groCTO Podcast

Welcome to today's episode of the podcast! Your host, Kovid Batra, sits down with Leigh Rathbone, Head of Quality Engineering at CAVU, with past contributions to various reputable organisations like Sony Ericsson & The Very Group.Leigh has been at the forefront of tech innovation, from developing the first touchscreen smartphone and smartwatch to working with AR, VR, and AI tech. In this episode, he shares his insights on the evolution of software testing and automation. Tune in to hear his thoughts on balancing human effort and AI in the tech world.💡 Highlightsa) Getting Candid👨🏻‍💻 Leigh’s introduction✨ Life-defining moment in Leigh’s careerb) Professional Journey📱 Building the first touchscreen smartphone & smartwatch at Sony Ericsson🚀 The beginning of automation with WinRunnerc) Key Takeaways📈 The evolution of software testing & growing trends🤖 How to effectively utilize AI in testing✅ Continuous upskilling & team collaboration techniques🎮 Hands-on testing approach to AR, VR & 3D gaming🙋‍♀️ The unique value of humans in testingLooking for top tech mentors like Leigh who can help you take up your new tech leadership role with confidence or guide you with your next career move? Sign up with groCTO Connect for 1:1 mentorship from top CTOs & tech leaders.Accelerate your journey towards success🚀🎧 Full EpisodeThis episode is also available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music & more.Thanks for listening to the podcast. That’s it for today 👋1) Subscribe to groCTO — If you aren’t already, consider becoming a groCTO subscriber.2) Share amongst fellow Engineering Leaders and CTOs! Your referral empowers & builds our groCTO community. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit grocto.substack.com

Paul Lewis, seasoned tech leader, shares insights on team building from scratch & innovation alignment in tech teams. Discusses collaboration, hiring strategies, tech innovation, & communication in growing teams leading to success.

In this episode, host Kovid Batra is joined by Jacob Singh, CTO in Residence at Alpha Wave Global. Jacob's impressive career spans over two decades, during which he has held pivotal CTO and Director roles at renowned startups and organizations such as Blinkit, Sequoia Capital, and Acquia. Being a coder & a manager, Jacob understands the challenges faced by both developers & tech leaders and so, we’re super excited to bring to you his extensive knowledge of improving developer experience through this podcast.💡 Highlightsa) Getting Candid👨🏻‍💻 Jacob’s background & upbringing🇮🇳 Moving to India & career breakb) Professional Journey💼 Working in the US & later in India at Grofers (now ‘Blinkit’)🚀 Defining ‘Developer Experience’ & why it’s trendingc) Key Takeaways💻 What separates the tech cultures in India & the West?💟 Creating good DevEx for Gen Z & younger generations✅ Advice for leaders in misaligned organizations📈 How Grofers improved their developer experience🤖 Jacob on PRs, code reviews & utilizing AI tools for developmentLooking for top tech mentors like Jacob who can help you take up your new tech leadership role with confidence or guide you with your next career move? Sign up with groCTO Connect for 1:1 mentorship from top CTOs & tech leaders.Accelerate your journey towards success🚀🎧 Full EpisodeThis episode is also available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music & more.Thanks for listening to the podcast. That’s it for today 👋1) Subscribe to groCTO — If you aren’t already, consider becoming a groCTO subscriber.2) Share amongst fellow Engineering Leaders and CTOs! Your referral empowers & builds our groCTO community. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit grocto.substack.com

In this episode, host Kovid Batra welcomes Roman Kuba, VP of Engineering at a tech-based startup Tset. Roman brings a wealth of experience from his leadership roles at renowned organizations including GitLab, Cloudbees, and CodeSandbox.Roman explores the intricate dynamics of scaling a startup with a people-first approach, balancing effort & value delivery and overcoming challenges along the way by learning from one’s mistakes.💡 Highlightsa) Getting Candid🏆 Roman’s life-defining moments🇦🇹 Moving from Australia to Austriab) Professional Journey💼 Roman’s role & responsibilities at Tset🚀 The importance of a people-first approachc) Key Takeaways💪 Aligning & keeping young developers motivated🔍 Navigating the Zero-to-One journey⚖️ Balancing effort & value delivery at startups👨‍🏫 Advice for developers & aspiring engineering leaders🎧 Full EpisodeThis episode is also available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music & more.Thanks for listening to the podcast. That’s it for today 👋1) Subscribe to groCTO — If you aren’t already, consider becoming a groCTO subscriber.2) Share amongst fellow Engineering Leaders and CTOs! Your referral empowers & builds our groCTO community. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit grocto.substack.com

