Venturi's Voice: Technology | Leadership | Staffing | Career | Innovation

Chris Grice is an Engineering Manager within the Order and Fulfil team at Sainsbury's Tech. Previous to Sainsbury's, Chris has worked in 3rd sector organisations, web agencies, radio, and now retail. During the podcast episode, we spoke about the logistics involved with planning an infrastructure with so many moving parts, the technology involved with staying ahead of the curve in one of the largest chain of supermarkets in the UK. As the business is ever-scaling, how does the tech team at Sainsbury's keep up with developments and changes in the technology world, to ensure the business is always progressing to meet consumer needs and demands, which is especially challenging during remote working and a pandemic. Chris also volunteers at a local Code Club, and has worked with local schools and LEAs to help bridge the digital skills gap in Greater Manchester, and also runs a local Meetup group around GraphQL in Manchester, with speakers from organisations such as the BBC, Hasura, and Moonpig. Showtimes 0:55 - Chris's role as an Engineering Manager at Sainsbury's 1:34 - How the logistics of the business has changed in recent years to keep up with consumer demands 2:40 - Chris's personal career history and journey into retail 5:27 - The dramatic acceleration of scale during the pandemic 6:24 - Remote working and the experimentation when implementing it into the business 9:30 - How tech and digital works in a 150-year-old organisation 10:40 - Experimenting with new tech to stay ahead of the curve 15:03 - Chris's involvement with digital education 17:41 - Raising awareness of what a career in tech actually is 19:43 - Future-proofing the tech industry 22:14 - Advice for people looking to get into the tech industry

Currently, Jared Sheehan leads a dynamic Mobile Software Engineering organization for the Capital One Credit Card Line of Business. He is accountable for the delivery of 20+ teams supporting the Capital One flagship mobile applications (iOS / Android / Cloud). Additionally, Jared is an organizer / founder of 6 DC area meetups, multiple conferences (DevFestDC and Android Summit) and an extensive history of supporting the startup ecosystem through membership to several advisory boards. Joni Pepin is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, and spent 22 years in a variety of combat arms and combat service support positions before transitioning to the commercial tech space. He served as a communications officer specializing in designing and operating large-scale tactical networks before joining the U.S. Naval Academy as a military professor in the Dept of Computer Science. Joni now leads teams of mobile engineers in the development of Capital One's flagship apps used by over 22 million people. Joni is also an avid member of the developer community and organizes the DC Android, DC Flutter and DC Kotlin Meetups. During the podcast, we spoke about building and maintaining a startup community, the increasing importance of this, and creating a supportive ecosystem. Jared and Joni run many tech meetups, be sure to check out devcommunity.org to get involved and see what's coming up!

Kevin Jolly is Head of Data and Advanced Analytics at Wunderflats, a Data-driven strategist, leader & author based in Berlin, Germany. As a member of senior leadership, Kevin leads the data & advanced analytics practice & design data-driven / Machine Learning solutions for Germany's leading marketplace platform for furnished homes. "The world creates data at an exponential rate. I harness, shape & derive value from this data through a structured process that combines design thinking & foundational people management skills to enable strategic decision making that drives transformational change." Kevin Jolly During the Podcast we spoke about Machine Learning in Wunderflats as a scale-up from BI, and the strategy involved in this process. Showtimes 1:00 - Where Wunderflats fits into the world of tech. 3:55 - How Wunderflats has scaled up from Business Intelligence using Machine Learning. 7:14 - Where Kevin finds resources for inspiration with Machine Learning. 10:50 - What people overestimate about ML. 15:45 - How Kevin Looks into data objectively. 17:11 - How Kevin stays productive for long periods of time. 24:00 - The plans Wunderflats has to scale the business over the coming years. 26:30 - Final words of advice from Kevin.

