[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":457},["ShallowReactive",2],{"footer-primary":3,"footer-secondary":93,"footer-description":119,"trace-talks-mateja-sela":121,"trace-talks-mateja-sela-next":188,"sales-reps":206},{"items":4},[5,29,49,69],{"id":6,"title":7,"url":8,"page":8,"children":9},"522e608a-77b0-4333-820d-d4f44be2ade1","Solutions",null,[10,15,20,25],{"id":11,"title":12,"url":8,"page":13},"fcafe85a-a798-4710-9e7a-776fe413aae5","Headless CMS",{"permalink":14},"/solutions/headless-cms",{"id":16,"title":17,"url":8,"page":18},"79972923-93cf-4777-9e32-5c9b0315fc10","Backend-as-a-Service",{"permalink":19},"/solutions/backend-as-a-service",{"id":21,"title":22,"url":8,"page":23},"0fa8d0c1-7b64-4f6f-939d-d7fdb99fc407","Product Information",{"permalink":24},"/solutions/product-information-management",{"id":26,"title":27,"url":28,"page":8},"63946d54-6052-4780-8ff4-91f5a9931dcc","100+ Things to Build","https://directus.io/blog/100-tools-apps-and-platforms-you-can-build-with-directus",{"id":30,"title":31,"url":8,"page":8,"children":32},"8ab4f9b1-f3e2-44d6-919b-011d91fe072f","Resources",[33,37,41,45],{"id":34,"title":35,"url":36,"page":8},"f951fb84-8777-4b84-9e91-996fe9d25483","Documentation","https://docs.directus.io",{"id":38,"title":39,"url":40,"page":8},"366febc7-a538-4c08-a326-e6204957f1e3","Guides","https://docs.directus.io/guides/",{"id":42,"title":43,"url":44,"page":8},"aeb9128e-1c5f-417f-863c-2449416433cd","Community","https://directus.chat",{"id":46,"title":47,"url":48,"page":8},"da1c2ed8-0a77-49b0-a903-49c56cb07de5","Release Notes","https://github.com/directus/directus/releases",{"id":50,"title":51,"url":8,"page":8,"children":52},"d61fae8c-7502-494a-822f-19ecff3d0256","Support",[53,57,61,65],{"id":54,"title":55,"url":56,"page":8},"8c43c781-7ebd-475f-a931-747e293c0a88","Issue Tracker","https://github.com/directus/directus/issues",{"id":58,"title":59,"url":60,"page":8},"d77bb78e-cf7b-4e01-932a-514414ba49d3","Feature Requests","https://github.com/directus/directus/discussions?discussions_q=is:open+sort:top",{"id":62,"title":63,"url":64,"page":8},"4346be2b-2c53-476e-b53b-becacec626a6","Community Chat","https://discord.com/channels/725371605378924594/741317677397704757",{"id":66,"title":67,"url":68,"page":8},"26c115d2-49f7-4edc-935e-d37d427fb89d","Cloud Dashboard","https://directus.cloud",{"id":70,"title":71,"url":8,"page":8,"children":72},"49141403-4f20-44ac-8453-25ace1265812","Organization",[73,78,84,88],{"id":74,"title":75,"url":76,"page":77},"1f36ea92-8a5e-47c8-914c-9822a8b9538a","About","/about",{"permalink":76},{"id":79,"title":80,"url":81,"page":82},"b84bf525-5471-4b14-a93c-225f6c386005","Careers","#",{"permalink":83},"/careers",{"id":85,"title":86,"url":87,"page":8},"86aabc3a-433d-434b-9efa-ad1d34be0a34","Brand Assets","https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lBOTba4RaA5ikqOn8Ewo4RYzD0XcymG9?usp=sharing",{"id":89,"title":90,"url":8,"page":91},"8d2fa1e3-198e-4405-81e1-2ceb858bc237","Contact",{"permalink":92},"/contact",{"items":94},[95,101,107,113],{"id":96,"title":97,"url":8,"page":98,"children":100},"8a1b7bfa-429d-4ffc-a650-2a5fdcf356da","Cloud Policies",{"permalink":99},"/cloud-policies",[],{"id":102,"title":103,"url":81,"page":104,"children":106},"bea848ef-828f-4306-8017-6b00ec5d4a0c","License",{"permalink":105},"/bsl",[],{"id":108,"title":109,"url":81,"page":110,"children":112},"4e914f47-4bee-42b7-b445-3119ee4196ef","Terms",{"permalink":111},"/terms",[],{"id":114,"title":115,"url":81,"page":116,"children":118},"ea69eda6-d317-4981-8421-fcabb1826bfd","Privacy",{"permalink":117},"/privacy",[],{"description":120},"\u003Cp>A composable backend to build your Headless CMS, BaaS, and more. \u003C/p>",{"id":122,"slug":123,"vimeo_id":124,"description":125,"tile":126,"length":127,"resources":8,"people":128,"episode_number":138,"published":139,"title":140,"video_transcript_html":141,"video_transcript_text":142,"content":8,"status":143,"episode_people":144,"recommendations":175,"season":176,"seo":8},"83739ed2-e3ac-485c-97fa-f683db114386","mateja-sela","896674382","In this episode, Mateja shares his experiences in founding and managing a company in the volatile cryptocurrency/blockchain sector, and the transition to a role in a larger organization.","cb8bc756-0496-4b47-b6c1-b66f59be60f8",34,[129,132,135],{"name":130,"url":131},"John Daniels","https://www.linkedin.com/in/jwdaniels/",{"name":133,"url":134},"Pedro Pizarro","https://www.linkedin.com/in/pedropizarrojr/",{"name":136,"url":137},"Mateja Sela","https://www.linkedin.com/in/mateja-sela/",3,"2024-01-25","Mateja Sela, Engineering Manager at Bolt","\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. When I was leaving the startup role, I was like, I'm gonna chill now. I'm gonna, like, take it easy. I'm gonna, like, you know and then I went to my job and I was like, I wanna keep this job, so I'm really stressed out. I really want to, you know, work with people and show that I'm worth it, right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I think I'm never gonna be happy. That's the conclusion. No, I'm kidding.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Hey, everyone. Thanks so much for joining us for this week's podcast. With us, we have Matea. Matea, I'll let you introduce yourself so that you can give you your best introduction and representation of yourself. Why don't you let everyone know a little bit of a brief background of who you are, where you're based, where you're located, and then we can kinda get into the questions after that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Sure. Sounds good. I'm Mateo. I'm a techie. I'm an engineering manager currently at Bolt, which is a ride hailing company mostly.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We do a lot of stuff like food delivery, and, yeah, grocery delivery. So, it's a pretty big company. And, yeah, about myself, I don't know. I just ate, like, I cooked dinner in 5 minutes, and I ate it in 3. So I think I broke the record for, fastest eating and cooking of a meal after work.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Well, you know, real real quick inter real quick interjection. I used to work with a firefighter, and he was a record fast eater. He would eat a huge burrito in in probably 2 or 3 minutes.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Oh, man. I could never I need to sit there and enjoy it, but, yeah, I get it sometimes.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Me too, usually. But if you're here. You okay? Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So sorry. That's it. Yeah. I'm I'm yeah. I used to work for Artano.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I mean, as as a CEO of Artano. It's an NFT platform. I guess that's the main reason why I'm here. And, yeah, I mean, generally, I am into, yeah, just, like, trendy new technologies. I was into crypto, have my own theories around that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, yeah, we talked about it briefly, before about, AI bros versus crypto bros. So I I think that's a topic probably we'll have to touch at some point. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I'm based in Estonia. Sorry. I forgot to say that. And I'm from Serbia originally.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Awesome. Sounds great. And what's your what do you do at your current role at Bolt?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: So I'm an engineering manager. I manage a team of, 8 developers, mobile side, and, some Android, iOS, and back end. Yeah. And we are responsible for the app. So the, yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Yeah. I I don't think I can talk much about it yet because I'm new to the company as well. So yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Sure. Sure. Well, let's dive in a little bit into some of your previous experience. You mentioned you were a CEO.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So let's go even further back from that. When did you first starting start getting into technology? Did you go to school for it? And then I guess we can circle back around eventually to to becoming a CEO, but I'd love to understand, how you got into technology. Was it from a young age, or did did Twitter get you into it?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Did you see somebody say something cool? So, yeah, I'd love to learn how you first started getting interested in technology.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. I think my dad is mostly to think for that. He's, somebody who introduced me to computers. He is a big Linux fan. So I was probably 4 years old when I ran my first games from Linux.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>He, like, forbade me to use the Windows. He was such an anti Windows guy. He was like, yeah, it's like the devil basically. And now today, you know, like, we think of these things a bit differently, but at the time it was like, you know, Linux is the best thing ever, and open source is the way to go. And, it's I guess that was the crypto of the time, right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And now we have a bit of a different, yeah, outlook on things. And that's like the first time. So I was like 4 years old, I think, when I first started, like, a kernel command. But I'm not like I don't think I'm like a project kid or anything. I just, like, learned by heart how to run a game because I want to play it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: So you were smarter at 4 years old around technology than than most people are even still to this day.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I don't think it's that hard to learn a command to write, like, open a kernel and write a command. But yeah. Maybe. I don't know.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Do you think it's any harder or easier than learning a language?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Sorry. What what running language?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Do you think it's any like, learning a coding language is any harder or easier than learning a, you know, verbal or written language?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: It's an interesting question. So I'm somebody who likes learning languages. I speak fluently like French and German and Serbian. So and English, I guess. And I'm yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I think it's something that's very interesting to compare, like linguistics of a language and how linguists learn things from, you know, how how, you know, programmers or people who code, how we learn things from linguistics, between I think music as well. Music is very mathematical. But music, yeah, computer science and and linguistics are pretty interesting. And\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: yeah. Nice. Nice. I I speak English, and that's about it. So, same with when it comes to coding languages.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I only know a couple. I was not as talented as yourself. So I I believe in our previous conversation, you mentioned going potentially to Oxford. So I'd love to understand what you went to school for. And did did your time at at university kind of lead you to want to start your own company?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Or, I guess, how did that transition go from going from university to eventually starting your own company?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: So, yeah, I went to uni in the US. I went to Middlebury College. I studied computer science and German language. I did liberal arts. So that allowed me to, like, spring into different things, right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, to to touch on different topics and mostly writing. I really liked writing, research. And yeah, so I went to Oxford for a kind of an independent study, independent research thing, in my 3rd year of college. And I was lucky enough to, you know, see this, how this world works. You know, you have a tutor, you have a 1 on 1 with a professor at Oxford, which is pretty incredible.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And that's how they do things. It's like very 1 on 1 based, very like research based. You have a lot of readings. I don't think I've ever read that many books in my life. It was like stacks of books, on just like random medieval history topics because I just, I don't know, enjoyed it at the time.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I don't know, like that helped me, I think, in analytical thinking. Right? Like you have always, some kind of learning from these things that are unrelated to computer science to technology. Right? So I think you can always learn from history, not as a like a history repeats itself sort of way, but as in like analytical thinking, how people were, you know, to put yourself in a mind of somebody 200 years ago or 300 years ago, and then write about it because what we perceive, I think in technology as well, what we perceive for, from the user perspective or as a developer is much different than the user, right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So, user is someone who is actually gonna use your software, and you're somebody who writes the code. So sometimes these 2 don't click. And that's when a lot of businesses fail, actually. I believe at least.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: So, yeah. Go ahead, John. Yeah. I was\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: just I was just curious because, you know, Pedro and I both have started our own businesses for different purposes. Mine was not technology based. Pedro's was a little bit. So I'm curious, again, what what led you to start your own business, and then, what were some of the lessons that you learned in running a business? Because, obviously, you're in a different position now, which we can we can kind of transition into later in the conversation.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But, what were some of the lessons that you learned starting a business and then running a business?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Oh, I think the biggest lesson is, to not follow your gut instinct and follow the money, however awful and capitalistic that sounds. You know, I had this dream of a marketplace that was, you know, open and curated by the community and very, yeah, like, just, open to to, let's say, new markets to especially African market, Asia and South America. That's where we focused our kind of initial, let's say, first wave of of, sales. And, like, yeah, you just learned that sometimes what you dream of building and the the ideals that you have as a person don't necessarily reflect on your business, on the numbers. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So yes they reflected on the people we got. Like we got amazing artists who had the same vision, the same goals as us. We got an amazing you know team but it just didn't translate to business every time. So we learned over time, of course, to to follow this, like, smell of money, I guess. But, yeah, that didn't work out as as we expected.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Maybe we'll talk about it as well a bit. But, yeah. So that's it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. How did you go about, like, when you started the business, getting people excited? Because you mentioned, you know, you need contributors. So what was one of the ways that you you sort of found these contributors? And and to your point about, you know, following the money, is it that you weren't able to find people that were contributing back Or or what ultimately led to, you know, the next steps and decisions there?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. So so initially you know, it's like when you have a young business, everything's like super fast. Right? Like you have one decision that can make or break your whole business. And, you know, we had made some, like, hard lines that we just didn't wanna cross in terms of, like, quality, for example, on the platform and the amount of NFTs we want to sell.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So that definitely, you know, we pay the price for that. The contributor side you mean the contributors in the contributors in the sense of code or contributors in the sense of art? Because we needed both. Pedro, what did you mean by that?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: What was that? Sorry.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I'm sorry. Did you mean, like, contributors in terms of code or contributors in terms of arts, like, artists? I mean, both.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: I mean, you've you've built a market place so there is that 2 sided, you know, you need the buyers and the the community in terms of art. But in terms of code contribution as well, I mean, you're looking to build this out in public sort of. So\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. In terms of, like, Paul, the developers themselves, we, applied for well, I was writing in a in a in a forum, called Project Catalyst. It's like a funder fundraiser for Cardano blockchain specifically. And, there, this, well, this team showed up. They have a consultancy.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>They have developers. They were interested in the story. And that kind of how we want to build a marketplace. NFTs were just starting. So nobody even, you know, talked about it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then we were kind of probably the first NFT marketplace on Cardano, given, like, the timeline of when we started, like, this whole journey. And, of course, there were other players who started, you know, kind of picking up on it. And they actually used the market much better than we did. So our our market match was not there, even initially. But we just pushed this idea, and we kind of had it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, people were asking us, hey, when are you gonna sell your coins? When are you gonna have a coin? You know, all this stake, you know, when, ICO and stuff like that. So it was like a lot of, like, hype there that we just didn't use properly. So so yeah, the devs came in.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And we had the artists who, you know, they had the same idea as us, which is a community curated marketplace, a high quality marketplace for really, really high quality artists. And we found some, of course, and they've made NFTs with us, and they sold them, but the volume was low. And so that kind of started kind of affecting us much more as we kind of turned to. And, yeah, we're here now.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: So Do do you think any of that had to do with leveraging Cardano and sort of tying yourself into the Cardano ecosystem when there were other you know, there's obviously so many players, in the space. Cardano being obviously always in the in the top ten, I'd say for the most part. And as a fan, personally, I've, you know, I've invested in Cardano as well and, have followed that community for a while. I know there's a lot of ups and downs. But if you were to do it all over again, would you have chosen, perhaps a different cryptocurrency?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Or do you think there was a risk of of choosing, you know, Cardano to base everything off of?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: It's dangerous to say I would choose something else in the crypto space. I'm kidding you. I would definitely no. I am kidding. I would definitely choose.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Yeah. I would definitely choose Cardano again, actually. Because it was a unique opportunity in the market. There was no NFT marketplaces. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There was already like OpenSea. There was, I don't know, super rare. You know, these things were like, we were like super rare, a bit more like super rare. I don't know if you know these NFT marketplaces, but super rare was more like, yeah, high end art rate. So, and 101 NFT is what we call like unique NFT.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So, yeah, There was definitely opportunities that were, you know, there in on Cardano In the Cardano ecosystem itself. But I would definitely choose it again. Like, Yeah. I don't think that's a question of Because it scales, right? Like, that's how we went.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, if we're gonna build a business around a cryptocurrency, we have to pick something that scales. And that's gotta stay there in 10, 20 years. Ethereum, unfortunately, doesn't scale as well as we know. Right? Right.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Right. High fees. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. You you've touched on a couple things I really wanna kinda dig a little deeper on. Number 1, startups are fast and furious, like you said, and there's a lot of decisions to be made. And so one of the things you touched on was people asking questions of when are you releasing this or when are you doing that, also making the right decisions. So how did you as the, you know, leader of the entire organization, how did you balance, making the product stable, making things that people wanted, also trying to tie in experimentation for new features?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Because, obviously, the the blockchain community kind of took off so fast recently, and and so there's a lot of changes happening. So how did you find that balance of leading a team, building what people wanted, and trying to to put in new features into a product as well?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Good question. So so, like, at the beginning, as I said, we were like, we stuck to our goals and like we had this vision. And then we saw that that wasn't working as well as we wanted it to, so we started listening. And one of the things that, you know, we knew was missing from the Cardano ecosystem was auctions.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So an auction kind of automated and on chain auction system. So that you have a permissionless auction. Basically, you send your NFT, you send your money, and basically the the smart contract itself spews out the winner. Right? So this was never, built by anyone else.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So we knew that there was, like, this unique market opportunity and a lot of requests for that. Of course, there's tech debt, right? It's a startup, so everything is breaking all the time. You have to fix things. You have a backlog.