alphalist.CTO Podcast - For CTOs and Technical Leaders

How to Optimise your Web Performance for Speed Our next guest has a serious need for ⚡ speed ⚡! I spoke with Ilya Grigorik, Principal Engineer at Shopify, founder and former CTO of PostRank (acquired by Google), former co-chair of W3C Web Performance working group. Learn how to optimize your website for speed 💨 with tips from the web performance engineer who worked on Google’s ‘Make Web Faster’ team (y’know, the one that brought you Core Web Vitals and Page Speed Insights). Listen to find out: Why every CTO needs how mobile networks operate 📲 before building anything mobile. How to use perceptual latency 👁️ to your advantage What features you should be using to #MakeTheWebFaster ⏩ How Shopify is pivoting to serve developers with its new Hydrogen and Oxygen frameworks. Why headless eCommerce isn’t actually head-less - it's got many heads (omnichannel). Listen here BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Valantic Valantic Deciding on the right eCommerce software for your company is tough. There are so many options available out there -each with its own implementation complexities. Valantic is a technology-agnostic service provider for the eCommerce industry that helps you to find the right solution for the job. They are experts in over 70% of the available technologies so you can be assured they will find the ideal product for your needs. They then implement it for you in accordance with your commercial, organizational and technical specifications. Read more: Valantic

Chrome Extensions, Zero-Knowledge Engineering and Half Baked Agile I spoke with Frédéric Rivain, CTO at Dashlane, the market-leading password management 🔐 solution. Learn about the future of passwords, why they are focussing on browsers instead of platforms, and how ‘half-baked agile’ works at Dashlane. Listen to find out: Why they are moving towards browser-centric delivery (away from OS 🖥️) The impact of **ManifestV3 **on the extensions 🧩 community. Why the future🔮 won’t be entirely passwordless How they minimize the impact of breaches with their** zero-knowledge🗃📦 approach** to engineering How they structure their teams👥�, processes📕 and OKRs ✔️ at Dashlane. Listen here BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Moss* and viadee IT Consulting Moss Save time and money with Moss - an all-in-one solution for company expenses. With Moss companies manage all expenses in one place from anywhere. Moss allows you to automate your accounting by digitizing incoming invoices, pre-accounting receipts, and easy data export. With Moss, your monthly reports can be ready within minutes! Plus, you can tackle high cloud costs with the powerful Moss credit card which allows you to optimize your cash flow. Moss offers card limits of up to half a million Euros and payment terms of up to 60 days. Plus you also get 0.4% cashback on every payment. Find out what it's like to stay on top of all your expenses when you try Moss free of charge for 2 months using the coupon code: ALPHA. Moss viadee IT Consulting Love variety? Speak German? Want to help a mix of companies in different sectors with their IT needs? If you have a background in business informatics, computer science, mathematics, physics, etc. and want to help clients navigate IT challenges as a consultant and freelancer - listen up. viadee IT Consulting is looking for someone with your expertise to join their team. In addition to technical know-how, the ideal candidate will possess a strong team spirit. analytical mindset, openness, and a good dose of curiosity. They offer a growth-oriented and flexible environment (ranked Top 3 for the ‘ Beste Arbeitgeber in der ITK 2020’), warm colleagues (who also grew up with the internet and share many nerdy memories), and a people-centric company culture in which people deal constructively, openly and honestly with one another. As the core of their clients is from the North Rhine-Westphalia, working knowledge of German is essential. Let's work together to transform the digital future of companies in the North Rhine-Westphalia region viadee IT Consulting

