[SaaStock 2017] Is your engineering team ready to support your growth?

Transcript

1. Is your engineering team ready to
   SUPPORT YOUR GROWTH?
   

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2. HELLO
   my name is
   María Gutiérrez
   VP Engineering @ FreeAgent
   @mariagutierrez
   

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4. “How did I freelance for 10 yrs
   without @freeagent?
   Bookkeeping a breeze, auto
   invoice chasing and my support
   email answered in 32 minutes”
   @tomcopy
   

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13. 2000 2001 2004 2008 2011 2016
    

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15. +60M customers
    +300K merchants
    12-~200
    engineering
    Distributed
    globally
    Global operations
    US, UK, France,
    Australia, Spain,
    Malaysia,Thailand…
    25M emails/hour
    1.3M $10
    Vouchers in 24h
    

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16. Unmanageable codebases
    Progress slows down
    Technical debt is getting on the way of delivering
    Bugs and exceptions are not promptly fixed
    Problems with communication and visibility
    Duplication of work
    Domain knowledge gets diluted
    Bigger target for security threats
    Competitors move faster
    

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17. Domain knowledge gets diluted
    Bigger target for security threats
    Competitors move faster
    Sales team start selling things not planned
    An acquisition throws your roadmap out the window
    Lack of career path
    Lack of leadership skills
    Hiring is taking all the team’s time
    New roles but with unclear expectations
    

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20. Patrick Lencioni, “The Advantage”
    

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21. Start here!
    Patrick Lencioni, “The Advantage”
    

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22. Patrick Lencioni, “Five dysfunctions of a team” & “The Advantage”
    

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24. Roan Lavery
    CPO
    co-founder
    Product & Design strategy
    User research & Customer Insight
    Product management workflow
    Release planning
    

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25. Olly Headey
    CTO
    co-founder
    Technical strategy
    Software architecture
    Security and Risk
    Technical due diligence
    Corporate IT
    

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26. Maria Gutierrez
    VP Engineering
    Product development
    and delivery
    Team structure
    Hiring strategy
    Personal development
    Performance reviews
    

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27. Technology and
    product strategy
    Principles
    KPIs
    Role expectations
    Career Paths
    Patrick Lencioni, “The Advantage”
    

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28. SMALL BUSINESS CAPACITOR
    PEOPLE
    PROCESS
    TECH
    

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29. TECHNOLOGY
    

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30. Security Reliability
    Scalability Productivity
    

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31. 100% Open Source Stack
    

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32. Reliability
    Security
    Scalability Productivity
    Incident Response
    Credential/patch management
    PenTests
    VPN and Encryption
    Product security
    Compliance - GDPR
    Data collection/access
    DDoS protection
    

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33. Security Reliability
    Scalability Productivity
    Failover process
    Disaster recovery
    Backups (tested)
    Data integrity checks
    Error/bug management
    Alerting
    Feature switches and
    circuit breakers
    

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34. Security Reliability
    Scalability Productivity
    Capacity planning
    Load testing
    Caching strategies
    Data Centre/Cloud
    Cost
    

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35. Security Reliability
    Scalability Productivity
    How easy is to
    develop, test and
    get code to
    production?
    

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36. Security Reliability
    Scalability Productivity
    RISK REGISTER
    

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37. SMALL BUSINESS CAPACITOR
    PROCESS
    

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38. Clear process and
    communications
    channels
    Patrick Lencioni, “The Advantage”
    

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39. AGREE ON PRIORITIES
    RISKS + KPIS + OKRS
    

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40. COLLABORATE
    daily to build trust
    

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41. Team lead
    PM
    Engineers
    Engineers
    Engineers
    Test Engineer
    Designer
    Team lead
    PM
    Engineers
    Engineers
    Engineers
    Designer
    Team lead
    PM
    Engineers
    Engineers
    Engineers
    Designer
    Team lead
    Engineers
    Engineers
    Engineers
    Accountant Sales Support
    

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42. SHOW YOUR WORK
    

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46. PEOPLE
    

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48. Committed to building a
    DIVERSE, HIGH PERFORMING
    AND HAPPY TEAM
    

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49. INCLUSIVE CULTURE
    Permission to play values
    

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50. With your actions
    Testing your values
    Performance management
    Hiring
    Patrick Lencioni, “The Advantage”
    

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51. MINDSET
    START WITH WHY
    Make learning part of
    YOUR DAY
    

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53. 1/3
    engineers
    WFH
    

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56. ONBOARDING
    CR
    U
    ISE
    CON
    TR
    OL
    ALL
    STOP
    PRETTY
    SLOW
    A BIT
    FASTER
    

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57. EASY
    OKAY
    POOR
    HARD
    FUTILE
    SUPER
    KINDA
    REALLY
    TOTALLY
    PRETTY
    ENGAGED & RESILIENT TEAM
    

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58. 0
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    2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
    Engineering
    

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62. BE INTENTIONAL
    srsly!
    

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63. @mariagutierrez
    THANKS!
    Illustrations by the amazing FreeAgent designers
    

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