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, you know, we had a a Trello board, I remember, for bugs only. We had, like, GitHub for developments. Like, we used, like, a bunch of different tools for different stuff. And, you know, the trail board was just like getting filled up all the time with bugs and and customer requests. So it was even small stuff, right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, if you have something that should work and somehow doesn't work for one user, and you try to fix it, and you're like, okay, let me, know, I have to dig in and, you know, fix something up. I mean, that's so really great job for them doing this, for our tunnel, definitely.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: How did that transition go? You know? Because, obviously, you're in a you're in a new position now, and there's been a transition period in general. Do you find that that type of, leadership that you're currently in and development life cycle or development type of development that you're doing currently is a lot more rigid in a in a larger company, or is it a little bit more freeing because you're not you're not the ultimate decision maker, but you obviously do have people underneath of you. So is it is it less stressful but less ability to to be flexible now than where you currently or previously were?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. When I was leaving the startup role, I was like, I'm gonna chill now. I'm gonna, like, take it easy. I'm gonna, like, you know and then I went to my job, and I was like, I wanna keep this job. So I'm really stressed out.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I really want to, you know, work with people and show that I'm worth it. Right? So I think I'm never gonna be happy. That's the conclusion. No, I'm kidding.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's it's basically like, it's and I think it's it's a mix of things again, like, you know, like, as a as a CEO, you really are everything to the company, you're doing everything. Everybody's looking at you for decisions. There's no other person, you know, who can make it for them, right, if it make the decision for you. So, so and now it's like, I am a contributor, but it's like, I have my own team, I have my own bubble. And whatever happens outside of it is out of my control.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I don't have to think about that. But then at the same time, I really have to think about my team and develop their skills and, improve their processes. So it's a bit it's a really different kind of work, I think. As a CEO, you're also sales, you're marketing, you're a developer, you're a team lead. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And as a team lead, I'm just a team lead. But the focus is different a bit. Right? Like and also, you have some expectations from your bosses, and it's a bit of a different dynamic. And working with people is hard.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Right? Like, it's just very, difficult at times, right? Because you have to put your ego behind, and you have to listen and say, hey, you're right. And, as a CEO, you don't get to do that that much because you're always right for the good or the bad of it. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. And and when you're leading a team, you know, obviously, there's a lot of responsibilities that you have as a leader. But when you're talking about, like, you know, if you were to look at a a pie chart and see the percentage of your time spent across doing different things, what does that look like in terms of managing teams and just managing people? Sometimes maybe being a a babysitter, versus, like, actual or, you know, psychologist, versus actual, like, decision making and and strategy and all that. Like, what is that that split look like for you?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: It's a very good question because I have no clue. It's, like day to day.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Any given day. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Because like, I mean, I remember like some colleagues in my previous company, they were like, oh my God, this is like a psych session. Thank you so much, you know, for listening to me. And I was like, okay, great. So, so yeah, I think there's definitely some psychology there.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, I would say, you know, 1 on ones, you know, you have them, I don't know, maybe a full day every 2 weeks. So like half, like half a day every week, You spend on just being a psychologist for people, you know, listening to their problems or finding out a way to solve some things and help them, you know, either prioritize, help them. Yeah. Like just vent out sometimes, you know, so it's important for people just, you know, you're just as a manager should not talk at all and just let people, you know, let's team out on you.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Right. And that definitely sounds like some some some good advice. Sorry, John. You had a question.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Well, I was just gonna say, you know, for for quite a while, it sounds like even back, I guess, to college and as as growing up, it seems like you were always a go getter and whatnot. Have you ever thought about ever stepping down? Maybe this is even towards retirement, but stepping down just to be an individual contributor and be that person who needs psychiatric help from your boss, or do you love that type of day to day constant change in what you're doing, chaos, but also controlled chaos? You know? You know, have you ever looked at it from the other side of the spectrum even though you've been in leadership for quite a while now?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Code is like Kryptonite. Like, you just wanna get close to it and get yeah. You know, it's the as closer you get to it, the weaker you get, and the more you wanna kind of, do it. Like, you the more you wanna, I don't know, like, to contribute individually. So I had recently, like, I was pairing with some devs, and I was like, oh my god, I missed this.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then I step away, and I was like, I don't think my personality is made for this, because I'm like more like active, more like change experimentation, you know, making decisions. And And some people are not like that. And when I look, you know, when I was an individual contributor, I don't think I was fully happy, because it was more like just listen and do things, right? And here's like, you know, you make your decisions, and you're responsible for those decisions, but you maybe have some skill set and some communication skills that individual contributors don't have, right? So so, I mean, not always, but let's say I don't know.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>That's how I feel, at least in my experience. So, yeah, I do feel like, you know, the draw towards that sometimes. But, you know, in in then I'm like, okay, I really like actually managing and, you know, leading people and talking to podcasts. I don't know.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: It's kinda like a slings it's kinda like a sling shot. You get closer or an orbit. You orbit close to what you really like, but then you kind of go outside and do your leadership type of stuff. So you're, like, constantly orbiting around a center of gravity, which is coding.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Exactly. Yeah. I mean, we're building software. Right? And if there's no people to build it, then it's well, your job is worthless as a manager.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. Exactly. And then I guess the other side of it is, like, what to build. And you you had mentioned before, you know, kinda chasing the money. Is that something that when you're looking to make decisions based on, you know, technology and business alignment, is that where your head's at?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, what's going to, you know, what's gonna please the the customer the most or what's gonna bring in the most revenue? And then, like, how do you manage prioritizing that with the engineers? I know that sometimes engineers, developers wanna build really cool stuff. Other times, it's like, no, we need to focus on revenue. So I'd love to hear about that balance of how you make those key decisions and which direction to head.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: So it depends on the company, I think, and on your role. Right? So sometimes as an engineering manager, you actually do make product decisions. Sometimes you don't. So so for me, I think it's just important to balance things out.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Right? You have tech debt. You have something that is there's like bugs, right, in the code. There's something that is waiting for you. Always there constantly in the backlog.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then you have also this new shiny thing you wanna build. So, yeah. I think the most difficult question is how do you balance building new stuff and fixing the old stuff? And that's something that I don't know. Maybe there's a book on this or something.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But, I, you know, there's ways to figure it out yourself. But, I think it's hard. Right? And you have to kind of constantly look at both and say, hey, there's a pile of stuff. You know, crap is piling up on this side.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And we're not or we are not developing anything new. And we're just, like, boring and not, you know, not enjoying our work. So I think it's a balance.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Is that anything that's happened recently that you can share, like, specific example of that?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Not specific examples of that. I think it's just constantly happening at any organization. Like there's no specific thing that I can point out because it's so common. Right? It's like every day you do this and every day you of have to prioritize what am I gonna do.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, where am I gonna spend my money, time, life, energy on. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. And you and you've traveled quite a bit and lived in quite a few places, that we discussed in our previous conversation a little bit here. You're currently in Estonia. You've you've been in Germany. You've been in the United States.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Do you find that that type of, those types of changes and seeing different cultures and whatnot has, number 1, enhanced your leadership, enhanced your introductions to the people who have different coding skills that you then can also, inherit, and then also helped you become an inclusive manager and leader, for all types of people?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. I think it's important to be an empathetic leader because you just want to people to be happy and, yeah, work with you and communicate well with you and just, like, be, you know, be there for you. I know it's cheesy, but, you know, I don't like this, like, comparison with, like, family and stuff. But, you know, at least you're comfortable with your team, and that's important. And I think you learn that through having these different experiences, living in different places.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You just learn how to communicate faster with people. Get get to know them faster and get to, like, kind of get to them faster, and then to you faster. And that's really important, I think, as a manager to be, not just a professional, right? But also be a human, and to understand that sometimes we don't like things. And being able to explain that you have to do things that you don't like to others is super important as a leader.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: So so if you're an unempathetic robot, you might not want to be a leader?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I think you wanna be a contributor. I'm kidding. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: AI is not gonna replace the leadership team then.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Who knows?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Who knows?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I mean, there's an empathy you can code into it. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. There you go.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. So you you've been in blockchain. You're currently doing what you're doing. Do you have hot takes on things like AI? Or or I guess because you are in a leadership position, you do have a little bit of ability to do some forward thinking, figure out where you might wanna experiment.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, what is the next wave that you see being able to take advantage of? Are you digging into AI, or is there something else? How do you feel about those types of things?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: In my piece I'm looking into the camera right now, but my piece of advice for everyone is to take notes on what happened to crypto and do the same thing that to AI. Because in crypto, we had, like, this use case for everything. Crypto is gonna solve all our problems, and now this is happening with AI. So so I think that people are having this holy grail moment with technology in general. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We had phones. We had social media. Now, crypto, AI, next thing is probably VR headsets with Apple, what Apple's doing, right? So we have these like wow moments. And these things are just gonna integrate into our lives.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I think that's the whole point of technology, just making things smoother, easier. Right? And I think that with AI, I I mean, I know that it's something that will probably make things easier, but not in the ways that maybe we imagine it right now. It usually doesn't turn out the way, you know, these predictions that we, we make them. So so I think, you know, there's a holy grail in technology.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Yes, it's gonna help us. Yes, it's a tool. But you still can't rely on AI fully to do, you know, I don't know, doctor's exams because, yes, it can check your body and it can give you a diagnosis, but you will still need a doctor to proof proofread it or proof. So it's the tool. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's like anything else. It's a tool.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. I guess there's there's, sorry. I was gonna say there there is that argument that, you know, essentially, it's it's software. It's stuff we've been doing for a long time. You know, it used to be called big data or maybe before that called something else.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And really, it's just the larger and larger you scale this data out, now you have really large language models because of the capabilities of GPU's and, just where we're at today. So yeah. You can see extrapolating that out to just be larger and larger use cases of of, you know, just running heavy computations, essentially. But, yeah, interesting to hear your take.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think that's a really smart view that you take because you were obviously so ingrained in the the cryptocurrency blockchain world. It's phones came around, and they did change our lives, but we just it's in integrated into our lives. Technology, the Internet, you know, it came around before that, and it's now integrated in into our lives. And it's really just to make our lives easier.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's I I personally don't think AI will take over the world. I don't think robots will take over the world. I think it'll make our lives easier. It'll it'll help us make do things quicker and faster. We still have to proof check it, like you said, or maybe we'll get to a point where we don't have to proof proofread it as much.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But I think right now, we've we're hitting this burst. You know? Everybody's really excited. Everyone's creating something new every 5 seconds. Eventually, you know, all of the useless ones will fade away, but then AI will integrate into our normal daily lives.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And so I think having the experience that you had, kind of allows you to see it from that point of view. Like, yeah, it is something that could change the way we do things, but it'll just integrate with how we already do that or how we already do things. So\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Do you\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: do you go to AI at all for advice on management or whatnot? Do you say, how do I be a bet how do I tell this person to get to work?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I used to do I never used it in this new role. I used to do it in my previous role a bit for some presentations, as this, yeah, as a CEO, I didn't use it because it just wasn't a thing chat gpt wasn't released yet. So, it really came as like NFTs were fading away and crypto was fading away. You know? Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I kind of came to replace it, which you can see on social media as well. I guess there's some research probably on this. I would like to read it. But, yeah. Sorry.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Yeah. Basically, a bit. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Well, if anyone would read up on AI as opposed to having AI tell you what AI is, it's something to you. Because you read a lot when you're at Oxford. So I'm sure you'll you'll read how AI actually works.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Oh my god. Don't get me started with that reading thing. You know, sometimes I get messages in Slack, and I'm just, like, I read the first sentence and I already kind of conclude what the whole thing is about, like the whole chunk of text, and I answer already. And I'm like, and then I go back. I like, because I used to do this, like, I would just answer it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I'm just trying to like, you know, slowly read it. And, because you don't have time, right? You just wanna do things fast. Yeah. Sorry.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The aggression.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Again, I guess, what kind of were there ever challenges? Because you've you've had a lot of roles. You've got a very diverse background. Were there ever challenges that you you came across where you just felt like you couldn't climb that hill and you you thought you couldn't do it and you did.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know? Obviously, technology, there's a lot of challenges. And so I I guess, did you learn most of your experience from being a CEO and a leader, or are you learning I guess you're a little bit newer in your role here, but, do you think that you're gonna be able to climb those hills a little bit easier where you currently are, overcome those challenges a little easier with Bolt?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I had a role in between Bolt and and this being a CEO, also like a manager role, similar size of the team. And I think that was my kind of playground, I would say, for a lot of these mistakes. And I made a lot of mistakes there, and I can see it now. And I'm really thankful for this experience. So I think, you know, as our career progresses, we just get to learn.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We just get to make some smaller mistakes over time, right? Like, it's smaller and smaller, hopefully, until we are, you know, like an actual leader or manager or like whatever we wanna become like a software developer. It would just, you know, recognize patterns and recognize, you know because now, like, when I'm in this role, like, I'm just thinking, you know, oh, I've heard this before, you know? So you get to that kind of stage where you're like, oh, okay. I know this type of person.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I know what they're expecting, or from me as a manager, or, what they wanted from their career even. So so, yeah, it gets easier over time. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Awesome. I I think, you know, I personally appreciate people who travel and and work when they're traveling and see different cultures, see different things, learn from all of their experiences. And, again, as as both Pedro and I have our own side businesses, some that are still going and some that have succeeded and failed as well, I think there's a lot to be learned from your experience. So I guess if there's any any, you know, remaining thoughts that you have for people who might be looking to follow a similar journey, you know, if they wanna be a CEO of a company, if they wanted to get into blockchain, if they wanna be a manager as opposed to an individual contributor, you know, what are some thoughts that you would have, some advice that you would give, either to your former self or to some of those people who might be listening who have similar aspirations?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. I would say that you should probably, as somebody who's, like, let's say, a contributor individually, you know, make a big leap in your career, but also be sure that it's a safe leap, that you don't throw everything out, that you just don't quit your job and without funding and, you know, find your find your own company without a team. You know, you have to kind of prepare. It's a process. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, in going from a contributor to manager or let's say to CEO, a big jump. It's just like something that you need to kind of have a cushion and make sure that you're not losing it all at the end of that journey. Right? Because a lot of people are doing that. Right?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Especially in the US, you don't have a, I guess, a safety net. Right? So like social security, all this stuff is like a pretty, yeah, spicy topic. So so, yeah, like, you have to have a cushion, a financial cushion or funding or family support. I think that's really important.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So so then you can kind of journey forward without fear because fear is pulling us back.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Right. So the really pragmatic approach, line everything up, really think it through, and have, like, a mission oriented, yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Start with a job. Like, I was working, you know, 12 hour days plus. And, I mean, that's not even a lot. I think some people work 16 hours. You know, sometimes I wake up at AM AM.