Is your engineering team ready to
SUPPORT YOUR GROWTH?
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HELLO
my name is
María Gutiérrez
VP Engineering @ FreeAgent
@mariagutierrez
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“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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2000 2001 2004 2008 2011 2016
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+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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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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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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Patrick Lencioni, “The Advantage”
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Start here!
Patrick Lencioni, “The Advantage”
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Patrick Lencioni, “Five dysfunctions of a team” & “The Advantage”
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Roan Lavery
CPO
co-founder
Product & Design strategy
User research & Customer Insight
Product management workflow
Release planning
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Olly Headey
CTO
co-founder
Technical strategy
Software architecture
Security and Risk
Technical due diligence
Corporate IT
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Maria Gutierrez
VP Engineering
Product development
and delivery
Team structure
Hiring strategy
Personal development
Performance reviews
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Technology and
product strategy
Principles
KPIs
Role expectations
Career Paths
Patrick Lencioni, “The Advantage”
Clear process and
communications
channels
Patrick Lencioni, “The Advantage”
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AGREE ON PRIORITIES
RISKS + KPIS + OKRS
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COLLABORATE
daily to build trust
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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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SHOW YOUR WORK
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PEOPLE
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Committed to building a
DIVERSE, HIGH PERFORMING
AND HAPPY TEAM
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INCLUSIVE CULTURE
Permission to play values
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With your actions
Testing your values
Performance management
Hiring
Patrick Lencioni, “The Advantage”
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MINDSET
START WITH WHY
Make learning part of
YOUR DAY
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1/3
engineers
WFH
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ONBOARDING
CR
U
ISE
CON
TR
OL
ALL
STOP
PRETTY
SLOW
A BIT
FASTER
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EASY
OKAY
POOR
HARD
FUTILE
SUPER
KINDA
REALLY
TOTALLY
PRETTY
ENGAGED & RESILIENT TEAM