Data-Driven Technical Recruiting I spoke with Snir Yarom, CTO at Codility,🧑‍💻 - a leading technical assessment platform about the world of data-driven, technical recruiting 💼, the typical hiring process and how to** attract talent** in a competitive market. Listen to find out: How to use data 📊 to optimise each stage of your technical recruiting pipeline (e.g. sourcing, screening, interviews, assessment etc.) How to lead different tech teams across cultural divides 🇹🇭 🇮🇱 🇩🇪 (e.g. confrontational vs. non-confrontational culture). Why ‘Meeting the Team’ 🤝 is a key step in the hiring process. The best sources of engineers (by conversion rate). Listen here BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Dell* and Storyblok Dell Dell Technologies offer IT-Technology solutions for companies of any size, tailored to their needs. The experts that guide you are equipped with both the know-how and a huge product portfolio of possible. Their end-to-end IT Solutions range from laptops, PCs and workstations to server, storage, cloud and IoT solutions. Dell Storyblok Finally, a headless CMS that works for both developers and business users. Storyblok offers a combination of visual editing tools and highly customizable content blocks. This is built on a modern headless architecture that gives developers the flexibility to build fast and reliable digital platforms. The big benefit of headless CMS is that content can be streamed to any platform via API without having to manage the content multiple times. For example, customers use Storyblok for their websites, online stores, apps, or send the same content to Twitter, WeChat or Alexa skills. Find out why Storyblok is used by over 50,000 developers, product owners and managers in over 80,000 projects in 130 countries. Customers include Adidas, Marley Spoon, Deliveroo and more. Storyblok

How to Build an API, how to commercialise an open-source project & the evolving CTO role I spoke with Marco Palladino, Co-Founder & CTO at Kong 🐒, the market-leading API management gateway Solution. Learn deep insight into APIs, the future of the API Economy, and what it takes to build a great API from someone who has been involved in the API industry since its infancy. Listen to find out: How to build an API for each use case (external, microservice & mobile). Why it's only the beginning of the API economy 💹 Why the best infrastructure software has its roots in the open-source ☸️. How he managed to commercialise💸 an open-source project without alienating its community 👥 Listen here BROUGHT TO YOU BY: **Sastrify ** and Storyblok Sastrify Sastrify helps companies to optimize the cost of software procurement by negotiating with suppliers of each software. They saved OMR around €20.000 a year. A lot for a company of 150 people using tools like GSuite, Adobe Creative Cloud, NewRelic and more. It is a simple and hassle-free process. They promise to save more money than they cost. And as an alphalist.CTO podcast listener, you get a 50% discount for the first 3 months! So give them a try. Sastrify Storyblok Finally, a headless CMS that works for both developers and business users. Storyblok offers a combination of visual editing tools and highly customizable content blocks. This is built on a modern headless architecture that gives developers the flexibility to build fast and reliable digital platforms. The big benefit of headless CMS is that content can be streamed to any platform via API without having to manage the content multiple times. For example, customers use Storyblok for their websites, online stores, apps, or send the same content to Twitter, WeChat or Alexa skills. Find out why Storyblok is used by over 50,000 developers, product owners and managers in over 80,000 projects in 130 countries. Customers include Adidas, Marley Spoon, Deliveroo and more. Storyblok

Music, Microservices and a New Way To Learn Coding Chad Fowler - an engineer, musician, and author - transformed Wunderlist 📋 from a messy monolith to a neat multi-language microservice. Be inspired by his unique view on technology stemming from his background as a musician 🎵 and RPG player 🎮. Open your mind 🤯and prepare to reevaluate 🤔after you hear from this creative thinker who -in the course of his 25-year career - has worked as both a coder and manager at both startups and enterprise companies in the US 🇺🇸, EU 🇪🇺 and India 🇮🇳. Listen to find out: Why we should rethink how computer science is taught 🎓 to get better coders 🧑‍💻 Why and how he used multiple languages in his microservice architecture 🖇️ Why startups 🚀should wait before adopting a named methodology (e.g. Agile, scrum, kanban, OKR) Unique applications of concepts touted in the decentralized Web 3️.0 🔮 Listen here BROUGHT TO YOU BY: **Sastrify ** and Storyblok Sastrify Sastrify helps companies to optimize the cost of software procurement by negotiating with suppliers of each software. They saved OMR around €20.000 a year. A lot for a company of 150 people using tools like GSuite, Adobe Creative Cloud, NewRelic and more. It is a simple and hassle-free process. They promise to save more money than they cost. And as an alphalist.CTO podcast listener, you get a 50% discount for the first 3 months! So give them a try. Sastrify Storyblok Finally, a headless CMS that works for both developers and business users. Storyblok offers a combination of visual editing tools and highly customizable content blocks. This is built on a modern headless architecture that gives developers the flexibility to build fast and reliable digital platforms. The big benefit of headless CMS is that content can be streamed to any platform via API without having to manage the content multiple times. For example, customers use Storyblok for their websites, online stores, apps, or send the same content to Twitter, WeChat or Alexa skills. Find out why Storyblok is used by over 50,000 developers, product owners and managers in over 80,000 projects in 130 countries. Customers include Adidas, Marley Spoon, Deliveroo and more. Storyblok