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I would end my day at 2 AM. And it's tough, but, you know, there was no for me, there was no other way to to, you know, make sure that I'm safe into going into a business.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Thanks so much for joining us. Definitely learned a lot. Really appreciate your time.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Thank you, guys. I hope to see you soon.\u003C/p>","Yeah. When I was leaving the startup role, I was like, I'm gonna chill now. I'm gonna, like, take it easy. I'm gonna, like, you know and then I went to my job and I was like, I wanna keep this job, so I'm really stressed out. I really want to, you know, work with people and show that I'm worth it, right? So I think I'm never gonna be happy. That's the conclusion. No, I'm kidding. Hey, everyone. Thanks so much for joining us for this week's podcast. With us, we have Matea. Matea, I'll let you introduce yourself so that you can give you your best introduction and representation of yourself. Why don't you let everyone know a little bit of a brief background of who you are, where you're based, where you're located, and then we can kinda get into the questions after that. Sure. Sounds good. I'm Mateo. I'm a techie. I'm an engineering manager currently at Bolt, which is a ride hailing company mostly. We do a lot of stuff like food delivery, and, yeah, grocery delivery. So, it's a pretty big company. And, yeah, about myself, I don't know. I just ate, like, I cooked dinner in 5 minutes, and I ate it in 3. So I think I broke the record for, fastest eating and cooking of a meal after work. Well, you know, real real quick inter real quick interjection. I used to work with a firefighter, and he was a record fast eater. He would eat a huge burrito in in probably 2 or 3 minutes. Oh, man. I could never I need to sit there and enjoy it, but, yeah, I get it sometimes. Yeah. Me too, usually. But if you're here. You okay? Yeah. So sorry. That's it. Yeah. I'm I'm yeah. I used to work for Artano. I mean, as as a CEO of Artano. It's an NFT platform. I guess that's the main reason why I'm here. And, yeah, I mean, generally, I am into, yeah, just, like, trendy new technologies. I was into crypto, have my own theories around that. Like, yeah, we talked about it briefly, before about, AI bros versus crypto bros. So I I think that's a topic probably we'll have to touch at some point. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm based in Estonia. Sorry. I forgot to say that. And I'm from Serbia originally. Awesome. Sounds great. And what's your what do you do at your current role at Bolt? So I'm an engineering manager. I manage a team of, 8 developers, mobile side, and, some Android, iOS, and back end. Yeah. And we are responsible for the app. So the, yeah. Yeah. I I don't think I can talk much about it yet because I'm new to the company as well. So yeah. Yeah. Sure. Sure. Well, let's dive in a little bit into some of your previous experience. You mentioned you were a CEO. So let's go even further back from that. When did you first starting start getting into technology? Did you go to school for it? And then I guess we can circle back around eventually to to becoming a CEO, but I'd love to understand, how you got into technology. Was it from a young age, or did did Twitter get you into it? Did you see somebody say something cool? So, yeah, I'd love to learn how you first started getting interested in technology. Yeah. I think my dad is mostly to think for that. He's, somebody who introduced me to computers. He is a big Linux fan. So I was probably 4 years old when I ran my first games from Linux. He, like, forbade me to use the Windows. He was such an anti Windows guy. He was like, yeah, it's like the devil basically. And now today, you know, like, we think of these things a bit differently, but at the time it was like, you know, Linux is the best thing ever, and open source is the way to go. And, it's I guess that was the crypto of the time, right? And now we have a bit of a different, yeah, outlook on things. And that's like the first time. So I was like 4 years old, I think, when I first started, like, a kernel command. But I'm not like I don't think I'm like a project kid or anything. I just, like, learned by heart how to run a game because I want to play it. So you were smarter at 4 years old around technology than than most people are even still to this day. I don't think it's that hard to learn a command to write, like, open a kernel and write a command. But yeah. Maybe. I don't know. Do you think it's any harder or easier than learning a language? Sorry. What what running language? Do you think it's any like, learning a coding language is any harder or easier than learning a, you know, verbal or written language? It's an interesting question. So I'm somebody who likes learning languages. I speak fluently like French and German and Serbian. So and English, I guess. And I'm yeah. I think it's something that's very interesting to compare, like linguistics of a language and how linguists learn things from, you know, how how, you know, programmers or people who code, how we learn things from linguistics, between I think music as well. Music is very mathematical. But music, yeah, computer science and and linguistics are pretty interesting. And yeah. Nice. Nice. I I speak English, and that's about it. So, same with when it comes to coding languages. I only know a couple. I was not as talented as yourself. So I I believe in our previous conversation, you mentioned going potentially to Oxford. So I'd love to understand what you went to school for. And did did your time at at university kind of lead you to want to start your own company? Or, I guess, how did that transition go from going from university to eventually starting your own company? So, yeah, I went to uni in the US. I went to Middlebury College. I studied computer science and German language. I did liberal arts. So that allowed me to, like, spring into different things, right? Like, to to touch on different topics and mostly writing. I really liked writing, research. And yeah, so I went to Oxford for a kind of an independent study, independent research thing, in my 3rd year of college. And I was lucky enough to, you know, see this, how this world works. You know, you have a tutor, you have a 1 on 1 with a professor at Oxford, which is pretty incredible. And that's how they do things. It's like very 1 on 1 based, very like research based. You have a lot of readings. I don't think I've ever read that many books in my life. It was like stacks of books, on just like random medieval history topics because I just, I don't know, enjoyed it at the time. And I don't know, like that helped me, I think, in analytical thinking. Right? Like you have always, some kind of learning from these things that are unrelated to computer science to technology. Right? So I think you can always learn from history, not as a like a history repeats itself sort of way, but as in like analytical thinking, how people were, you know, to put yourself in a mind of somebody 200 years ago or 300 years ago, and then write about it because what we perceive, I think in technology as well, what we perceive for, from the user perspective or as a developer is much different than the user, right? So, user is someone who is actually gonna use your software, and you're somebody who writes the code. So sometimes these 2 don't click. And that's when a lot of businesses fail, actually. I believe at least. So, yeah. Go ahead, John. Yeah. I was just I was just curious because, you know, Pedro and I both have started our own businesses for different purposes. Mine was not technology based. Pedro's was a little bit. So I'm curious, again, what what led you to start your own business, and then, what were some of the lessons that you learned in running a business? Because, obviously, you're in a different position now, which we can we can kind of transition into later in the conversation. But, what were some of the lessons that you learned starting a business and then running a business? Oh, I think the biggest lesson is, to not follow your gut instinct and follow the money, however awful and capitalistic that sounds. You know, I had this dream of a marketplace that was, you know, open and curated by the community and very, yeah, like, just, open to to, let's say, new markets to especially African market, Asia and South America. That's where we focused our kind of initial, let's say, first wave of of, sales. And, like, yeah, you just learned that sometimes what you dream of building and the the ideals that you have as a person don't necessarily reflect on your business, on the numbers. Right? So yes they reflected on the people we got. Like we got amazing artists who had the same vision, the same goals as us. We got an amazing you know team but it just didn't translate to business every time. So we learned over time, of course, to to follow this, like, smell of money, I guess. But, yeah, that didn't work out as as we expected. Maybe we'll talk about it as well a bit. But, yeah. So that's it. Yeah. How did you go about, like, when you started the business, getting people excited? Because you mentioned, you know, you need contributors. So what was one of the ways that you you sort of found these contributors? And and to your point about, you know, following the money, is it that you weren't able to find people that were contributing back Or or what ultimately led to, you know, the next steps and decisions there? Yeah. So so initially you know, it's like when you have a young business, everything's like super fast. Right? Like you have one decision that can make or break your whole business. And, you know, we had made some, like, hard lines that we just didn't wanna cross in terms of, like, quality, for example, on the platform and the amount of NFTs we want to sell. So that definitely, you know, we pay the price for that. The contributor side you mean the contributors in the contributors in the sense of code or contributors in the sense of art? Because we needed both. Pedro, what did you mean by that? What was that? Sorry. I'm sorry. Did you mean, like, contributors in terms of code or contributors in terms of arts, like, artists? I mean, both. I mean, you've you've built a market place so there is that 2 sided, you know, you need the buyers and the the community in terms of art. But in terms of code contribution as well, I mean, you're looking to build this out in public sort of. So Yeah. In terms of, like, Paul, the developers themselves, we, applied for well, I was writing in a in a in a forum, called Project Catalyst. It's like a funder fundraiser for Cardano blockchain specifically. And, there, this, well, this team showed up. They have a consultancy. They have developers. They were interested in the story. And that kind of how we want to build a marketplace. NFTs were just starting. So nobody even, you know, talked about it. And then we were kind of probably the first NFT marketplace on Cardano, given, like, the timeline of when we started, like, this whole journey. And, of course, there were other players who started, you know, kind of picking up on it. And they actually used the market much better than we did. So our our market match was not there, even initially. But we just pushed this idea, and we kind of had it. You know, people were asking us, hey, when are you gonna sell your coins? When are you gonna have a coin? You know, all this stake, you know, when, ICO and stuff like that. So it was like a lot of, like, hype there that we just didn't use properly. So so yeah, the devs came in. And we had the artists who, you know, they had the same idea as us, which is a community curated marketplace, a high quality marketplace for really, really high quality artists. And we found some, of course, and they've made NFTs with us, and they sold them, but the volume was low. And so that kind of started kind of affecting us much more as we kind of turned to. And, yeah, we're here now. So Do do you think any of that had to do with leveraging Cardano and sort of tying yourself into the Cardano ecosystem when there were other you know, there's obviously so many players, in the space. Cardano being obviously always in the in the top ten, I'd say for the most part. And as a fan, personally, I've, you know, I've invested in Cardano as well and, have followed that community for a while. I know there's a lot of ups and downs. But if you were to do it all over again, would you have chosen, perhaps a different cryptocurrency? Or do you think there was a risk of of choosing, you know, Cardano to base everything off of? It's dangerous to say I would choose something else in the crypto space. I'm kidding you. I would definitely no. I am kidding. I would definitely choose. Yeah. I would definitely choose Cardano again, actually. Because it was a unique opportunity in the market. There was no NFT marketplaces. Right? There was already like OpenSea. There was, I don't know, super rare. You know, these things were like, we were like super rare, a bit more like super rare. I don't know if you know these NFT marketplaces, but super rare was more like, yeah, high end art rate. So, and 101 NFT is what we call like unique NFT. So, yeah, There was definitely opportunities that were, you know, there in on Cardano In the Cardano ecosystem itself. But I would definitely choose it again. Like, Yeah. I don't think that's a question of Because it scales, right? Like, that's how we went. Like, if we're gonna build a business around a cryptocurrency, we have to pick something that scales. And that's gotta stay there in 10, 20 years. Ethereum, unfortunately, doesn't scale as well as we know. Right? Right. Right. High fees. Yeah. Yeah. You you've touched on a couple things I really wanna kinda dig a little deeper on. Number 1, startups are fast and furious, like you said, and there's a lot of decisions to be made. And so one of the things you touched on was people asking questions of when are you releasing this or when are you doing that, also making the right decisions. So how did you as the, you know, leader of the entire organization, how did you balance, making the product stable, making things that people wanted, also trying to tie in experimentation for new features? Because, obviously, the the blockchain community kind of took off so fast recently, and and so there's a lot of changes happening. So how did you find that balance of leading a team, building what people wanted, and trying to to put in new features into a product as well? Yeah. Good question. So so, like, at the beginning, as I said, we were like, we stuck to our goals and like we had this vision. And then we saw that that wasn't working as well as we wanted it to, so we started listening. And one of the things that, you know, we knew was missing from the Cardano ecosystem was auctions. So an auction kind of automated and on chain auction system. So that you have a permissionless auction. Basically, you send your NFT, you send your money, and basically the the smart contract itself spews out the winner. Right? So this was never, built by anyone else. So we knew that there was, like, this unique market opportunity and a lot of requests for that. Of course, there's tech debt, right? It's a startup, so everything is breaking all the time. You have to fix things. You have a backlog. Like, you know, we had a a Trello board, I remember, for bugs only. We had, like, GitHub for developments. Like, we used, like, a bunch of different tools for different stuff. And, you know, the trail board was just like getting filled up all the time with bugs and and customer requests. So it was even small stuff, right? Like, if you have something that should work and somehow doesn't work for one user, and you try to fix it, and you're like, okay, let me, know, I have to dig in and, you know, fix something up. I mean, that's so really great job for them doing this, for our tunnel, definitely. How did that transition go? You know? Because, obviously, you're in a you're in a new position now, and there's been a transition period in general. Do you find that that type of, leadership that you're currently in and development life cycle or development type of development that you're doing currently is a lot more rigid in a in a larger company, or is it a little bit more freeing because you're not you're not the ultimate decision maker, but you obviously do have people underneath of you. So is it is it less stressful but less ability to to be flexible now than where you currently or previously were? Yeah. When I was leaving the startup role, I was like, I'm gonna chill now. I'm gonna, like, take it easy. I'm gonna, like, you know and then I went to my job, and I was like, I wanna keep this job. So I'm really stressed out. I really want to, you know, work with people and show that I'm worth it. Right? So I think I'm never gonna be happy. That's the conclusion. No, I'm kidding. It's it's basically like, it's and I think it's it's a mix of things again, like, you know, like, as a as a CEO, you really are everything to the company, you're doing everything. Everybody's looking at you for decisions. There's no other person, you know, who can make it for them, right, if it make the decision for you. So, so and now it's like, I am a contributor, but it's like, I have my own team, I have my own bubble. And whatever happens outside of it is out of my control. So I don't have to think about that. But then at the same time, I really have to think about my team and develop their skills and, improve their processes. So it's a bit it's a really different kind of work, I think. As a CEO, you're also sales, you're marketing, you're a developer, you're a team lead. Right? And as a team lead, I'm just a team lead. But the focus is different a bit. Right? Like and also, you have some expectations from your bosses, and it's a bit of a different dynamic. And working with people is hard. Right? Like, it's just very, difficult at times, right? Because you have to put your ego behind, and you have to listen and say, hey, you're right. And, as a CEO, you don't get to do that that much because you're always right for the good or the bad of it. Right? So yeah. Yeah. And and when you're leading a team, you know, obviously, there's a lot of responsibilities that you have as a leader. But when you're talking about, like, you know, if you were to look at a a pie chart and see the percentage of your time spent across doing different things, what does that look like in terms of managing teams and just managing people? Sometimes maybe being a a babysitter, versus, like, actual or, you know, psychologist, versus actual, like, decision making and and strategy and all that. Like, what is that that split look like for you? It's a very good question because I have no clue. It's, like day to day. Any given day. Yeah. Yeah. Because like, I mean, I remember like some colleagues in my previous company, they were like, oh my God, this is like a psych session. Thank you so much, you know, for listening to me. And I was like, okay, great. So, so yeah, I think there's definitely some psychology there. Like, I would say, you know, 1 on ones, you know, you have them, I don't know, maybe a full day every 2 weeks. So like half, like half a day every week, You spend on just being a psychologist for people, you know, listening to their problems or finding out a way to solve some things and help them, you know, either prioritize, help them. Yeah. Like just vent out sometimes, you know, so it's important for people just, you know, you're just as a manager should not talk at all and just let people, you know, let's team out on you. Right. And that definitely sounds like some some some good advice. Sorry, John. You had a question. Well, I was just gonna say, you know, for for quite a while, it sounds like even back, I guess, to college and as as growing up, it seems like you were always a go getter and whatnot. Have you ever thought about ever stepping down? Maybe this is even towards retirement, but stepping down just to be an individual contributor and be that person who needs psychiatric help from your boss, or do you love that type of day to day constant change in what you're doing, chaos, but also controlled chaos? You know? You know, have you ever looked at it from the other side of the spectrum even though you've been in leadership for quite a while now? Code is like Kryptonite. Like, you just wanna get close to it and get yeah. You know, it's the as closer you get to it, the weaker you get, and the more you wanna kind of, do it. Like, you the more you wanna, I don't know, like, to contribute individually. So I had recently, like, I was pairing with some devs, and I was like, oh my god, I missed this. And then I step away, and I was like, I don't think my personality is made for this, because I'm like more like active, more like change experimentation, you know, making decisions. And And some people are not like that. And when I look, you know, when I was an individual contributor, I don't think I was fully happy, because it was more like just listen and do things, right? And here's like, you know, you make your decisions, and you're responsible for those decisions, but you maybe have some skill set and some communication skills that individual contributors don't have, right? So so, I mean, not always, but let's say I don't know. That's how I feel, at least in my experience. So, yeah, I do feel like, you know, the draw towards that sometimes. But, you know, in in then I'm like, okay, I really like actually managing and, you know, leading people and talking to podcasts. I don't know. It's kinda like a slings it's kinda like a sling shot. You get closer or an orbit. You orbit close to what you really like, but then you kind of go outside and do your leadership type of stuff. So you're, like, constantly orbiting around a center of gravity, which is coding. