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You should feel uncomfortable in
your job about 30% of the time. 

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It's a good rule of thumb 
because if you're comfortable 

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100% of the time, you're 
probably sticking to the stuff 

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you know and you're missing a 
whole load of other stuff. 

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Every career move is a trade. 
You're trading what you have 

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specialized in before with what 
you don't know, and you give 

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them the specialism and then you
take the learning. 

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This thought that architecture 
follows money. 

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Where did it originate from? 
Where's the seed planted? 

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It's not about individuals doing
stupid stuff or being stupid 

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necessarily. 
It's the system. 

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I want people to be motivated to
try and change things, but I 

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want them to understand that it 
might be that the system is is 

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rigged against them and not to 
punish themselves too hard for 

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that. 
Today I'm joined by Ian Meal, 

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CTO over at Container Solutions,
and we talk about how you can 

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level up as Senior Software 
Engineer. 

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We cover systems thinking and 
what that means, and we talk 

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about how your software 
architecture actually follows 

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the money. 
So enjoy, I do these Q&A's where

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people send questions and one of
the questions I got recently was

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how do I pitch to either senior 
leadership, technical or 

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non-technical and how do I get 
their buy in and the lot. 

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There's a lot that goes into 
that, which I think is 

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interesting because we as 
technical people, we are in 

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positions where we can influence
certain decisions. 

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And through doing this podcast, 
through being involved in 

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conferences, I feel like there's
a lot of skills that you don't 

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really pick up on, which is 
quite interesting, like knowing 

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your audience, for example, if 
you're pitching to senior 

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leadership, if you're really 
technical in your conversation, 

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you're going to lose people in. 
In essence, if you're talking to

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the CMO versus the CFO, you 
might hook them with different 

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ways of communicating, but also 
in the content that you actually

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share, what makes them tick and 
what could actually have them 

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have buy in. 
You can leverage that. 

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If you read know your audience, 
that's separate from the skills 

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to actually communicate that. 
I think as you're talking, the 

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thing that I think I'm thinking 
of most is the because I've done

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more presenting the most. 
I don't know if it's because of 

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that, but but I've found that 
I'm much more able to call out 

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whatever is in the room at the 
time. 

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So if I'm presenting to someone 
senior and it looks like they're

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bored, I'll just say I feel like
I'm losing you. 

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Oh, really? 
Yeah. 

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Oh, that's nice. 
Yeah, it it, it, it, it works 

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because that gives them the 
space to actually say, yeah, 

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actually you have lost me. 
I didn't understand this. 

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You go, OK, let's go back to 
that. 

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And you can might be able to get
them back that way. 

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But you can only do that if 
you're really confident in your 

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in your ability. 
But in in the same way, like I 

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think a lot of people just want 
to get through that meeting and 

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get out the other side. 
To race through it. 

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Without being humiliated. 
And once you're certain 

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confident, once you're a certain
level of confidence, you can, 

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you can call out those things 
and, and make them explicit. 

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I'm, I'm doing that. 
I'm working with a client, a 

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customer in a sort of, it's kind
of a cultural change program, 

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but it's focused on specific 
technical area. 

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And I'm finding myself a lot of 
the time saying, I feel like you

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don't want to do this. 
I feel like, you know, and just 

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saying that you can see the 
relief when you say that because

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then they can say, yeah, 
actually I do feel that because 

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of this. 
And then you can go, OK, let's 

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talk about that. 
That's kind of fun. 

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That's really strong. 
Yeah. 

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Yeah. 
It's one of those skills that I 

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feel like if you're talking 
about seniority, at some point 

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you're going to be comfortable 
within your technical domain to 

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a point where it's so 
comfortable that you might not 

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want to try anything else. 
But that's besides the thing. 

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I do feel like if you go from a 
senior position either to a 

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leadership track or definitely 
to AC level, even if we're 

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talking about ACTO as a label, 
you will need to be well 

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equipped to have conversations 
like that in front of an 

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audience, but also one-on-one to
make sure you actually find what

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is what makes people tick and 
what makes people either object 

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or how you get the buy and you 
need. 

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Yeah. 
And I think that that point 

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about getting outside your 
comfort zone, outside the domain

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that has made you successful in 
your career is an important one.

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I I like to say to people, you 
should feel uncomfortable in 

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your job about 30% of the time. 
It's a good rule of thumb 

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because if you're comfortable 
100% of the time, you're 

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probably sticking to the stuff 
you know and you're missing a 

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whole load of other stuff. 
Yeah, you're coasting. 