In today’s episode, host Kovid Batra is joined by Glenn Santos, VP of Engineering at PDAX. Glenn is also dedicated to empowering developers to become leaders with his initiative eHeads, a community for engineering leaders to exchange experiences and insights. His vast experience includes valuable contributions to renowned companies such as Salarium, TraXion Tech Inc., and HCX Technology Partners.💡 Highlightsa) Getting Candid🏆 Glenn’s life-defining moment🍝 Being a foodie & an avid car loverb) Professional Journey🚀 Discovering TechCrunch & outsourcing💼 Glenn’s role & responsibilities at PDAXc) Key Takeaways🤝 Aligning tech & business goals & keeping developers motivated⚖️ Managing velocity while fulfilling compliances📝 Implementing DORA metrics & SonarQube✅ Building trust in the initial days as a leaderWelcome to groCTO! Every week we publish a curated selection of articles, and podcasts to accelerate the growth of passionate engineering leaders 🚀 By subscribing, you empower us to deliver to you insights most valued by fellow CTOs and industry experts.🎧 Full EpisodeThis episode is also available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music & more.Thanks for listening to the podcast. That’s it for today 👋You can find us here too!LinkedIn | YouTube | Instagram | X (Twitter) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit grocto.substack.com

Joining the podcast are Miroslaw Stanek, Director of Engineering at Papaya Global, and Francis Lacoste, VPE and CTO Coach. They delve into topics like navigating acquisitions, merging cultures, onboarding talent, and maintaining team motivation during transitions. Insights on leadership, team integration, and efficiency are shared, providing valuable lessons for engineering leaders.

In this episode, host Kovid Batra welcomes Lubo Drobny, Senior Leader & Software Engineering Coach at Cisco. With an impressive professional background at Seimens & SAP Labs, Lubo also actively contributes to the tech community through blogging, hosting podcasts, and organizing meetups centered around product and software engineering topics. Today, you can find Lubo talking about building teams from scratch vs branching, engineering metrics, team excellence, & much more.💡 Highlightsa) Getting Candid🍃 Lubo’s love for programming, hiking & gardening.👨‍🏫 A life-defining moment in Lubo’s career shaping his current coaching style. b) Professional Journey🚀 The story of leadership at Slido to its acquisition by Cisco.💼 Working at Slido vs Cisco.c) Key Takeaways⚖️ How to balance hiring, training & delivery while scaling up?📝 Crucial engineering metrics for assessing team excellence.✅ The impact of metrics on delivery and quality.🔍 Finding the root cause of inefficiency in teams.Welcome to groCTO! Every week we publish a curated selection of articles, and podcasts to accelerate the growth of passionate engineering leaders 🚀 By subscribing, you empower us to deliver to you insights most valued by fellow CTOs and industry experts.🎧 Full EpisodeThis episode is also available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music & more.Thanks for listening to the podcast. That’s it for today 👋You can find us here too!LinkedIn | YouTube | Instagram | X (Twitter) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit grocto.substack.com

In this episode, host Kovid Batra welcomes Jörg Godau, Chief Digital Officer at Doctorly and one of the founding members of The EL Club in Berlin, Germany. His vast experience includes valuable contributions to renowned companies such as VRR Consulting UG, Nortal, and IBM. The discussion revolves around ‘Leading with Empathy & Compassion’.The episode kicks off with Jörg discussing his hobbies and life-defining events before delving into his role and daily challenges at Doctorly. He emphasizes leveraging user insights and business understanding for software development and aligning individual career aspirations with organizational needs during team scaling.Furthermore, Jörg explores measuring engineering team success both qualitatively and quantitatively. Wrapping up, he shares his final thoughts on remote work.Welcome to groCTO. Every week we publish a curated selection of articles, and podcasts to accelerate growth for passionate engineering leaders By subscribing, you empower us to deliver to you insights that have already shown value to fellow CTOs and technology readers.You can find us here too!LinkedIn || YouTube This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit grocto.substack.com

In this episode, host Kovid Batra welcomes Ricardo Castro, Platform Engineer/SRE at FanDuel.The episode kicks off with Ricardo shedding light on his personal interests and transformative life experiences. He imparts valuable wisdom on differentiating between DevOps, SRE, and Platform Engineers. He also advises adopting best practices for implementing CI/CD pipelines in startups, medium-sized enterprises, and large corporations and presenting a robust framework for cultivating effective DevOps teams.Lastly, Ricardo provokes thoughtful reflection on whether deployment frequency truly encapsulates DevOps efficiency, or if the focus should shift towards the value delivered.Ricardo on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mccricardo/groCTO is an exclusive series of podcasts with tech leaders across the globe, sharing learnings about dev processes, growth, culture, and well-being.Connect with us!LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/typoapp/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/typo_app/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/Typoapp_⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088731559819⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Try typo for free: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://typoapp.io/⁠⁠--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/beyondthecodebytypo/message This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit grocto.substack.com

Head of Engineering at On, Claus Höfele, talks about leadership, team management, and defining success in engineering. He shares his journey from software engineer to leader, insights on context switching, and tips for managing escalations and hiring phases.