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, we're building software. Right? And if there's no people to build it, then it's well, your job is worthless as a manager. So Yeah. Exactly. And then I guess the other side of it is, like, what to build. And you you had mentioned before, you know, kinda chasing the money. Is that something that when you're looking to make decisions based on, you know, technology and business alignment, is that where your head's at? Like, what's going to, you know, what's gonna please the the customer the most or what's gonna bring in the most revenue? And then, like, how do you manage prioritizing that with the engineers? I know that sometimes engineers, developers wanna build really cool stuff. Other times, it's like, no, we need to focus on revenue. So I'd love to hear about that balance of how you make those key decisions and which direction to head. So it depends on the company, I think, and on your role. Right? So sometimes as an engineering manager, you actually do make product decisions. Sometimes you don't. So so for me, I think it's just important to balance things out. Right? You have tech debt. You have something that is there's like bugs, right, in the code. There's something that is waiting for you. Always there constantly in the backlog. And then you have also this new shiny thing you wanna build. So, yeah. I think the most difficult question is how do you balance building new stuff and fixing the old stuff? And that's something that I don't know. Maybe there's a book on this or something. But, I, you know, there's ways to figure it out yourself. But, I think it's hard. Right? And you have to kind of constantly look at both and say, hey, there's a pile of stuff. You know, crap is piling up on this side. And we're not or we are not developing anything new. And we're just, like, boring and not, you know, not enjoying our work. So I think it's a balance. Is that anything that's happened recently that you can share, like, specific example of that? Not specific examples of that. I think it's just constantly happening at any organization. Like there's no specific thing that I can point out because it's so common. Right? It's like every day you do this and every day you of have to prioritize what am I gonna do. You know, where am I gonna spend my money, time, life, energy on. Right? Yeah. And you and you've traveled quite a bit and lived in quite a few places, that we discussed in our previous conversation a little bit here. You're currently in Estonia. You've you've been in Germany. You've been in the United States. Do you find that that type of, those types of changes and seeing different cultures and whatnot has, number 1, enhanced your leadership, enhanced your introductions to the people who have different coding skills that you then can also, inherit, and then also helped you become an inclusive manager and leader, for all types of people? Yeah. I think it's important to be an empathetic leader because you just want to people to be happy and, yeah, work with you and communicate well with you and just, like, be, you know, be there for you. I know it's cheesy, but, you know, I don't like this, like, comparison with, like, family and stuff. But, you know, at least you're comfortable with your team, and that's important. And I think you learn that through having these different experiences, living in different places. You just learn how to communicate faster with people. Get get to know them faster and get to, like, kind of get to them faster, and then to you faster. And that's really important, I think, as a manager to be, not just a professional, right? But also be a human, and to understand that sometimes we don't like things. And being able to explain that you have to do things that you don't like to others is super important as a leader. So yeah. So so if you're an unempathetic robot, you might not want to be a leader? I think you wanna be a contributor. I'm kidding. Yeah. AI is not gonna replace the leadership team then. Who knows? Who knows? I mean, there's an empathy you can code into it. Right? Yeah. There you go. Yeah. So you you've been in blockchain. You're currently doing what you're doing. Do you have hot takes on things like AI? Or or I guess because you are in a leadership position, you do have a little bit of ability to do some forward thinking, figure out where you might wanna experiment. You know, what is the next wave that you see being able to take advantage of? Are you digging into AI, or is there something else? How do you feel about those types of things? In my piece I'm looking into the camera right now, but my piece of advice for everyone is to take notes on what happened to crypto and do the same thing that to AI. Because in crypto, we had, like, this use case for everything. Crypto is gonna solve all our problems, and now this is happening with AI. So so I think that people are having this holy grail moment with technology in general. Right? We had phones. We had social media. Now, crypto, AI, next thing is probably VR headsets with Apple, what Apple's doing, right? So we have these like wow moments. And these things are just gonna integrate into our lives. And I think that's the whole point of technology, just making things smoother, easier. Right? And I think that with AI, I I mean, I know that it's something that will probably make things easier, but not in the ways that maybe we imagine it right now. It usually doesn't turn out the way, you know, these predictions that we, we make them. So so I think, you know, there's a holy grail in technology. Yes, it's gonna help us. Yes, it's a tool. But you still can't rely on AI fully to do, you know, I don't know, doctor's exams because, yes, it can check your body and it can give you a diagnosis, but you will still need a doctor to proof proofread it or proof. So it's the tool. Right? It's like anything else. It's a tool. Yeah. I guess there's there's, sorry. I was gonna say there there is that argument that, you know, essentially, it's it's software. It's stuff we've been doing for a long time. You know, it used to be called big data or maybe before that called something else. And really, it's just the larger and larger you scale this data out, now you have really large language models because of the capabilities of GPU's and, just where we're at today. So yeah. You can see extrapolating that out to just be larger and larger use cases of of, you know, just running heavy computations, essentially. But, yeah, interesting to hear your take. Yeah. And I think that's a really smart view that you take because you were obviously so ingrained in the the cryptocurrency blockchain world. It's phones came around, and they did change our lives, but we just it's in integrated into our lives. Technology, the Internet, you know, it came around before that, and it's now integrated in into our lives. And it's really just to make our lives easier. It's I I personally don't think AI will take over the world. I don't think robots will take over the world. I think it'll make our lives easier. It'll it'll help us make do things quicker and faster. We still have to proof check it, like you said, or maybe we'll get to a point where we don't have to proof proofread it as much. But I think right now, we've we're hitting this burst. You know? Everybody's really excited. Everyone's creating something new every 5 seconds. Eventually, you know, all of the useless ones will fade away, but then AI will integrate into our normal daily lives. And so I think having the experience that you had, kind of allows you to see it from that point of view. Like, yeah, it is something that could change the way we do things, but it'll just integrate with how we already do that or how we already do things. So Yeah. Do you do you go to AI at all for advice on management or whatnot? Do you say, how do I be a bet how do I tell this person to get to work? I used to do I never used it in this new role. I used to do it in my previous role a bit for some presentations, as this, yeah, as a CEO, I didn't use it because it just wasn't a thing chat gpt wasn't released yet. So, it really came as like NFTs were fading away and crypto was fading away. You know? Yeah. I kind of came to replace it, which you can see on social media as well. I guess there's some research probably on this. I would like to read it. But, yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Basically, a bit. Yeah. Well, if anyone would read up on AI as opposed to having AI tell you what AI is, it's something to you. Because you read a lot when you're at Oxford. So I'm sure you'll you'll read how AI actually works. Oh my god. Don't get me started with that reading thing. You know, sometimes I get messages in Slack, and I'm just, like, I read the first sentence and I already kind of conclude what the whole thing is about, like the whole chunk of text, and I answer already. And I'm like, and then I go back. I like, because I used to do this, like, I would just answer it. And I'm just trying to like, you know, slowly read it. And, because you don't have time, right? You just wanna do things fast. Yeah. Sorry. The aggression. Yeah. Again, I guess, what kind of were there ever challenges? Because you've you've had a lot of roles. You've got a very diverse background. Were there ever challenges that you you came across where you just felt like you couldn't climb that hill and you you thought you couldn't do it and you did. You know? Obviously, technology, there's a lot of challenges. And so I I guess, did you learn most of your experience from being a CEO and a leader, or are you learning I guess you're a little bit newer in your role here, but, do you think that you're gonna be able to climb those hills a little bit easier where you currently are, overcome those challenges a little easier with Bolt? I had a role in between Bolt and and this being a CEO, also like a manager role, similar size of the team. And I think that was my kind of playground, I would say, for a lot of these mistakes. And I made a lot of mistakes there, and I can see it now. And I'm really thankful for this experience. So I think, you know, as our career progresses, we just get to learn. We just get to make some smaller mistakes over time, right? Like, it's smaller and smaller, hopefully, until we are, you know, like an actual leader or manager or like whatever we wanna become like a software developer. It would just, you know, recognize patterns and recognize, you know because now, like, when I'm in this role, like, I'm just thinking, you know, oh, I've heard this before, you know? So you get to that kind of stage where you're like, oh, okay. I know this type of person. I know what they're expecting, or from me as a manager, or, what they wanted from their career even. So so, yeah, it gets easier over time. Yeah. Awesome. I I think, you know, I personally appreciate people who travel and and work when they're traveling and see different cultures, see different things, learn from all of their experiences. And, again, as as both Pedro and I have our own side businesses, some that are still going and some that have succeeded and failed as well, I think there's a lot to be learned from your experience. So I guess if there's any any, you know, remaining thoughts that you have for people who might be looking to follow a similar journey, you know, if they wanna be a CEO of a company, if they wanted to get into blockchain, if they wanna be a manager as opposed to an individual contributor, you know, what are some thoughts that you would have, some advice that you would give, either to your former self or to some of those people who might be listening who have similar aspirations? Yeah. I would say that you should probably, as somebody who's, like, let's say, a contributor individually, you know, make a big leap in your career, but also be sure that it's a safe leap, that you don't throw everything out, that you just don't quit your job and without funding and, you know, find your find your own company without a team. You know, you have to kind of prepare. It's a process. Right? Like, in going from a contributor to manager or let's say to CEO, a big jump. It's just like something that you need to kind of have a cushion and make sure that you're not losing it all at the end of that journey. Right? Because a lot of people are doing that. Right? Especially in the US, you don't have a, I guess, a safety net. Right? So like social security, all this stuff is like a pretty, yeah, spicy topic. So so, yeah, like, you have to have a cushion, a financial cushion or funding or family support. I think that's really important. So so then you can kind of journey forward without fear because fear is pulling us back. Right. So the really pragmatic approach, line everything up, really think it through, and have, like, a mission oriented, yeah. Start with a job. Like, I was working, you know, 12 hour days plus. And, I mean, that's not even a lot. I think some people work 16 hours. You know, sometimes I wake up at AM AM. I would end my day at 2 AM. And it's tough, but, you know, there was no for me, there was no other way to to, you know, make sure that I'm safe into going into a business. Thanks so much for joining us. Definitely learned a lot. Really appreciate your time. Thank you, guys. I hope to see you soon.","published",[145,155,166],{"people_id":146},{"id":147,"first_name":148,"last_name":149,"avatar":150,"bio":151,"links":152},"d0e0070f-0210-4458-970b-de6dc2b7e244","Mateja","Sela","f5a0d982-1727-41dd-a77b-c4a1287dbd9a","Engineering Manager at Bolt",[153],{"url":137,"service":154},"linkedin",{"people_id":156},{"id":157,"first_name":158,"last_name":159,"avatar":160,"bio":161,"links":162},"9610ff1c-bcfd-4e59-9ab8-17ff5f567ccb","John","Daniels","5100c5aa-0455-48eb-bae3-4380bfd82ea2","Customer Success at Directus",[163],{"url":164,"service":165},"https://directus.io/team/john-daniels","website",{"people_id":167},{"id":168,"first_name":169,"last_name":170,"avatar":171,"bio":161,"links":172},"6057329f-2147-4f46-913f-d6b151dc1bf1","Pedro","Pizarro","7940df6a-db0a-4afe-81bb-a136ef93d229",[173],{"url":174,"service":165},"https://directus.io/team/pedro-pizarro",[],{"id":177,"number":178,"year":179,"episodes":180,"show":185},"53382dd3-4dd7-44f0-9102-a257b4760115",1,"2023",[181,182,122,183,184],"68c8fd05-ac09-4485-aa57-bb8d74a26699","f8864aad-281c-4921-9722-3b6b29d57eb4","836d591e-0f5c-47db-9756-c87d97283c02","57dcdecb-35d2-45da-b230-17ec18dfabce",{"title":186,"tile":187},"Trace Talks","c3914dd2-0a22-4214-a2ac-8314b7a56c27",{"id":189,"slug":190,"season":191,"vimeo_id":192,"description":193,"tile":194,"length":195,"resources":8,"people":8,"episode_number":178,"published":196,"title":197,"video_transcript_html":198,"video_transcript_text":199,"content":8,"seo":200,"status":143,"episode_people":201,"recommendations":205},"5755bb0e-40d5-49c3-bc89-29fb576a4d37","naz-delam","814d854d-db03-4f92-99ba-d825df61fb36","948642030","In this episode of Trace Talks, engineering leader Naz Delam shares her journey to LinkedIn, highlighting key leadership lessons she's learned along the way – from challenges of leading teams during tech layoffs to empowering teams through autonomy and ownership.\n\nNaz also offers practical advice on handling layoffs, continuous learning, and effective networking. \n\nThis episode is a MUST-LISTEN for any aspiring leaders in the tech industry.","64ce77c4-fc3c-4b5b-b344-771d6b867731",52,"2024-05-30","Naz Delam, Software Engineering Manager at LinkedIn","\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Oh, hey. It's a visit from the cat. I was hoping it would show up.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. It has my cat, Christopher.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. I was hoping it would show up. Yeah. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Trace Talks.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Today, we have Naz. Naz, first off, congratulations on becoming a naturalized US citizen today. That's very exciting, very exciting. Sometimes I take that for granted. So it's very exciting when people I know have that happen.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But, yeah, we'll we'll let you introduce yourself. Why don't you let the people know just a brief background into who you are, maybe just a brief introduction into where you are, and then we'll get into the conversation.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Absolutely. Good morning, everyone. Good afternoon wherever you are in the world. My name is Naz. I am currently an engineering leader at LinkedIn, leading media, and, previously worked as as a engineering manager and software engineer at Netflix.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>My background to tech was very traditional, so studied bachelor and master's, in computer engineering and afterwards, systems engineering. So, yeah, it's been, 10 plus years that I am in San Francisco Bay Area, and I got my first job here right after school.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Awesome. Yeah. Thanks so much for that quick intro. As this is kind of a a a podcast focus on leadership, I figured we'd start on that leadership trend. Right now, obviously, in in tech and even starting outside of tech, there's a lot of organizational changes happening and tech layoffs and everything that's, you know, kind of on the front the front of everyone's mind.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I guess let's let's kinda start off on, an interesting take. You know, what what are some of the challenges that you see in today's market, in today's, environment being a leadership at a company like LinkedIn in in in in a tech, you know, a tech world where there's a lot of instability and uncertainty?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. That's that's a great question. Unstability and uncertainty. Being comfortable with both of those and making those a norm, I guess that's the biggest change that we are seeing. And to frame it better, maybe it's just being more comfortable with a lot of change as it's coming your way and be more flexible to perform, knowing all of these uncertainties around you.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So, as a leader, it's it's very hard sometimes to motivate the team and uplevel engineers when you are in this situation, an industry that everyone are hesitant to put their 100% in. So how do you do that? How do you motivate people? Well, you know, things around you are so chaotic. People are not sure if they're gonna get laid off or not.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There is not more of certainty to the mission of the company. I guess, like, couple of things we are doing as a company is being very transparent with engineers if we have layoffs or not. So we are very clear that we don't have layoffs currently. If we know there's more layoffs, we'll let everyone know. So people will rest assure that there's no surprises.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I think it's been happening mostly in a lot of big takes as a surprise, which just has to change for people. It needs to be very more transparent.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. That's that's a good point. And I think that, like, you know, especially at start ups and smaller companies, these things can turn on a dime on people, especially when, you know, maybe the company isn't doing so well and people get shocked. And in those environments, I've seen a lot of managers and and colleagues get together and at least share information so that they can prepare for those next steps. Is that something that you've seen happen before?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, how would you recommend the first step if you do get laid off? What that first step is in finding that new position is is, like, would you recommend applying to a bunch of, you know, jobs that you're interested in or really reaching out to that network?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: I will recommend take a 2 day off for yourself and do a self reflection. I've been through a layoff. So my last job at Netflix, I was laid off. And, I was on both sides of the coin, and seen both sides. So it's it's hard to get laid off.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's never easy, especially if you're performing and you're a great engineer and you're really asking yourself questions why. You know, I have dedicated to this amount of time to this company mission. I have put my all 100% in to develop features. I cared for our users, and now you're telling me to go. And this is not a great feeling for anybody.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I would say the first thing you do is just taking time off and self reflect and try to understand that this is not you, and try to think about your strengths. So what are the things that I'm great at? Because a lot of times when things happen, I see people start to blame themselves and really focusing on shortcomings. These are the things I don't have. Maybe that's why I got laid off because maybe I wasn't great at this.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Oh, how can I find a job now? I'm not great at that. But instead of that, try to be focusing on your strength and see the things that you are getting hired for at the current role and then what are the values that you can take into the next role and next company. And, you know, I coach a lot of engineers nowadays, and I always even say to my team, my direct reports that you're not bound to any company. Your career is you.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So when you go to a company, don't bound yourself to a company specifically. Think longer term about your career and know that layoff can happen anytime. So you enter a company. You do your best. You're bringing value with your talent.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>If that's an exit, then that's a goodbye in in in different form, and you're taking those values and strengths to another company and bring more value for more people around the world. And that's not the end of your career journey.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: That's true. Yeah. And Yeah. Go ahead, John.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. I've that brings up a good point, and I'll I'll branch us into more of some questions around your leadership style because I I was watching a podcast that you were on previously this morning, and you mentioned something really interesting. You said you don't wanna be a leader on a team of followers. You wanna be a leader on a team of leaders. And so what what's some of the advice in the in the typical regular day to day that you provide to your team?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know? Because it sounds like you want to train your team to be self sufficient, hire smart people who can solve problems, and you wanna lead people who are leaders, which in the end makes you a more valuable employee anyway. So what are some of those other values that you have as a leader? Number 1, leading a team of leaders, but what are some other things that you train your team, some values that you train your team to have so that they're just a more valuable employee in general?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Mhmm. I wouldn't call it a valuable employee. I would call them call them great engineers, who can go to any any company or even build their own products. Yeah. That would that was a concept I, read a book called turn the ship around.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's just an amazing leadership book, and, it talks about, how do you empower your team to make decisions on on their own. And that's so true. And it's a very easy statement, but it's not easy in practice. There's a lot of things required for that to be able to do that for your team. Autonomy.