Sam Moore is Principal Engineer at Betterment. Betterment is a smart money manager offering everyday cash management, savings plans, and goals. Sam and his team at Betterment have recently decided to migrate from their existing native code to Flutter. As Betterment has taken the shift to 'mobile-first' Sam gives some amazing insight on how this has worked at scale, and how they have strategized the integration. This is a big decision for any business, so we hear what made Sam decide to make the change to Flutter, its benefits, and some of the pitfalls to be aware of along the way. We also discuss how to enthuse your fellow engineers about the migration to Flutter. Flutter is a UI toolkit created by Google for building beautiful, natively compiled applications for mobile, web, and desktop from a single codebase. Showtimes 0:45 - Insight into Betterment and the service they provide. 3:00 - What the role of Principal Engineer entails. 5:18 - The migration to Flutter at Betterment and its benefits. 9:50 - The challenges involved in making the switch to Flutter. 12:05 - The thought process before making the switch. 17:14 - Bringing in and working along side David DeRemer's team from Very Good Ventures. 17:52 - The Mobile engineer's apprehensive response to migrating to flutter. 25:53 - The phenomenal statistics surrounding Flutter. 32:00 - Investing in a native feature manager and an embedded Flutter feature manager. 36:50 - Establishing the process that works for you, your team, and objectives.

Dan Leonardis is Software Engineering Manager at American Express. Dan is a proven leader across Android and iOS platforms, has worked on android applications since 2009 and iOS since 2013. He has worked in all roles that are required to build successful applications, including building distributed systems, whether it's user experience, design, architecture, development or web services. Currently, Dan leads a team of engineers in developing new products, both personally and professionally. Being an effective leader is an essential part of running a successful business. Finding an effective leadership style that works best for you and your team may bring your business one step closer to success. However, there are many ways to be a great leader, you can choose and develop a leadership style that works for you, your team and your business goals. Leadership styles can vary hugely, so it's imperative that you understand your approach to maintain levels of productivity and fulfillment from your team. In the podcast, we discuss the difference between being a leader and being a manager, and some of the most important aspects of being a great leader.

Adeel Ejaz is Head of Technology at PrettyLittleThing. Adeel is a hands-on technology leader, with over 14 years of experience with product and technical leadership. He has held high-impact senior development and technical leadership roles, empowering global organizations across B2B, healthcare, and retail industries to achieve rapid growth through strategic business planning, process improvements, and technical management. In recent times, consumerism has changed dramatically, from physical brick-and-mortar to online shopping. This shift has put a huge demand and strain on eCommerce and fast-fashion platforms, and they're being pushed to their limits. In the podcast episode, we discuss how Adeel and his team have prepared for such a dramatic scale in business and popularity. Showtimes 0:50 - The service PrettyLittleThing Provides. 2:00 - Adeel's role as Head of Technology and what that entails. 2:20 - Building and Innovating for the future. 4:45 - Adeel's career and how he has worked his way to Head of Technology. 8:20 - Mapping out the future to work with the scale of the business. 9:20 - How PrettyLittleThing and the huge tech team has adapted to the pandemic. 12:20 - Remote working at scale. 15:45 - How marketing drives the business and the relationship with marketing and tech. 20:20 - The challenge of constantly re-inventing and looking to the horizon. 28:40 - Still remaining hands-on with technology as Head of Tech. 29:30 - Advice for people looking to get into the tech industry.

Nico Cortés is Talent Acquisition Specialist at Railsbank. Railsbank is a banking and compliance platform. It is a B2B company that connects a network of banks, financial institutions and compliance providers to companies that want to integrate global banking into their app or business. They have set out to make it super simple to access financial services by giving "access to global banking with 5 lines of code". Nico gives us some amazing advice for fellow Recruiters and an insight into the reason why Railsbank is so successful and why creating robust and dedicated teams is so powerful in any business. Making teamwork one of Railsbank's core company values, and a clear emphasis on self-managing teams that are empowered by great leaders to make their own decisions to achieve their personal and company goals. Showtimes 0:45 - What Railsbank provides as a Fintec service. 1:50 - Access to global banking with 5 lines of code! 2:30 - Nico's role and career history in Recruitment. 4:12 - How the business has grown, despite Covid. 5:30 - What the reason is for the success of Railsbank. 7.46 - Creating strong teams and strategies to ensure success is imperative. 8:35 - The culture at Railsbank. 10:44 - Reading body language during an interview over video conferencing. 14:44 - Transparency in recruitment 15:30 - The undervalued and overlooked skills in the industry. 20:00 - Recruiters' time is precious. 21:30 - Advice for people starting out in recruitment. 24:00 - Where Nico looks to for inspiration and other resources he relies on. 28:00 - Learning the hard way, is the best way - taking positives from negative situations. 29:45 - The future of Railsbank.

