineering as well as those who are troubleshooting from the trenches. Listen to find out:

Why do we need platform engineering?🤔 From financial benefits to DevEx.
Is DevOps dead? Why platform teams is the only scalable way to do DevOps
How to get your platform and application teams to work together 🪢?
How to balance 🤹 autonomy and innovation with centralisation?
How to decide what to build at a platform level? 🧩 🏗 Does it differ by industry?

Listen here

BROUGHT TO YOU BY: WorkGenius

Chapters: 0:00:00 - Intro 0:00:50 - From Opera Singer to Secret Management to Scaling Infrastructure 0:03:27 - Coding and Music 0:04:40 - Nerding out about Secrets Management 0:07:36 - MomHack: Automating Childcare Notifications on WhatsApp with Twillio and Terraform 0:09:24 - Why we need Platform Engineering 0:10:00 - Why we need to attrition-proof DevOps with Platform Engineering 0:12:34 - Untangling Platform from Application: Teams, Tech Stack and Strategy 0:17:11 - People and Processes before Tech 0:19:07 - Goal of Platform Engineering by Industry 0:20:37 - Is DevOps Dead? How will DevOps roles evolve? 0:23:58 - Tech Strategy X Platform +Application Teams 0:27:13 - Getting Started with Platform Engineering 0:30:21 - Scaling Audits 0:37:50 - Do we over index on tech?

#79 - Dr. Steven Rogelberg // Author of "Glad We Met: The Art and Science of 1:1 Meetings" Jun 29, 2023

Show notes

How to Have Effective One-on-One (1:1) Meetings as a CTO

Did you know that effective 1:1s will 3X your employee engagement? 🤩 Maximise your 1:1 meetings 🤝 by leveraging the meeting science discovered by Steven Rogelberg (Chancellor's Professor at UNC Charlotte and author of 2 top-ranked books about meeting science: “The Surprising Science of Meetings” and “Glad We Met: The Art and Science of 1:1 Meetings”). As an organisational psychologist 🧑‍🔬who has advised US Congress 🏛️and Fortune100 companies on workplace matters, Steven is here to share with CTOs the evidence-based 🧐 science that will not only maximise meetings, but also realise their full potential🚀. Listen to find out:

How can we realise the full potential of a 1:1 when it comes to relationships and productivity? Where do async tools fit in?
What are common mistakes to avoid in your 1:1? 🫣
How often 🤔 should you meet with your direct reports? 🗓️
How do you evaluate 🧪 the quality of your 1:1s?
How many DRs 👥 can a person have? Can you delegate the 1:1?

Listen here

BROUGHT TO YOU BY: WorkGenius

Chapter Marks

(0:00:00) - Introduction
(0:04:23) - What is Organisational Pyschology
(0:08:00) - The Importance of One-on-One Meetings
(0:09:55) - Common Mistakes to Avoid in One-on-One Meetings
(0:10:09) - Who should own the 1:1?
(0:11:07) - Ideal Frequency for One-on-One meetings
(0:12:29) - The Ideal Agenda of a 1:1
(0:14:00) - How to run a 1:1 as a leader? How do you solve problems in a 1:1?
(0:16:00) - How to optimise your time with multiple direct reports? Can you delegate?
(0:18:52) - Leveraging asynchronous tools for meetings
(0:20:45) - Why do people need 1:1s?
(0:21:34) - How 1:1s save you time
(0:22:08) - Evaluating the Quality of a One-on-One
(0:26:15) - What surprised him the most about 1:1s
(0:27:00) - How to open a 1:1 meeting
(0:28:00) - Do senior employees need 1:1 meetings?
(0:29:02) - How to build trust