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, how do you, as a leader, get all the information to the team that they need? How do you onboard them onto the mission vision? How do you take them to the front lines, how do you get them areas of ownership. And at the same time, as you are in the back of the things, they're also accountable for their work because you don't wanna leave everyone and go. Not everyone feel accountable.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>People sometimes just leave things, and they don't follow-up. So how do they be very proactive, and feel ownership of their area? So I think, like, the most important thing is if the person thinks and feels that they are creating the impact and the impact is visible, they feel more ownership to putting in the work. So for me, also, how do I recognize this engineer? How do I shed light on their work in different forums?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Let's say, like, if if I like, it's a upper leadership type of forum. How do I present their work? How do I have them come and demo and show their work? So they feel they own it, and they feel the impact and importance of their work. And for me, not all the projects have the huge, huge impact.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So how do you actually empower engineers to feel that sense of ownership even on projects which is like migration? And, I think for us is whenever we wanna do something, we wanna think about the why of doing it, and it's one of LinkedIn's engineering principles. We need to have a very strong why. If you have an initiative, you have an idea why are you wanna do this. And if that why is very strong, that correlates to impact.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It means there is an impact. And if there is an impact and if I'm as a leader being able to give all the credit to the person who's doing the work, showcase all the light on that person, you know, and then really reward them based on their impact that they're having. They will feel the sense of ownership, and they actually execute pretty well. So that's what it says in that book is that also in addition to this, give them all the knowledge they need to perform and, have them make mistakes. I think that's one of the scariest things as a leader to leave the team to make mistakes, and it needs to be controlled mistakes.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So you you need to know when you can leave like an engineer. You know what's the right solution is, but you're not saying that. You you have them take their path. You have them make mistakes, and you have them learn from those. And a lot of time when people become managers newly, they try to control that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Right? They try to make sure everything is done right on the team, and there's no area of mistake. But mistakes are very crucial for people development. So as a leader, we need to be able to have those controlled risk so people can make mistakes on areas that's it's not gonna fall apart.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. I love where you talked about sense of ownership, and I think we've talked about that a few times on this podcast. Obviously, everyone feeling like they're making an impact, feeling like they're driving themselves and the organization forward. But on the flip side of that, you know, especially in today's market, like, we were talking about with the layoffs and the reorganizations that can sometimes happen at that level that it almost doesn't matter the contribution that you made. Like, how do you coach someone through that?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Does that bring down morale if they see maybe half their, you know, half their colleagues have been laid off and now they're still at the company? But they're you know, they recognize that sense of ownership, and they're like, well, they didn't do anything wrong either. How do you keep morale high? How do you coach people through that?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: I think one of the important things is to acknowledge all the emotions. Right? Is that it is hard to be in that situation. We had a situation like that last year where I think a bunch of our engineers were laid off late last year. And it is it is hard.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's scary. And, you know, as a leader, you need to acknowledge that. When you go in a room and say, well, everything is butterfly and sunflowers, and we're good, so let's get to work, people doesn't feel like that. Instead, get to a room and say, yes. I feel very bad today.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I, myself, am scared. I, myself, am not happy. I need actually some time to get my, you know, self up and running to be able to execute at my current job as a leader. So take that time too. It is heartbreaking to see people go around us, and I think as you're acknowledging that emotions, people feel more safe.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>People feel that they're in an environment that their leaders feel the same as they are, and no one is trying to, you know, hide things from them or display things in a different way as they are. And that transparency, even on the feelings level, will help people navigate these situations. And be very frank with people. I mean, this is an environment we are in at tech where layoffs are happening. It's been happening forever.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>This is not something new. When you sign a contract with a company, you sign that you can exit anytime, and they can let you go anytime. And this is a norm, and I don't think people should really bound themselves to these things and things like this is the end, and all my contributions are gone. This is not the case. Even for people, the they got laid off.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There have been many instances that we help them find their new role, so we are there for them. This wasn't something they have done. They are great engineers. There were many instances that I referred them to different places. We tried our best to find them new places, and, you know, business is business, and I think that's for people to understand.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>If CEOs of companies getting laid off, you know, it's it's okay for employees to get laid off. So it's it's a norm. I guess, like, in that situation, just to summarize, just be very honest with people. Talk about their feelings. Acknowledge.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So there is the 7 stages of grief that we all know. You have to walk your team through that 7 stages. And don't do that in one day. Day 1, every stage in one day, and then in the 7th day, people are back to their norm. If you're actually acknowledging the emotion, give them time to come back.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Take that anger. Create spaces for people to talk to you, and have them feel safe by you opening up yourself as a leader and talking about how you feel about this. People continue to open up and just put out everything that they're feeling. There would be anger. There would be resentment.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There would be lack of trust for a while. The morale will get impact, and there is nothing we can do about it. That's the reality of the layoffs. And the companies who are doing that, they know that it will have an impact, Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. Be prepared for productivity. Yeah. Productivity to drop, morale to drop, but but, you know, maybe after a few weeks, it returns back to the norm if you can manage through it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Be prepared because you can expect your team to perform the same way they've been. It's it's grief.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You you know, human beings, we can perform the same way. It's it's exactly the last process.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. Let's let's take a step back in your journey because I'm always curious how people find their way to leadership, roles that they've had. And I believe part of your story is going through some of these transitions at previous companies that you're in. So I guess let's kind of take take it back to the beginning of your engineering journey.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, what were you doing? What were some of those roles that you had? And what does that transition from an individual contributor to leadership look like\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: for you? Sure. I wrote a blog post on this as my story called transition to leadership like a butterfly, if if you anyone wanna read, in detail. But I guess I started my engineering journey, like, years back as a back end engineer. So I was doing Java.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>That time was Spring, Khybernet, all these technologies, and I had a lot of pivots. So I'm very curious person, and I wanted to pick up different things. So I pivoted from back end to front end. And then and decide, I did things like machine learning. I worked on self driving cars, did a little bit of AI here and there, studied system engineering while I was working, worked a little bit on NASA.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So so many different branches I had, where I was an engineer. So I wasn't only doing my work. I was very active even outside of my work. And then during that time, as I was exploring different things, was I got this role to becoming a software architect, which was one of the most interesting and fruitful roles I had as an engineer where I could work on, like, a system end to end and work with so many amazing people who had many, many years of experience. So as an engineer, I definitely had experience with all over, all the technologies that we have, across the stack.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I think that made me very, versatile and being able to shift very quickly from, like, back end to front end or using different technologies and, bringing systems upgraded systems and having system understanding. How do you build complex systems that are highly aligned and loosely coupled? So how do you, like, handle risk? How do you test very well? So, that's part of my engineering journey.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But things change. You know? As I started, I was very more technical, and then all of the softer skills getting added as requirement for my role. Right? How do I run a meeting effectively?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And as I grew more and more, I had to deal with more and more people, and that people side got way more interesting for me. So, I talk about my library when I, when I write that blog post where, initially, most of my books were technical. When I started my engineering journey, you can find my library from a programming books. And then as this continues, there's, like, addition of softer skills book getting added to my library. And I would see myself reading those books more more than my technical books, and sometimes I ask myself, like, am I doing the right thing?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Am I, like, going away from my path and doing something new? But, I could say, like, my mindset as my library kind of get transitioned to the people side of it. And over time, I find that more interesting because if I can enable and empower people, and I've been told many times that this is your strength, If I can do that, I would have way more impact than just running myself and executing myself.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Mhmm. Do\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: you find that curiosity that you you found for evolving, you know, soft skills and and newer technologies? That that's definitely a theme that we've heard from almost everyone that we've talked to on this podcast, the curiosity to try new things and then also not be afraid to fail when you're trying new things, but just that curiosity in general. Do you find that to be a crucial a crucial trait to have for a leader? And if so, is that something that you you try and cultivate with your, oh, hey. Visit from the cat.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I was hoping he'd show up.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. It has my cat, Christopher.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: I'm gonna show up. Show up. Yeah. Is that a trait that you is is that a trait that you cultivate in people that you're leading who who also show that they wanna be leaders? If they don't have that trait or if they do have it, is that something that you cultivate with them?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: I mean, people have different personalities. That's the thing I've learned, and not everyone wanna branch this many branches, to be honest. Some people like to go in-depth in one thing, and they stay in one thing, and they they, like, create expertise. Some people like me, they they just like to explore, and they gets maybe bored. I I would like I feel whenever I feel comfortable, and I learn something and I know I'm good at it right now and I'm comfortable with it, now I start to, like, seek something else.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I challenge myself constantly. Not everyone is like that, and it's okay, not to be like that. I think people have very, very different personalities. And, if they are the opposite of the spectrum, doesn't mean that they're not successful, and they can't be greatly less. But for me, specifically, my personality was in that spectrum of, like, I I don't stay in one zone when I'm comfortable, and I'm constantly want to learn something new.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Every year, I pick a new technology to learn out of nowhere. Like, this year, I was looking at quantum computing. Is it related to my job? No. It's it's like out of nowhere I do learn it.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's interesting to me.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Is there any re that's a that's a hefty, hefty topic to start learning. Is there a reason you chose that, or you just you saw it, you had almost no idea what it was, and you just wanted to start exploring it?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Exactly. I saw it. I had no idea. I read things about it, how it solves problem, like, developing new drugs and proteins and working on human DNA, and I'm like, oh my god. This is this is super interesting.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>How does this work? And I started, like, listening to YouTube videos and then reading books about, like, quantum mechanics. So, yeah, I think it's just a curiosity and me wanting to pushing myself constantly out of my comfort zone and challenge myself. I feel that I'm if I feel like I'm in one place, I feel I'm stagnating. So it's it's all about personalities.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, we have different personality traits. I think my my my personality, I'm more of, like, an alpha personality where I have, like, very extreme growth mindset. But people have, like, different spectrums. Some people are very focused on one thing, and they're really great at it, and they don't go out of it. So I think that's totally fine to be in a different spectrum.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>As long as you're growing, it should be totally fine.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it's also a future it sounds like it's also a future focus too. Right? Curious about what comes next. I mean, people studying people have been studying, obviously, AI and large language models for, you know, years already.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We just, as the public, come to see it now. So maybe, like you're saying, quantum computing is that next frontier in 10, 20 years that sort of becomes more more mainstream.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: So, yeah, that that future focus is is interesting. I heard somewhere that, like, I guess at some point, quantum computers can essentially break all encrypted passwords that we have today. So it it could be an interesting problem to solve for tomorrow. Right? Like, how do we secure devices if not with, you know, with passwords and things?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that one thing that it was around 2015 when I went to ACM of ours. I don't know if anyone familiar. Association of Computer Machinery is, like, one of the most prestigious computer science, association, and this award is, like, a Nobel Prize for scientists. So that year, I think, was Bernice Lee who invented the Internet who got the award, and it was at the award ceremony.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And there was a committee who is protecting our data. And it was very interesting to me because all of our data now is binary. And with quantum computing, be the future, and it's not transferrable, how are how are our data gonna be read with quantum machines? Who's gonna protect it? Who's gonna keep a repository of all of our data?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And it was surprising to me that there is a whole committee who's responsible for taking care of our data, you know, as a society. And, they're thinking about all of these things. It's like, how do we transfer this data to quantum later on? So people can look at their images, or look at their binary data. But, yeah, if when you go to these places and you see people forward thinking these many levels, you'll be amazed to hear, like, there are people actually thinking about this thing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. And I also assume one thing I've heard you talk about in other podcasts as well is networking, especially as you just wanna become a better a better engineer, better employee, networking with people. And I'm sure those types of events also introduce you to people with really interesting things that they say and and even new topics that you can then, 5 years later, start to investigate yourself. And so what's the for for this podcast and for the people listening here, what is the value of networking that you, you know, find yourself and that you train for or or you you pass on to your mentees as well?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. That's a good question. Well, a couple of things. First of all, don't network because you want something from people. Network before you want something from people.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So beat those relationships before it comes to, like, looking for a job or, you know, changing your role. And, I always call it vertical and horizontal net networking. So when you are at a role in in your company, you need both of them. So you start the first three months of your role to 1st 6 months doing vertical networking. And by vertical, I mean your team, your manager, your skip manager, and everyone in the chain, and your close partners, so anyone you work with day to day base.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So build relationship with those people. But after that 6 months, you start to do horizon networking, which means going outside your team to other teams that you don't know about. A lot of companies have so many tools. Like, I remember when I was at Netflix, there was this coffee chat where you could register, and you get randomly, matched with someone across the company and you could get a coffee with. At LinkedIn, we have, like, similar tools that you can go in and, you know, chat with people across the company.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>If your company doesn't have 1, be the leader and build 1, so people can chat with each other. Or just simply, you know, ping people for, like, a 15 minute coffee chat to learn about them, introduce yourself, and, just connect with them. And then later on, you will be surprised how those people would show up in your journey, in your career. Not everyone have to give you a job or refer you. They will inspire you in so many ways as you're networking with them.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You may have a question or you may get an idea and you can run by them or they would just be your advocates. They know you somehow. And when there is an opportunity, they remember you, and they put your name up on the table. So that's that's a thing. Always remember.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Don't forget that horizontal networking. People usually go to companies, and they just rely on the vertical networking. They don't know really anyone across the company, and it's similar outside. As I mentioned, your career is not bound to a company, so think the same thing. Vertical networking in your area, horizontal networking outside your area, network with recruiters in different companies, network with people outside your field.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>LinkedIn right now make it super easy for everybody. I think 10 years was their LinkedIn, but it wasn't as active as now where you could find people this easily. Now we are getting to the area of conferences being back again after COVID. So attended conferences, meetups, and chat with people, learn about them, and they will learn about you too. So that's a that's a good thing to be at.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And there is so many things nowadays. I mean, you see all of these mentorship platforms that's showing up, which wasn't there 10 years ago when we started. That's a great way of networking, getting a mentor. It's a next level because that person is investing in you. And if someone is invest in you, they're way more willingly advocating for you later on than someone who just you meet in a conference.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So go on on these platforms. You know, there's a ton of them across the industry. Maybe get to the session with different mentors, people you aspire to be like them or people you they're ahead of you and you wanna get there. Learn how do they get there and ask for their advice. And then later on, when you build these relationships and talk to so many different people, they will invest in you and advocate for you whenever you are in your career.