Introduction

5min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

John Michel Lemieux is formerly the CTO of Shopify and VP of Engineering at Atlassian. He recently published an article saying that 50% of an organization's R&D spend should be spent on platform work. We discuss why John Michel sees platform teams as an anti-pattern, how he suggests advocating for platform work, and how he decides which projects to fund. For this episode, we tried something new where we asked people on LinkedIn to submit questions for John Michel in advance. Abi Noda: How do you define what platform work is actually referring to? John Michel: I think a lack of shared understanding of what that means.

Jean-Michel Lemieux, former CTO of Shopify and VP of Engineering at Atlassian, explains how to advocate for investing in platform work, which projects to fund, and what distinguishes a great platform leader.

—

Discussion points:

(1:38) Jean-Michel’s definition of platform work

(6:44) Why reliability, performance, and stability do fall within platform work

(7:24) The consequences of lacking a product mindset in platform

(9:20) Why and how to advocate for investing 50% of R&D spend in platform work

(12:31) How Jean-Michel arrived at 50% as the percentage of R&D spend that should be allocated to platform

(16:09) Jean-Michel’s experiences with different levels of investment in platform work

(21:59) What percentage of platform investment should go towards keep the lights on work

(24:01) Whether the allocation changes at different company stages

(27:05) Why platform work is consistently underinvested in

(29:00) Why having a platform team could be an anti-pattern

(32:32) How to advocate for this work to leaders

(35:35) What it looks like to over-invest in platform work

(40:03) How to decide which initiatives to invest in

(47:41) Making build vs buy decisions in platform work

(49:58) What distinguishes a great platform leader

—

Mentions and links:
Follow Jean-Michel Lemieux on LinkedIn and Twitter
Abi’s post that sourced many of the questions discussed in this conversation
Jean-Michel’s book chapter on platform investments
Jean-Michel’s definition of what platform work is
The podcast episode on what Shopify expects of managers