Shahzaib Muneeb is Head of Development at Genflow, and Zamen Akbar is Head of People at Genflow. Genflow partners with influencers to help them build their own business and sell products to their audience. They work closely with clients to determine what products will sell the best for them according to their audience and analytics. They are a team of business managers who manage everything from product design, manufacturing, shipping, fulfilment, marketing, ads and the overall launch and strategy of the business. They have helped clients sell thousands of products worldwide, achieve millions (£) in sales, and ultimately build a long-lasting profitable business. Showtimes 0:45 - What Genflow does as a business and the specific service they provide to influencers. 1:25 - The history behind the concept. 3:00 - The development of the business and the different verticals that have been introduced over time. 5:20 - Preparing for the shifts in technology and in business. 7:40 - Where do you find new hires, and how do you ensure they're right for the business? 10:00 - How the recruitment process has changed during the pandemic. 15:22 - The unique culture at Genflow. 16:15 - The undervalued and overlooked skills in the industry. 18:40 - What do Genflow look for when recruiting. 23:45 - Advice for people looking to get into the industry. 26:35 - The future of Genflow and other avenues of the business.

Amy Boyd is an advisor to start-ups and the Engineering Manager at Formidable: a tech consultancy business that helps your team work smarter, by optimising your design and engineering practices and defining your software needs. Amy is a self-taught coder who has worked in the start-up industry for many years and helped a wide range of team sizes and sectors, meaning she is adaptable and her knowledge is particularly expansive. She has recently taken a break from start-ups to join Formidable full time. On the podcast, we speak about Amy's career, what she's learned along the way and some of the pitfalls to be aware of when navigating through your own career journey in tech. Being a self-taught coder and working across many disciplines of the industry, Amy has a breadth of knowledge in relation to managing a team, avoiding burnout, and how to approach members of your team who may be experiencing burnout. We also spoke about the pros and cons of the tech start-up world and some of the warning signs to look out for when joining a new start-up business. Showtimes 0:40 - Insight into the service Formidable provides. 1:21 - What has changed since we had Chris Bolin (also from Formidable) on the podcast. 2:20 - Amy's role as Engineering Manager at Formidable and what it entails. 3:40 - Amy's Career history, being a self-taught coder and working in a wide variety of different technical environments. 5:50 - The pros and cons of the start-up world, and the difference between start-up and consulting. 9:20 - The warning signs when joining a new start-up - what to look out for. 10:30 - The tech industry and the realities of burnout. 11:50 - How to work with limited resources. 14:40 - The importance of tracking to see if features are a success. 19:36 - Hiring people who are young and moldable. 23:19 - The resources Amy relies on to stay ahead of the curve in tech. 26:30 - How Amy keeps the joy of software engineering and keeping a team motivated. 31:00 - How to approach burnout amongst members of your tech team. 36:00 - Advice for people looking to get into the industry.

Markus Windisch is CTO and Founder of Peerox GmbH. Peerox GmbH develops assistance systems for machine operators and technicians that combine machine learning with human experience. Their mission is to use software solutions to make employee knowledge available company-wide at any time and according to the situation, and to achieve a new level of production efficiency through the exchange of information between colleagues and machines. Markus and the team at Peerox have a modern approach to business and culture: "We have to avoid big major mistakes but if we make no mistakes, we are too slow. This is how we develop our software and also how we communicate with our customers. Big customers are used to companies promising them everything is possible. We emphasize our strengths, but we are very open concerning our weaknesses and limits, this is a brave approach, but it has worked so far - we don't promise more than we can fulfill!" Showtimes 0:45 - What is Peerox and what's the motivation behind the company? 2:15 - How developments and processes have changed over time. 2:55 - How Peerox has grown and scaled in such a short space of time & the business model behind it. 5:00 - The unique business and strong error culture at Peerox. 6:10 - The benefits of maintaining an open and transparent with clients and customers. 7:50 - Markus' route into the software development industry. 10:35 - What Markus loves about the industry and Markus' motivation to keep learning. 13:25 - Finding inspiration and the value from resources that are not directly related to software engineering. 16:00 - How Peerox is preparing for the unforeseen technological developments in the next 5 or 10 years. 17:20 - How a cheap mechanical pencil has influenced Markus' work at Peerox. 20:40 - What concerns Markus about the industry. 22:55 - The importance of building a network and gaining feedback.