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. You mentioned LinkedIn was a good resource for that. Obviously, you know, that's bringing the entire network together and having making it easier for people to just reach out. In the past, like, I found it maybe awkward or or scary almost to reach out to people for advice. Like, what would you when you're reaching out to someone that doesn't know you at all completely cold and wanting to network with them, what are some tips that you would recommend on that initial sort of cold message?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: I won't really do that. Right? I won't reach out to someone I don't know, and I don't advise that. That's why I'm saying, like, network before you actually need an advice, like, have a really broad people that you know. I won't send a cold message to someone and say, hey.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I need an advice, and I know need 30 minutes of your time. People are super busy, especially people who are in better stages that can advise you. Right? Go get a mentor. Right now, there is so many ways of doing that.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There's all of these platforms. There's Play Doh, Mentor Cruise, MentorMe. I mean, there's so many of them out there that you can find these people on those platforms actually offering you time. So, go find those platforms and find those people, and that's respecting their time and also going there professionally and getting the advice you need. And that will build trust between you and that person because your mentor is now trusting you.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then you can send the cold message after you have couple of sessions with this person and say, you know what? I need an advice on this. What do I do? And they will always there for you. Like, I'll tell all my mentees, like, I'm your all time advocate.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Anytime I mentor, I'll be there for them, like, through their career. So, yes, it can happen. People, like, send them cold messages and say, hey. Can you make a referral? And I'm like, I I don't even know you.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And that makes me question your judgment because how would you want me someone who actually doesn't know you at all to refer you to a role versus someone who's coming in and say, look. I'm looking for a job, and these are the things I wanna get better at. I have a good understanding of myself. Can you advise me how can I find a job? And then at that stage, when I have couple of chats with that person, may mock interview them, I know how their level and how they are.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I actually myself refer them to places that I think it's a great fit for them. So it happens very naturally when you build the relationship the right way. I am not a believer in those cold messages. Sometimes they work, but, I mostly believe in building relationships that are strong with people that have really good foundation and trust.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. That's that's really good advice. I think it's crucial these days to kind of build those are you when you open a position, are Are you when you open a position, are you first thinking of people who have built that type of a relationship with you, whether they're, you know, someone who would fit the position? And then, are you reaching out to your network of people saying, do you know somebody who might fill this position or might fit this position? I guess, which one or both?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know, do you look for both of those types of sources for people when you're scaling your teams?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. So I try to be fair because I don't wanna only look at the people I know and advocate for them, only because I wanna give opportunity to people who I don't know and they can apply to the role. So we I usually build a pool of people where 10 to 20% of them are people I know and I know it's a good fit for this role, and the rest are opportunity for other people to apply to the role. And I take a look at those resumes too. But because I know these people, because I invested them, when a role pops up, I have them top of my mind, and I ping them that this is a role that's popped up.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>If you're interested, apply. But I'm not giving them extra benefits as other people. But the fact that I'm pinging them as a hiring manager and I'm saying apply, they will get an interview pretty easier than people who are applying to the roles, especially in this market. You know a role is popping up in 2 hours. There's 100 of applicants.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, if you have that relationships that people know you, top of their mind, that's the key to get a role is that people who advocate for you and put your name on the table without you wanting that. And that's a huge key to success in the in your career is that building those relationship that can result in this. So whenever I open a role, I have people on top of my mind that I know they're looking for a role and a great fit for this role. And, and I really do that because I know it benefit their role and benefit them. So I don't really refer people who are I don't think they're a good fit.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And, you know, they've been people that their life changed because of that. I mean, they get into really big tech companies. I had a mentee who was a waiter, and, afterwards, he got hired at Meta, and that's changed his life. So many of these stories, people who are just entering tech and, you know, it's really hard to find your first job and build relationships like this with people across the industry who can refer them and advocate for it. Them.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So it's a it's a both mix up pool because fairness is super important when I hire. I wanna make sure I give, like, opportunity to all type of people, be as, you know, inclusive as possible to, like, all people from different backgrounds. Also, look at my team and say, like, okay. Is my team diverse enough? You know, what I'm needing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, do I have enough women at my team? I don't want, like, to having 1 woman in the room or 1 man in room to feel, like, isolated. I want everyone to feel belonging. So looking at the gaps on my team and see, like, what are those gaps that I'm looking for to fill in and really building that diverse pool of people, who are coming in to interview.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Yeah. And on the taking it from from the hiring side, I'm I'm curious putting you as the candidate. I know you were presented with options, you know, to maybe go to YouTube or Google and and LinkedIn, and, obviously, you you ultimately chose LinkedIn. When looking for a place to go, like, what was that deciding factor that made you choose LinkedIn and and framing that as advice for people who are listening? You know, if they're presented with so many options or so many different paths, like, how do you choose?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Mhmm. So, the framework I walk my mentees through is we do have a value table. Before you actually start job searching, you put together maximum five values you're looking into the next role. What are the things you really want in your next role? Example, for me, like, people mattered.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I wanna work in a culture that people come first. Growth mattered. I wanted to work in in a company that supports my growth. You know, technology mattered. I wanted to be a cutting edge technology.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Product mattered for me. I wanted to work on a product I've never worked on before, and there are a couple of other things that I have in my value table. And whenever I am interviewing a company, and I always say that interview is a two way assessment. There are things you're assessing too. These values are the things you have to assess.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Ask the recruiter. Ask the hiring manager in your first interview. What is the growth framework on your team? Who was the last person who got promoted on your team? How does promotion happens?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>How do you support an engineer who falls behind? How do you onboard people onto new team? You know, all of these questions you can ask to assess how good is that company and that team role for you in terms of your value. Ask about the product if it matters. Like, how old is the product?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Is it a new thing? Why are we is this a bet? You know? Is it something that we're just gonna do right now and just, disappear, like, a year from now, or is this something the company wanna invest in long term? If these things matter for you, be prepared to ask these questions because a lot of people go into roles blindly just because it's at a good company, and then they're not happy there afterwards because they're not assessing in their interview, their role in the company.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then when you have these values and you're interviewing, I give a score from 1 to 10. 10 means they're great at it. 1, they're very poor. And, then when you're reaching to the offer stage, like top 3, top 2, interview that you're doing, you can see the differences. So, for example, for me, between YouTube and LinkedIn, it was a product.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I wanted to work on a product I've never worked on, and for me, YouTube was a streaming again. And I'm not a person to go in-depth. As you know, my personality, I love the breadth. I love to get things which is new. I never work on a social media platform like LinkedIn.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So that was a a factor like, one of the biggest factor on that table that I picked LinkedIn over YouTube. So if you have that values, it's easy to to know, like, which one I I wanna go to and which value I wanna compromise, which one is compromiseable for me, which one is nice. For me, work life balance is not compromiseable. It's a value. I do a lot of things outside work, and work is not my only thing in life.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So, I wanted a company that, you know, I don't have to work 247 because I really don't admire that type of environment. So I think it's toxic. So what are those values and which one you cannot compromise and assessing those over your interview then when you're at a offer stage? You you don't have a hard time to know which one do you have to pick.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. I I think I saw that you last end of towards the end of last year ran a marathon, and so those types of hobbies, I think, are pretty important. You know? Pedro and I play music music, and, I think Pedro is a coffee aficionado, so he loves making coffee.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So I think it's important to have those things outside of work to to make sure you stay balanced. It sounds like you have several ways that you evolve yourself. You know, you you said you mentioned reading books and just being curious and learning new technologies. You probably also have your own mentor who you who you get advice from or several mentors. So is it is it hard, or do you just find it come naturally to still make sure that you're growing as a as a person?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Do those does that time come easy, or do you have to make sure that you, you know, spend a couple hours a week making sure that you're growing as a leader as well?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: That's a great question. I feel that's come naturally for me. It's not like I mostly build habits versus, like, I have to read, like, 3 hours per week. It's not like that. It comes as a habit.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You all know the book, Atomic Habits. Right? It's like stacking things and building habits and systems. For me, mostly, it's systems in my life. And you can't have all of it at the same time.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, you can't go to the gym and read books and be great at your work and get a mentor and run projects. It's not possible. You need to have balance long term, but in short term, you may not have a balance. So let's say if you if you wanna get better at something and you have, like, 3 books to finish, you may have to cut off from your gym time or running time or whatever you're doing at on the side for, like, a week. And then a week after, you know that what is cutting off was my running, and now I'm done with this book.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So this is the things I'm gonna prioritize. I'm pulling it back up this week. I'm gonna focus on it more. So in long run, there is a balance between all of these things you're doing. But in short run, you prioritize between these things because you can't have all of these things together.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then you build systems for yourself. Systems of learning. What's your system of learning? Is that books right now is so integrated into my life. It's something that, you know, I usually read in the morning when I wake up or if it's a book.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Even learning how to read a book pretty fast is super important and summarize it so you can refer to it later on. But building that systems that actually can help you. For me, Fridays is my self reflection days. It's a day I have a session in the morning with my mentor. And after that session, I self reflect on, like, how what did I do this week?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>What are the areas I did really well? What are the top things top five things I did at my work? Then that top five things goes to 1 on 1 next week with my manager. And this is kind of what we call it managing up. Like, how do you how do you manage up, and how do you tell your manager and your escape what are you doing, and it's getting harder as you're going higher and higher.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So that's that's a way of me managing up by taking that 5 outlines and putting in my 1 on 1 doc, and then self reflecting of what are the things I have to do next week, looking at my team structure, how everyone is doing, did I capture what they did greatly this week? I do that for my team too, like, every individual on the team. I have a running doc that I say these are the things they did really well this week. So when it comes to their performance review, I am very detailed for advocating for them, for every engineer, and I'm taking all that recognition in. What are the feedbacks I have to give them?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I'm very proactive on giving my direct reports feedback. I will let it sit. If someone is not doing something very well or there is there is a gap that they can do better, it would be right away. Every week, I'm thinking about their performance and how they did. So it won't be a surprise.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>You know? There are some managers that suddenly come after, like, a year, and they say, you didn't do all of these things. And, that's hinder trust. The trust is broken at that stage. So the more honest and the more periodic and the smaller these pieces of feedbacks are and very targeted, the better those those people can grow.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So Friday, my system of self reflection into my life, plan of next week, How's my month look like? Am I having enough fun? How's my gym is going? How's my workouts? Relationship wise, am I spending time with people I love?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Like, sometimes I'm so much slanted at work. I forget about my friends. I'm like, next week, I'm gonna set time with my friends. Next week, I'm gonna spend more time talking to my mom. There are, like, 4 categories in my life.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>It's career, which is one that you all have. It's love and relationships, like you being very socially, satisfied with, like, going out with people, your best friends, your family, your close relatives, spending time with them. For me, financial life matters. I'm doing on that. Am I, like, on track with my goals?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then, health, like, in terms of am I drinking enough water? Am I a happy person? How's my mental health? Do I need, like, some of the weeks that I'm very exhausted? I usually go to a lighter sort of workout.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And I'm like, okay. This week, I'm gonna go do yoga instead of running because I want less intensity in my life. So how are you assessing that and then having that, like, long term balance? There is this book also called design your life where it talks about these categories, which is something I took from this book, And then, having that categories help me to balance. So I measure every category every week, and I see how I'm doing and which category requires attention.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I prioritize a week after.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: I like that. I have to check out that book.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. I'm I am writing that down because, there's definitely weeks or several weeks in a row where I might neglect 1 or 2 of those categories for sure. So that's that's a good book to write down.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: Awesome. So, yeah, I think, we're coming close to time here for you know, thank you, Naz, for your for your time. I think maybe we could wrap it up with, you know, what's some advice that you would give to anyone who's listening, maybe something top of mind that's, you know, come across your mind over the last week or 2, that you'd like to just kinda pass along? And then where can everyone find you and and follow your journey?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. Sure. Oh, that's a hard question. I mean, something that has been top of my mind. I was reading yesterday a quote about someone who lays off.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>I think it was a company called Clarify, and she wrote couple of points I shared on my LinkedIn as opposed to where things I've learned from layoffs. And one of it is, like, really thinking about how do you not bound to one job and then have some back ups, make sure that that happens. The other was, like, really thinking about yourself and getting yourself back up. And, one point that was funny, and a lot of people didn't agree, is that people are there for you when you get laid off. But the reality is they're not.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Everyone having their own job, and you can expect that you're getting laid off and everyone is there for you. And now your friends are taking you to their companies. I mean, they do their best, but it's not the case. So be prepared. I mean, be prepared.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Have your resume ready all the time. I mean, don't just get on your resume when you need a job. Your resume is a reflection of you, and it needs to be ready and updated. Your LinkedIn needs to be ready and updated with latest things you do. And then always and always have 1 or 2 interview per year.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>What are you doing with the company? Even if you're at a place that you're comfortable, always, always interview. You are you'll be at the ready state all the time. Also, you learn about the market and what's going on, in other companies when you interview with them, and it's a it's a way of also networking. So when you interview with hiring managers and they get to know you, later on when they have a role and if you perform there in that interview, they're gonna they're gonna reach out to you.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So be ready, before something happens is actually the key in this market. And knowing that your work is not bound to a company. You're taking your work to different companies' missions and vision and enabling part of their journey as a really amazing engineer. And, none of us have to be in a place forever. At least in tech, it's not the case.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Awesome. Yeah. I I think I think you also once mentioned sorry to sorry to jump in there. I think you also once mentioned around the interviewing process. You also just received feedback feedback from those people about how you present on a camera or your answers, or you get some valuable feedback from those interviews as well.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Yeah. And be very transparent when you do those interviews. Like, I'm not actively looking, but this looks like a good opportunity. I wanna I wanna assess and learn more about this company. Why not doing an interview?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And putting yourself in those situations more often makes you more comfortable. You'll be more confident. So if people wanna find me, I'm on LinkedIn, nazdaalum. Also, you can find all my handles on my website, nazda dev, and feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions about anything I mentioned. Hopefully, we can have those books listed, John, somewhere, so people can find it on-site reference.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 0: Yeah. Yeah. I was definitely gonna say I'm gonna keep in contact with you just to see what books you're reading. Awesome, Naz. Well, yeah, I I really I personally found a lot of value from this conversation.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>There's a lot of things that, you mentioned that I just tend to forget over time, and so I definitely found some great value out of this conversation. Everyone, go follow her on LinkedIn. Pedro's battery is exhausted.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 2: My battery is exhausted, so my camera died, but I am here. Thank you, Nez. Thanks so much for your time. Yeah.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Speaker 1: Thank you, everyone. Thank you for having me. It was great.\u003C/p>","Oh, hey. It's a visit from the cat. I was hoping it would show up. Yeah. It has my cat, Christopher. Yeah. I was hoping it would show up. Yeah. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Trace Talks. Today, we have Naz. Naz, first off, congratulations on becoming a naturalized US citizen today. That's very exciting, very exciting. Sometimes I take that for granted. So it's very exciting when people I know have that happen. But, yeah, we'll we'll let you introduce yourself. Why don't you let the people know just a brief background into who you are, maybe just a brief introduction into where you are, and then we'll get into the conversation. Absolutely. Good morning, everyone. Good afternoon wherever you are in the world. My name is Naz. I am currently an engineering leader at LinkedIn, leading media, and, previously worked as as a engineering manager and software engineer at Netflix. My background to tech was very traditional, so studied bachelor and master's, in computer engineering and afterwards, systems engineering. So, yeah, it's been, 10 plus years that I am in San Francisco Bay Area, and I got my first job here right after school. Awesome. Yeah. Thanks so much for that quick intro. As this is kind of a a a podcast focus on leadership, I figured we'd start on that leadership trend. Right now, obviously, in in tech and even starting outside of tech, there's a lot of organizational changes happening and tech layoffs and everything that's, you know, kind of on the front the front of everyone's mind. So I guess let's let's kinda start off on, an interesting take. You know, what what are some of the challenges that you see in today's market, in today's, environment being a leadership at a company like LinkedIn in in in in a tech, you know, a tech world where there's a lot of instability and uncertainty? Yeah. That's that's a great question. Unstability and uncertainty. Being comfortable with both of those and making those a norm, I guess that's the biggest change that we are seeing. And to frame it better, maybe it's just being more comfortable with a lot of change as it's coming your way and be more flexible to perform, knowing all of these uncertainties around you. So, as a leader, it's it's very hard sometimes to motivate the team and uplevel engineers when you are in this situation, an industry that everyone are hesitant to put their 100% in. So how do you do that? How do you motivate people? Well, you know, things around you are so chaotic. People are not sure if they're gonna get laid off or not. There is not more of certainty to the mission of the company. I guess, like, couple of things we are doing as a company is being very transparent with engineers if we have layoffs or not. So we are very clear that we don't have layoffs currently. If we know there's more layoffs, we'll let everyone know. So people will rest assure that there's no surprises. And I think it's been happening mostly in a lot of big takes as a surprise, which just has to change for people. It needs to be very more transparent. Yeah. That's that's a good point. And I think that, like, you know, especially at start ups and smaller companies, these things can turn on a dime on people, especially when, you know, maybe the company isn't doing so well and people get shocked. And in those environments, I've seen a lot of managers and and colleagues get together and at least share information so that they can prepare for those next steps. Is that something that you've seen happen before? And, how would you recommend the first step if you do get laid off? What that first step is in finding that new position is is, like, would you recommend applying to a bunch of, you know, jobs that you're interested in or really reaching out to that network? I will recommend take a 2 day off for yourself and do a self reflection. I've been through a layoff. So my last job at Netflix, I was laid off. And, I was on both sides of the coin, and seen both sides. So it's it's hard to get laid off. It's never easy, especially if you're performing and you're a great engineer and you're really asking yourself questions why. You know, I have dedicated to this amount of time to this company mission. I have put my all 100% in to develop features. I cared for our users, and now you're telling me to go. And this is not a great feeling for anybody. So I would say the first thing you do is just taking time off and self reflect and try to understand that this is not you, and try to think about your strengths. So what are the things that I'm great at? Because a lot of times when things happen, I see people start to blame themselves and really focusing on shortcomings. These are the things I don't have. Maybe that's why I got laid off because maybe I wasn't great at this. Oh, how can I find a job now? I'm not great at that. But instead of that, try to be focusing on your strength and see the things that you are getting hired for at the current role and then what are the values that you can take into the next role and next company. And, you know, I coach a lot of engineers nowadays, and I always even say to my team, my direct reports that you're not bound to any company. Your career is you. So when you go to a company, don't bound yourself to a company specifically. Think longer term about your career and know that layoff can happen anytime. So you enter a company. You do your best. You're bringing value with your talent. If that's an exit, then that's a goodbye in in in different form, and you're taking those values and strengths to another company and bring more value for more people around the world. And that's not the end of your career journey. That's true. Yeah. And Yeah. Go ahead, John. Yeah. I've that brings up a good point, and I'll I'll branch us into more of some questions around your leadership style because I I was watching a podcast that you were on previously this morning, and you mentioned something really interesting. You said you don't wanna be a leader on a team of followers. You wanna be a leader on a team of leaders. And so what what's some of the advice in the in the typical regular day to day that you provide to your team? You know? Because it sounds like you want to train your team to be self sufficient, hire smart people who can solve problems, and you wanna lead people who are leaders, which in the end makes you a more valuable employee anyway. So what are some of those other values that you have as a leader? Number 1, leading a team of leaders, but what are some other things that you train your team, some values that you train your team to have so that they're just a more valuable employee in general? Mhmm. I wouldn't call it a valuable employee. I would call them call them great engineers, who can go to any any company or even build their own products. Yeah. That would that was a concept I, read a book called turn the ship around. It's just an amazing leadership book, and, it talks about, how do you empower your team to make decisions on on their own. And that's so true. And it's a very easy statement, but it's not easy in practice. There's a lot of things required for that to be able to do that for your team. Autonomy. Like, how do you, as a leader, get all the information to the team that they need? How do you onboard them onto the mission vision? How do you take them to the front lines, how do you get them areas of ownership. And at the same time, as you are in the back of the things, they're also accountable for their work because you don't wanna leave everyone and go. Not everyone feel accountable. People sometimes just leave things, and they don't follow-up. So how do they be very proactive, and feel ownership of their area? So I think, like, the most important thing is if the person thinks and feels that they are creating the impact and the impact is visible, they feel more ownership to putting in the work. So for me, also, how do I recognize this engineer? How do I shed light on their work in different forums? Let's say, like, if if I like, it's a upper leadership type of forum. How do I present their work? How do I have them come and demo and show their work? So they feel they own it, and they feel the impact and importance of their work. And for me, not all the projects have the huge, huge impact. So how do you actually empower engineers to feel that sense of ownership even on projects which is like migration? And, I think for us is whenever we wanna do something, we wanna think about the why of doing it, and it's one of LinkedIn's engineering principles. We need to have a very strong why. If you have an initiative, you have an idea why are you wanna do this. And if that why is very strong, that correlates to impact. It means there is an impact. And if there is an impact and if I'm as a leader being able to give all the credit to the person who's doing the work, showcase all the light on that person, you know, and then really reward them based on their impact that they're having. They will feel the sense of ownership, and they actually execute pretty well. So that's what it says in that book is that also in addition to this, give them all the knowledge they need to perform and, have them make mistakes. I think that's one of the scariest things as a leader to leave the team to make mistakes, and it needs to be controlled mistakes. So you you need to know when you can leave like an engineer. You know what's the right solution is, but you're not saying that. You you have them take their path. You have them make mistakes, and you have them learn from those. And a lot of time when people become managers newly, they try to control that. Right? They try to make sure everything is done right on the team, and there's no area of mistake. But mistakes are very crucial for people development. So as a leader, we need to be able to have those controlled risk so people can make mistakes on areas that's it's not gonna fall apart. Yeah. I love where you talked about sense of ownership, and I think we've talked about that a few times on this podcast. Obviously, everyone feeling like they're making an impact, feeling like they're driving themselves and the organization forward. But on the flip side of that, you know, especially in today's market, like, we were talking about with the layoffs and the reorganizations that can sometimes happen at that level that it almost doesn't matter the contribution that you made. Like, how do you coach someone through that? Does that bring down morale if they see maybe half their, you know, half their colleagues have been laid off and now they're still at the company? But they're you know, they recognize that sense of ownership, and they're like, well, they didn't do anything wrong either. How do you keep morale high? How do you coach people through that? I think one of the important things is to acknowledge all the emotions. Right? Is that it is hard to be in that situation. We had a situation like that last year where I think a bunch of our engineers were laid off late last year. And it is it is hard. It's scary. And, you know, as a leader, you need to acknowledge that. When you go in a room and say, well, everything is butterfly and sunflowers, and we're good, so let's get to work, people doesn't feel like that. Instead, get to a room and say, yes. I feel very bad today. I, myself, am scared. I, myself, am not happy. I need actually some time to get my, you know, self up and running to be able to execute at my current job as a leader. So take that time too. It is heartbreaking to see people go around us, and I think as you're acknowledging that emotions, people feel more safe. People feel that they're in an environment that their leaders feel the same as they are, and no one is trying to, you know, hide things from them or display things in a different way as they are. And that transparency, even on the feelings level, will help people navigate these situations. And be very frank with people. I mean, this is an environment we are in at tech where layoffs are happening. It's been happening forever. This is not something new. When you sign a contract with a company, you sign that you can exit anytime, and they can let you go anytime. And this is a norm, and I don't think people should really bound themselves to these things and things like this is the end, and all my contributions are gone. This is not the case. Even for people, the they got laid off. There have been many instances that we help them find their new role, so we are there for them. This wasn't something they have done. They are great engineers. There were many instances that I referred them to different places. We tried our best to find them new places, and, you know, business is business, and I think that's for people to understand. If CEOs of companies getting laid off, you know, it's it's okay for employees to get laid off. So it's it's a norm. I guess, like, in that situation, just to summarize, just be very honest with people. Talk about their feelings. Acknowledge. So there is the 7 stages of grief that we all know. You have to walk your team through that 7 stages. And don't do that in one day. Day 1, every stage in one day, and then in the 7th day, people are back to their norm. If you're actually acknowledging the emotion, give them time to come back. Take that anger. Create spaces for people to talk to you, and have them feel safe by you opening up yourself as a leader and talking about how you feel about this. People continue to open up and just put out everything that they're feeling. There would be anger. There would be resentment. There would be lack of trust for a while. The morale will get impact, and there is nothing we can do about it. That's the reality of the layoffs. And the companies who are doing that, they know that it will have an impact, Yeah. Yeah. Be prepared for productivity. Yeah. Productivity to drop, morale to drop, but but, you know, maybe after a few weeks, it returns back to the norm if you can manage through it. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Be prepared because you can expect your team to perform the same way they've been. It's it's grief. You you know, human beings, we can perform the same way. It's it's exactly the last process. Yeah. Yeah. Let's let's take a step back in your journey because I'm always curious how people find their way to leadership, roles that they've had. And I believe part of your story is going through some of these transitions at previous companies that you're in. So I guess let's kind of take take it back to the beginning of your engineering journey. You know, what were you doing? What were some of those roles that you had? And what does that transition from an individual contributor to leadership look like for you? Sure. I wrote a blog post on this as my story called transition to leadership like a butterfly, if if you anyone wanna read, in detail. But I guess I started my engineering journey, like, years back as a back end engineer. So I was doing Java. That time was Spring, Khybernet, all these technologies, and I had a lot of pivots. So I'm very curious person, and I wanted to pick up different things. So I pivoted from back end to front end. And then and decide, I did things like machine learning. I worked on self driving cars, did a little bit of AI here and there, studied system engineering while I was working, worked a little bit on NASA. So so many different branches I had, where I was an engineer. So I wasn't only doing my work. I was very active even outside of my work. And then during that time, as I was exploring different things, was I got this role to becoming a software architect, which was one of the most interesting and fruitful roles I had as an engineer where I could work on, like, a system end to end and work with so many amazing people who had many, many years of experience. So as an engineer, I definitely had experience with all over, all the technologies that we have, across the stack. And I think that made me very, versatile and being able to shift very quickly from, like, back end to front end or using different technologies and, bringing systems upgraded systems and having system understanding. How do you build complex systems that are highly aligned and loosely coupled? So how do you, like, handle risk? How do you test very well? So, that's part of my engineering journey. But things change. You know? As I started, I was very more technical, and then all of the softer skills getting added as requirement for my role. Right? How do I run a meeting effectively? And as I grew more and more, I had to deal with more and more people, and that people side got way more interesting for me. So, I talk about my library when I, when I write that blog post where, initially, most of my books were technical. When I started my engineering journey, you can find my library from a programming books. And then as this continues, there's, like, addition of softer skills book getting added to my library. And I would see myself reading those books more more than my technical books, and sometimes I ask myself, like, am I doing the right thing? Am I, like, going away from my path and doing something new? But, I could say, like, my mindset as my library kind of get transitioned to the people side of it. And over time, I find that more interesting because if I can enable and empower people, and I've been told many times that this is your strength, If I can do that, I would have way more impact than just running myself and executing myself. Mhmm. Do you find that curiosity that you you found for evolving, you know, soft skills and and newer technologies? That that's definitely a theme that we've heard from almost everyone that we've talked to on this podcast, the curiosity to try new things and then also not be afraid to fail when you're trying new things, but just that curiosity in general. Do you find that to be a crucial a crucial trait to have for a leader? And if so, is that something that you you try and cultivate with your, oh, hey. Visit from the cat. I was hoping he'd show up. Yeah. It has my cat, Christopher. I'm gonna show up. Show up. Yeah. Is that a trait that you is is that a trait that you cultivate in people that you're leading who who also show that they wanna be leaders? If they don't have that trait or if they do have it, is that something that you cultivate with them? I mean, people have different personalities. That's the thing I've learned, and not everyone wanna branch this many branches, to be honest. Some people like to go in-depth in one thing, and they stay in one thing, and they they, like, create expertise. Some people like me, they they just like to explore, and they gets maybe bored. I I would like I feel whenever I feel comfortable, and I learn something and I know I'm good at it right now and I'm comfortable with it, now I start to, like, seek something else. I challenge myself constantly. Not everyone is like that, and it's okay, not to be like that. I think people have very, very different personalities. And, if they are the opposite of the spectrum, doesn't mean that they're not successful, and they can't be greatly less. But for me, specifically, my personality was in that spectrum of, like, I I don't stay in one zone when I'm comfortable, and I'm constantly want to learn something new. Every year, I pick a new technology to learn out of nowhere. Like, this year, I was looking at quantum computing. Is it related to my job? No. It's it's like out of nowhere I do learn it. It's interesting to me. Is there any re that's a that's a hefty, hefty topic to start learning. Is there a reason you chose that, or you just you saw it, you had almost no idea what it was, and you just wanted to start exploring it? Exactly. I saw it. I had no idea. I read things about it, how it solves problem, like, developing new drugs and proteins and working on human DNA, and I'm like, oh my god. This is this is super interesting. How does this work? And I started, like, listening to YouTube videos and then reading books about, like, quantum mechanics. So, yeah, I think it's just a curiosity and me wanting to pushing myself constantly out of my comfort zone and challenge myself. I feel that I'm if I feel like I'm in one place, I feel I'm stagnating. So it's it's all about personalities. Like, we have different personality traits. I think my my my personality, I'm more of, like, an alpha personality where I have, like, very extreme growth mindset. But people have, like, different spectrums. Some people are very focused on one thing, and they're really great at it, and they don't go out of it. So I think that's totally fine to be in a different spectrum. As long as you're growing, it should be totally fine. Yeah. I think it's also a future it sounds like it's also a future focus too. Right? Curious about what comes next. I mean, people studying people have been studying, obviously, AI and large language models for, you know, years already. We just, as the public, come to see it now. So maybe, like you're saying, quantum computing is that next frontier in 10, 20 years that sort of becomes more more mainstream. Yeah. So, yeah, that that future focus is is interesting. I heard somewhere that, like, I guess at some point, quantum computers can essentially break all encrypted passwords that we have today. So it it could be an interesting problem to solve for tomorrow. Right? Like, how do we secure devices if not with, you know, with passwords and things? Yeah. I think that one thing that it was around 2015 when I went to ACM of ours. I don't know if anyone familiar. Association of Computer Machinery is, like, one of the most prestigious computer science, association, and this award is, like, a Nobel Prize for scientists. So that year, I think, was Bernice Lee who invented the Internet who got the award, and it was at the award ceremony. And there was a committee who is protecting our data. And it was very interesting to me because all of our data now is binary. And with quantum computing, be the future, and it's not transferrable, how are how are our data gonna be read with quantum machines? Who's gonna protect it? Who's gonna keep a repository of all of our data? And it was surprising to me that there is a whole committee who's responsible for taking care of our data, you know, as a society. And, they're thinking about all of these things. It's like, how do we transfer this data to quantum later on? So people can look at their images, or look at their binary data. But, yeah, if when you go to these places and you see people forward thinking these many levels, you'll be amazed to hear, like, there are people actually thinking about this thing. Yeah. And I also assume one thing I've heard you talk about in other podcasts as well is networking, especially as you just wanna become a better a better engineer, better employee, networking with people. And I'm sure those types of events also introduce you to people with really interesting things that they say and and even new topics that you can then, 5 years later, start to investigate yourself. And so what's the for for this podcast and for the people listening here, what is the value of networking that you, you know, find yourself and that you train for or or you you pass on to your mentees as well? Yeah. That's a good question. Well, a couple of things. First of all, don't network because you want something from people. Network before you want something from people. So beat those relationships before it comes to, like, looking for a job or, you