Identity Management, User Rearch, and Building Scalable Products I spoke with Sagnik Nandy, CTO & President of Technology at Okta, the market leading IAM Solution 🔐. Discover deep insight into the world of identity management🆔, user feedback 👥, and why the best products provide a simplified interface to a complex solution (with customizability ⚙️ for advanced users). Don’t miss out on this opportunity to hear how to build scalable products ♾️ from someone who scaled and led Google Analytics 📊 and Google Ad 💸 products/ Listen to find out: Why you need to build for both expansion 📈 and deprecation 📉 The need for a passwordless future 🔏 The challenges of integrations ☮️ (Okta integrates with 7000+ services) How to Scale Excellence 👍 the importance of mentorship 🧑‍🏫 Listen here: BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Bechtle and Storyblok Bechtle Looking for an IT solution for your SMB? Save time by trusting Bechtle with all your IT needs. From IT consultancy to procurement and implementation. B2Bs have trusted Bechtle with their IT needs for the past 30 years. SMBs and self-employed individuals now also enjoy the Bechtle experience by conveniently buying all their IT needs online. Bechle is not only the largest IT company in Germany, they are also located in 14 countries across Europe. They offer online shopping with great prices and fast delivery. Get €10 off your first order with coupon code alphalist Bechtle Storyblok Finally, a headless CMS that works for both developers and business users. Storyblok offers a combination of visual editing tools and highly customizable content blocks. This is built on a modern headless architecture that gives developers the flexibility to build fast and reliable digital platforms. The big benefit of headless CMS is that content can be streamed to any platform via API without having to manage the content multiple times. For example, customers use Storyblok for their websites, online stores, apps, or send the same content to Twitter, WeChat or Alexa skills. Find out why Storyblok is used by over 50,000 developers, product owners and managers in over 80,000 projects in 130 countries. Customers include Adidas, Marley Spoon, Deliveroo and more. Storyblok

What it takes to build a FaaS; a multinational, cross-industry shop system and which languages for a webapp) I spoke with Fabian Wesner, Founder at ROQ, a FaaS (Feature-as-a-Service) for web applications. Learn deep insight into the world of web applications and frameworks from someone who had to launch an eCommerce shop each week (in different countries 🇧🇷 🇦🇺 🇯🇵 and industries!👗🛏️🧸). Fabian, as former Rocket Internet CTO and Spryker Co-Founder and CTO is the hidden gem of the German CTO scene. Listen to find out: How working in the “Samwer sweatshop” felt Node vs Ruby vs PHP for a modern web app Why “keeping your stack lean” is important and how he approaches architecture What it takes to build a eCommerce shop system 🛒 (he built 3!) The science 🧬 behind building a new FaaS (Feature-as-a-Service) Tips into the 👁️ Lost Art of Database Schema Visualisation Listen here: https://alphalist.com/podcast/37-fabian-wesner-founder-roq BROUGHT TO YOU BY: **Sastrify ** and Bechtle Sastrify Sastrify helps companies to optimize the cost of software procurement by negotiating with suppliers of each software. They saved OMR around €20.000 a year. A lot for a company of 150 people using tools like GSuite, Adobe Creative Cloud, NewRelic and more. It is a simple and hassle-free process. They promise to save more money than they cost. And as an alphalist.CTO podcast listener, you get a 50% discount for the first 3 months! So give them a try. Sastrify Bechtle Looking for an IT solution for your SMB? Save time by trusting Bechtle with all your IT needs. From IT consultancy to procurement and implementation. B2Bs have trusted Bechtle with their IT needs for the past 30 years. SMBs and self-employed individuals now also enjoy the Bechtle experience by conveniently buying all their IT needs online. Bechle is not only the largest IT company in Germany, they are also located in 14 countries across Europe. They offer online shopping with great prices and fast delivery. Get €10 off your first order with coupon code alphalist Bechtle

