The intertwining and evolution of both The VP of Engineering (VPE) and Chief Technical Officer (CTO) titles are ones which, I have found, oftentimes to be used interchangeably. The reality, again based on my own experience, is that they are different roles. While they do overlap, they each have distinct…

What can Real Madrid and Barcelona teach us about recruiting strategies? This post will require a bit of a preamble, especially for readers unfamiliar with soccer, more specifically with Real Madrid and Barcelona: two of the most successful clubs in world soccer. These two clubs have a lot in common…

In my previous post I described how as a startup scales, it will start seeing more deals contingent on some feature requests, especially in the enterprise software space. The previous post outlined a simple framework that assesses which of these features to build and why. …

A framework to prioritize which ones to build and why — In the early days of a startup, nothing takes precedence above trying to establish product market fit. The startup is almost entirely dedicated to validating a critical hypothesis: can we build products that serve customers in some, hopefully large, market? In this seminal article, Marc Andreessen defines PMF: “The customers…

The true essence of the Engineering Manager role In a previous article, I covered some of the main aspects of my job asVP of Engineering. It should come as no surprise that one of my activities is recruiting and hiring for my team. I spend a decent amount of time…

More similar than you think I am a scuba diver and have been actively diving since I was 18 years old. My fascination with the sea, and diving in particular, was fueled by watching the Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau and another series by my compatriot, the Egyptian oceanographer Hamed…

I have worked at two software companies ( Qumulo & strongDM) that almost exclusively default to Pair programming. Pair programming is a technique whereby two programmers work collaboratively, oftentimes on the sharing the same screen, on a piece of code. There are typically two roles in pair programming: the “driver”…

Open, scalable, fast and flexible — Over the years I have witnessed several evolutions of the data infrastructure landscape, or more broadly speaking how you store and use data. Not only is this space fast evolving and fascinating, it is one that most companies have to grapple with. We’re becoming, if already aren’t, a truly digital…

I have been asked this question numerous times over the 6 or so years that I have been in a VP of Engineering role. When I was first new to this role, I struggled in articulating what it is that I truly do, let alone a VP of Engineering does…