know, changing your role. And, I always call it vertical and horizontal net networking. So when you are at a role in in your company, you need both of them. So you start the first three months of your role to 1st 6 months doing vertical networking. And by vertical, I mean your team, your manager, your skip manager, and everyone in the chain, and your close partners, so anyone you work with day to day base. So build relationship with those people. But after that 6 months, you start to do horizon networking, which means going outside your team to other teams that you don't know about. A lot of companies have so many tools. Like, I remember when I was at Netflix, there was this coffee chat where you could register, and you get randomly, matched with someone across the company and you could get a coffee with. At LinkedIn, we have, like, similar tools that you can go in and, you know, chat with people across the company. If your company doesn't have 1, be the leader and build 1, so people can chat with each other. Or just simply, you know, ping people for, like, a 15 minute coffee chat to learn about them, introduce yourself, and, just connect with them. And then later on, you will be surprised how those people would show up in your journey, in your career. Not everyone have to give you a job or refer you. They will inspire you in so many ways as you're networking with them. You may have a question or you may get an idea and you can run by them or they would just be your advocates. They know you somehow. And when there is an opportunity, they remember you, and they put your name up on the table. So that's that's a thing. Always remember. Don't forget that horizontal networking. People usually go to companies, and they just rely on the vertical networking. They don't know really anyone across the company, and it's similar outside. As I mentioned, your career is not bound to a company, so think the same thing. Vertical networking in your area, horizontal networking outside your area, network with recruiters in different companies, network with people outside your field. LinkedIn right now make it super easy for everybody. I think 10 years was their LinkedIn, but it wasn't as active as now where you could find people this easily. Now we are getting to the area of conferences being back again after COVID. So attended conferences, meetups, and chat with people, learn about them, and they will learn about you too. So that's a that's a good thing to be at. And there is so many things nowadays. I mean, you see all of these mentorship platforms that's showing up, which wasn't there 10 years ago when we started. That's a great way of networking, getting a mentor. It's a next level because that person is investing in you. And if someone is invest in you, they're way more willingly advocating for you later on than someone who just you meet in a conference. So go on on these platforms. You know, there's a ton of them across the industry. Maybe get to the session with different mentors, people you aspire to be like them or people you they're ahead of you and you wanna get there. Learn how do they get there and ask for their advice. And then later on, when you build these relationships and talk to so many different people, they will invest in you and advocate for you whenever you are in your career. Yeah. You mentioned LinkedIn was a good resource for that. Obviously, you know, that's bringing the entire network together and having making it easier for people to just reach out. In the past, like, I found it maybe awkward or or scary almost to reach out to people for advice. Like, what would you when you're reaching out to someone that doesn't know you at all completely cold and wanting to network with them, what are some tips that you would recommend on that initial sort of cold message? I won't really do that. Right? I won't reach out to someone I don't know, and I don't advise that. That's why I'm saying, like, network before you actually need an advice, like, have a really broad people that you know. I won't send a cold message to someone and say, hey. I need an advice, and I know need 30 minutes of your time. People are super busy, especially people who are in better stages that can advise you. Right? Go get a mentor. Right now, there is so many ways of doing that. There's all of these platforms. There's Play Doh, Mentor Cruise, MentorMe. I mean, there's so many of them out there that you can find these people on those platforms actually offering you time. So, go find those platforms and find those people, and that's respecting their time and also going there professionally and getting the advice you need. And that will build trust between you and that person because your mentor is now trusting you. And then you can send the cold message after you have couple of sessions with this person and say, you know what? I need an advice on this. What do I do? And they will always there for you. Like, I'll tell all my mentees, like, I'm your all time advocate. Anytime I mentor, I'll be there for them, like, through their career. So, yes, it can happen. People, like, send them cold messages and say, hey. Can you make a referral? And I'm like, I I don't even know you. And that makes me question your judgment because how would you want me someone who actually doesn't know you at all to refer you to a role versus someone who's coming in and say, look. I'm looking for a job, and these are the things I wanna get better at. I have a good understanding of myself. Can you advise me how can I find a job? And then at that stage, when I have couple of chats with that person, may mock interview them, I know how their level and how they are. And I actually myself refer them to places that I think it's a great fit for them. So it happens very naturally when you build the relationship the right way. I am not a believer in those cold messages. Sometimes they work, but, I mostly believe in building relationships that are strong with people that have really good foundation and trust. Yeah. That's that's really good advice. I think it's crucial these days to kind of build those are you when you open a position, are Are you when you open a position, are you first thinking of people who have built that type of a relationship with you, whether they're, you know, someone who would fit the position? And then, are you reaching out to your network of people saying, do you know somebody who might fill this position or might fit this position? I guess, which one or both? You know, do you look for both of those types of sources for people when you're scaling your teams? Yeah. So I try to be fair because I don't wanna only look at the people I know and advocate for them, only because I wanna give opportunity to people who I don't know and they can apply to the role. So we I usually build a pool of people where 10 to 20% of them are people I know and I know it's a good fit for this role, and the rest are opportunity for other people to apply to the role. And I take a look at those resumes too. But because I know these people, because I invested them, when a role pops up, I have them top of my mind, and I ping them that this is a role that's popped up. If you're interested, apply. But I'm not giving them extra benefits as other people. But the fact that I'm pinging them as a hiring manager and I'm saying apply, they will get an interview pretty easier than people who are applying to the roles, especially in this market. You know a role is popping up in 2 hours. There's 100 of applicants. And, if you have that relationships that people know you, top of their mind, that's the key to get a role is that people who advocate for you and put your name on the table without you wanting that. And that's a huge key to success in the in your career is that building those relationship that can result in this. So whenever I open a role, I have people on top of my mind that I know they're looking for a role and a great fit for this role. And, and I really do that because I know it benefit their role and benefit them. So I don't really refer people who are I don't think they're a good fit. And, you know, they've been people that their life changed because of that. I mean, they get into really big tech companies. I had a mentee who was a waiter, and, afterwards, he got hired at Meta, and that's changed his life. So many of these stories, people who are just entering tech and, you know, it's really hard to find your first job and build relationships like this with people across the industry who can refer them and advocate for it. Them. So it's a it's a both mix up pool because fairness is super important when I hire. I wanna make sure I give, like, opportunity to all type of people, be as, you know, inclusive as possible to, like, all people from different backgrounds. Also, look at my team and say, like, okay. Is my team diverse enough? You know, what I'm needing. Like, do I have enough women at my team? I don't want, like, to having 1 woman in the room or 1 man in room to feel, like, isolated. I want everyone to feel belonging. So looking at the gaps on my team and see, like, what are those gaps that I'm looking for to fill in and really building that diverse pool of people, who are coming in to interview. Yeah. And on the taking it from from the hiring side, I'm I'm curious putting you as the candidate. I know you were presented with options, you know, to maybe go to YouTube or Google and and LinkedIn, and, obviously, you you ultimately chose LinkedIn. When looking for a place to go, like, what was that deciding factor that made you choose LinkedIn and and framing that as advice for people who are listening? You know, if they're presented with so many options or so many different paths, like, how do you choose? Mhmm. So, the framework I walk my mentees through is we do have a value table. Before you actually start job searching, you put together maximum five values you're looking into the next role. What are the things you really want in your next role? Example, for me, like, people mattered. I wanna work in a culture that people come first. Growth mattered. I wanted to work in in a company that supports my growth. You know, technology mattered. I wanted to be a cutting edge technology. Product mattered for me. I wanted to work on a product I've never worked on before, and there are a couple of other things that I have in my value table. And whenever I am interviewing a company, and I always say that interview is a two way assessment. There are things you're assessing too. These values are the things you have to assess. Ask the recruiter. Ask the hiring manager in your first interview. What is the growth framework on your team? Who was the last person who got promoted on your team? How does promotion happens? How do you support an engineer who falls behind? How do you onboard people onto new team? You know, all of these questions you can ask to assess how good is that company and that team role for you in terms of your value. Ask about the product if it matters. Like, how old is the product? Is it a new thing? Why are we is this a bet? You know? Is it something that we're just gonna do right now and just, disappear, like, a year from now, or is this something the company wanna invest in long term? If these things matter for you, be prepared to ask these questions because a lot of people go into roles blindly just because it's at a good company, and then they're not happy there afterwards because they're not assessing in their interview, their role in the company. And then when you have these values and you're interviewing, I give a score from 1 to 10. 10 means they're great at it. 1, they're very poor. And, then when you're reaching to the offer stage, like top 3, top 2, interview that you're doing, you can see the differences. So, for example, for me, between YouTube and LinkedIn, it was a product. I wanted to work on a product I've never worked on, and for me, YouTube was a streaming again. And I'm not a person to go in-depth. As you know, my personality, I love the breadth. I love to get things which is new. I never work on a social media platform like LinkedIn. So that was a a factor like, one of the biggest factor on that table that I picked LinkedIn over YouTube. So if you have that values, it's easy to to know, like, which one I I wanna go to and which value I wanna compromise, which one is compromiseable for me, which one is nice. For me, work life balance is not compromiseable. It's a value. I do a lot of things outside work, and work is not my only thing in life. So, I wanted a company that, you know, I don't have to work 247 because I really don't admire that type of environment. So I think it's toxic. So what are those values and which one you cannot compromise and assessing those over your interview then when you're at a offer stage? You you don't have a hard time to know which one do you have to pick. Yeah. Yeah. I I think I saw that you last end of towards the end of last year ran a marathon, and so those types of hobbies, I think, are pretty important. You know? Pedro and I play music music, and, I think Pedro is a coffee aficionado, so he loves making coffee. So I think it's important to have those things outside of work to to make sure you stay balanced. It sounds like you have several ways that you evolve yourself. You know, you you said you mentioned reading books and just being curious and learning new technologies. You probably also have your own mentor who you who you get advice from or several mentors. So is it is it hard, or do you just find it come naturally to still make sure that you're growing as a as a person? Do those does that time come easy, or do you have to make sure that you, you know, spend a couple hours a week making sure that you're growing as a leader as well? That's a great question. I feel that's come naturally for me. It's not like I mostly build habits versus, like, I have to read, like, 3 hours per week. It's not like that. It comes as a habit. You all know the book, Atomic Habits. Right? It's like stacking things and building habits and systems. For me, mostly, it's systems in my life. And you can't have all of it at the same time. Like, you can't go to the gym and read books and be great at your work and get a mentor and run projects. It's not possible. You need to have balance long term, but in short term, you may not have a balance. So let's say if you if you wanna get better at something and you have, like, 3 books to finish, you may have to cut off from your gym time or running time or whatever you're doing at on the side for, like, a week. And then a week after, you know that what is cutting off was my running, and now I'm done with this book. So this is the things I'm gonna prioritize. I'm pulling it back up this week. I'm gonna focus on it more. So in long run, there is a balance between all of these things you're doing. But in short run, you prioritize between these things because you can't have all of these things together. And then you build systems for yourself. Systems of learning. What's your system of learning? Is that books right now is so integrated into my life. It's something that, you know, I usually read in the morning when I wake up or if it's a book. Even learning how to read a book pretty fast is super important and summarize it so you can refer to it later on. But building that systems that actually can help you. For me, Fridays is my self reflection days. It's a day I have a session in the morning with my mentor. And after that session, I self reflect on, like, how what did I do this week? What are the areas I did really well? What are the top things top five things I did at my work? Then that top five things goes to 1 on 1 next week with my manager. And this is kind of what we call it managing up. Like, how do you how do you manage up, and how do you tell your manager and your escape what are you doing, and it's getting harder as you're going higher and higher. So that's that's a way of me managing up by taking that 5 outlines and putting in my 1 on 1 doc, and then self reflecting of what are the things I have to do next week, looking at my team structure, how everyone is doing, did I capture what they did greatly this week? I do that for my team too, like, every individual on the team. I have a running doc that I say these are the things they did really well this week. So when it comes to their performance review, I am very detailed for advocating for them, for every engineer, and I'm taking all that recognition in. What are the feedbacks I have to give them? I'm very proactive on giving my direct reports feedback. I will let it sit. If someone is not doing something very well or there is there is a gap that they can do better, it would be right away. Every week, I'm thinking about their performance and how they did. So it won't be a surprise. You know? There are some managers that suddenly come after, like, a year, and they say, you didn't do all of these things. And, that's hinder trust. The trust is broken at that stage. So the more honest and the more periodic and the smaller these pieces of feedbacks are and very targeted, the better those those people can grow. So Friday, my system of self reflection into my life, plan of next week, How's my month look like? Am I having enough fun? How's my gym is going? How's my workouts? Relationship wise, am I spending time with people I love? Like, sometimes I'm so much slanted at work. I forget about my friends. I'm like, next week, I'm gonna set time with my friends. Next week, I'm gonna spend more time talking to my mom. There are, like, 4 categories in my life. It's career, which is one that you all have. It's love and relationships, like you being very socially, satisfied with, like, going out with people, your best friends, your family, your close relatives, spending time with them. For me, financial life matters. I'm doing on that. Am I, like, on track with my goals? And then, health, like, in terms of am I drinking enough water? Am I a happy person? How's my mental health? Do I need, like, some of the weeks that I'm very exhausted? I usually go to a lighter sort of workout. And I'm like, okay. This week, I'm gonna go do yoga instead of running because I want less intensity in my life. So how are you assessing that and then having that, like, long term balance? There is this book also called design your life where it talks about these categories, which is something I took from this book, And then, having that categories help me to balance. So I measure every category every week, and I see how I'm doing and which category requires attention. I prioritize a week after. I like that. I have to check out that book. Yeah. I'm I am writing that down because, there's definitely weeks or several weeks in a row where I might neglect 1 or 2 of those categories for sure. So that's that's a good book to write down. Awesome. So, yeah, I think, we're coming close to time here for you know, thank you, Naz, for your for your time. I think maybe we could wrap it up with, you know, what's some advice that you would give to anyone who's listening, maybe something top of mind that's, you know, come across your mind over the last week or 2, that you'd like to just kinda pass along? And then where can everyone find you and and follow your journey? Yeah. Sure. Oh, that's a hard question. I mean, something that has been top of my mind. I was reading yesterday a quote about someone who lays off. I think it was a company called Clarify, and she wrote couple of points I shared on my LinkedIn as opposed to where things I've learned from layoffs. And one of it is, like, really thinking about how do you not bound to one job and then have some back ups, make sure that that happens. The other was, like, really thinking about yourself and getting yourself back up. And, one point that was funny, and a lot of people didn't agree, is that people are there for you when you get laid off. But the reality is they're not. Everyone having their own job, and you can expect that you're getting laid off and everyone is there for you. And now your friends are taking you to their companies. I mean, they do their best, but it's not the case. So be prepared. I mean, be prepared. Have your resume ready all the time. I mean, don't just get on your resume when you need a job. Your resume is a reflection of you, and it needs to be ready and updated. Your LinkedIn needs to be ready and updated with latest things you do. And then always and always have 1 or 2 interview per year. What are you doing with the company? Even if you're at a place that you're comfortable, always, always interview. You are you'll be at the ready state all the time. Also, you learn about the market and what's going on, in other companies when you interview with them, and it's a it's a way of also networking. So when you interview with hiring managers and they get to know you, later on when they have a role and if you perform there in that interview, they're gonna they're gonna reach out to you. So be ready, before something happens is actually the key in this market. And knowing that your work is not bound to a company. You're taking your work to different companies' missions and vision and enabling part of their journey as a really amazing engineer. And, none of us have to be in a place forever. At least in tech, it's not the case. So Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. I I think I think you also once mentioned sorry to sorry to jump in there. I think you also once mentioned around the interviewing process. You also just received feedback feedback from those people about how you present on a camera or your answers, or you get some valuable feedback from those interviews as well. Yeah. And be very transparent when you do those interviews. Like, I'm not actively looking, but this looks like a good opportunity. I wanna I wanna assess and learn more about this company. Why not doing an interview? And putting yourself in those situations more often makes you more comfortable. You'll be more confident. So if people wanna find me, I'm on LinkedIn, nazdaalum. Also, you can find all my handles on my website, nazda dev, and feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions about anything I mentioned. Hopefully, we can have those books listed, John, somewhere, so people can find it on-site reference. Yeah. Yeah. I was definitely gonna say I'm gonna keep in contact with you just to see what books you're reading. Awesome, Naz. Well, yeah, I I really I personally found a lot of value from this conversation. There's a lot of things that, you mentioned that I just tend to forget over time, and so I definitely found some great value out of this conversation. Everyone, go follow her on LinkedIn. Pedro's battery is exhausted. My battery is exhausted, so my camera died, but I am here. Thank you, Nez. Thanks so much for your time. Yeah. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for having me. 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