Complexity of eCommerce Web Apps in 2021 I spoke with Kore Nordemann, CTO at Frontastic, a Frontend-as-a-Service for headless CMS and commerce systems. Learn deep insight into what it takes to build a web app today: from choosing a stack to hiring frontend/backend/full-stack developers. Listen to find out: Which ECommerce 🛒 features are Amazon’s Achilles Heel Why Pair Programming 🧑‍ 💻‍🧑 works better than Pull Request Reviews The pros and cons of Stateful/Stateless, Docker, PHP, CouchDB 🛋️ and more Why microservices are probably not for you (yet integrated services are). Plus the design features 🗺️ of the Frontastic Virtual Office that you might want to implement for your remote office. Listen here: BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Dell and Okta* Dell Dell Technologies offer IT-Technology solutions for companies of any size, tailored to their needs. The experts that guide you are equipped with both the know-how and a huge product portfolio of possible. Their end-to-end IT Solutions range from laptops, PCs and workstations to server, storage, cloud and IoT solutions. Dell Okta Facing identity management challenges as you digitize? Okta offers THE market-leading solution to help you make identity & access management work as a service. Okta Customer Identity Management is a platform that offers endless ways to connect with your employees and customers.Get support for your most important customer-facing initiatives: Integrate identity & access into every app and create secure and engaging experiences in no time by outsourcing workforce or customer identity management to Okta. Get started in 15 minutes and test IAM or CIAM as a service. Create a frictionless registration and login experience for your applications and make identity the foundation for your Zero Trust strategy and enable access for all users—regardless of their location, device, or network. okta

How to save time and increase diversity in tech recruiting I spoke with Alesia Braga, CTO at SmartRecruiters, an end-to-end recruiting solution. She shares with us insights into the recruiting world, how to improve diversity and what she does to shorten the recruiting cycle time to avoid losing top candidates She also shares with us: Why she uses a literal scorecard 💯 for each candidate she interviews How she juggles 🤹 product and tech in the CTO role The challenges of balancing enterprise use 🏭 with superior end user experience Hear Online or read the related blog post about Recruiting Tips to Increase Diversity while Saving Time BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Okta and Dell* Okta Facing identity management challenges as you digitize? Okta offers THE market-leading solution to help you make identity & access management work as a service. Okta Customer Identity Management is a platform that offers endless ways to connect with your employees and customers.Get support for your most important customer-facing initiatives: Integrate identity & access into every app and create secure and engaging experiences in no time by outsourcing workforce or customer identity management to Okta. Get started in 15 minutes and test IAM or CIAM as a service. Create a frictionless registration and login experience for your applications and make identity the foundation for your Zero Trust strategy and enable access for all users—regardless of their location, device, or network. okta Dell Dell Technologies offer IT-Technology solutions for companies of any size, tailored to their needs. The experts that guide you are equipped with both the know-how and a huge product portfolio of possible. Their end-to-end IT Solutions range from laptops, PCs and workstations to server, storage, cloud and IoT solutions. Dell

Building an internal culture, Running a product rooted in the Open Source and more I spoke with Mark Porter, CTO at MongoDB. His 40 year career spans time working at companies like Oracle, AWS and Grab. He shares with us insights into technical leadership, company culture and the open-source world, Listen to find out Where DEI initiatives fail〽️ Why they don’t use OKRs 📏 at MongoDB How to Build a Product around the Open Source 👥 +How being a parent makes him a better manager Listen here or read related blog post about how to build an internal culture. BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Fastly and Okta Fastly This episode is again kindly supported by Fastly, the biggest challenger in the CDN market and a solution I personally use. Fastly is pushing ahead the technical boundaries and is from my personal perspective the best solution on the market. Fastly is one of the key drivers of the "edge cloud trend". Well-known customers of Fastly are Shopify, The New York Times, Reddit, Github and many many more. If you want to try it all with first class support, just go to fastly.com/alphalist Okta This episode is kindly sponsored by Okta Customer Identity Management. If you're transforming into a digital platform and facing identity management challenges, listen closely now, because Okta offers THE market-leading solutions to help you make identity & access management work as a service. A platform that offers endless ways to connect with your employees and customers.Get support for your most important customer-facing initiatives: Integrate identity & access into every app and create secure and engaging experiences in no time by outsourcing workforce or customer identity management to Okta. Get started in 15 minutes and test IAM or CIAM as a service. Create a frictionless registration and login experience for your applications and make identity the foundation for your Zero Trust strategy and enable access for all users—regardless of their location, device, or network. okta