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You're coasting. 
Yeah. 

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And you should, you should be 
exploring those areas that that 

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make you feel a little bit 
unsure of yourself. 

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One of the best things I ever 
did was I worked for as a 

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company for 14 years and I knew 
that domain like, really well, 

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as well as almost anyone. 
And then I went into a 

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completely different domain. 
I mean, not completely 

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different. 
It wasn't like going to, you 

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know, doing sociology somewhere 
on the other side of the world, 

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but it was, it was a completely 
different kind of company, 

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different scale, everything. 
And, you know, I was completely 

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lost for a while. 
I just didn't, I remember asking

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my, the guy who hired me, asking
him questions and could see the 

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expression on his face was like,
oh, he really doesn't get what 

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he's into yet. 
He's just thinking about this 

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the wrong way. 
And he didn't, he didn't, he was

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very kind. 
He didn't slam me. 

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He just kind of showed me where 
I what I was missing and, and 

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you know, once I got through 
that stage, I realised what what

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I was in and, and learned a lot 
from that process. 

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So yeah, I think being 
uncomfortable is something you 

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should check on regularly. 
I think it's really cool that we

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can, we can leverage a very 
technical or very hard skill and

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we can still be effective in a 
lot of domains. 

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So then the fresh part could be 
I'm going from something that's 

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very retail, very consumer 
facing to something that's 

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completely financial and 
operating towards businesses, 

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which domain wise there might be
overlap, but in the most cases, 

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there's not much overlap. 
And then what you bring is like 

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your hard skills to the table 
and you can familiarise yourself

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if you like that curiosity wise 
as well. 

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I think a lot of domains are 
interesting. 

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You can do that. 
Yeah. 

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And it gives you more options in
your career. 

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So the more, I mean, every, 
every career move is a trade. 

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You're trading what you have 
specialised in before with what 

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you don't know. 
And you give them the specialism

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and then you take the learning. 
And if you keep doing that, 

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you'll end up with a whole load 
of arrows in your quiver that 

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you can then you can then use 
later in your career. 

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So yeah, really, unless you're 
like a hyper specialist and 

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those people are very rare. 
They exist, but they're very 

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rare. 
I recommend for the vast 

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majority of people just go get 
go get new experiences. 

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Yeah. 
I could see how how you can 

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leverage those experiences and 
it makes you a more well-rounded

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individual. 
I'm very curious from your 

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perspective with either seniors 
you've worked with or from your 

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own experience, when people 
reach a certain level of 

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seniority, some people kind of 
get stuck with regards to growth

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and they experiment a lot, but 
they might fall back on that 

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comfort zone that is more the 
hard skill side of things. 

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What is your advice for people 
to actually breakthrough and go 

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beyond a certain level of 
seniority? 

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From my experience and I, I've 
mentioned it already, just 

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change your environment 
completely because another 

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aspect is not just that you are 
more comfortable, but everyone 

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else is more comfortable with 
you being in that role. 

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I noticed that when I moved from
that, I was in that company for 

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14 years and that company went 
from 30. 

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I was 39th to join. 
We went to 770 people. 

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So it felt like many, I did many
different jobs in that company. 

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It felt like many different 
things, but I was, I was Ian and

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you know, people knew people had
me in a box. 

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And when I moved to another 
company, I noticed people were 

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listening to what I was saying 
for a, for a time, you know, for

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six months, people would 
actually listen to what I was 

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saying in a way that they didn't
before. 

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And then had a bunch of other 
challenges because of that. 

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But it allowed me to break free 
of that, that comfort zone, that

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domain. 
And then once I'd done that 

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once, it made it a lot easier to
do it subsequently. 

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But, but it is partly definitely
that that people will see you as

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that person. 
I know many people who are in 

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certain jobs and they want to, 
they want to progress, but 

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they're just seen as a techie 
and, and they just, yeah, they 

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just get put in that box and 
they're useful and people just 

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want to use them for that. 
Yeah, 1. 

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Of my previous guests, Pasha, he
used to work at Uber and he said

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that's one of the reasons I 
left. 

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He called the the burden of 
context just due to being there.

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Historically he was being 
dragged in sessions to explain 

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the context and people would 
also come to him for advice, but

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he wanted to focus on very 
different things than what he 

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was actually focusing on. 
So then by default, through you 

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being there, also probably being
good at what you do, you get 

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this burden of context and 
people have expectations of you.

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You're known within the org, but
it might not be what makes you 

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happy. 
Yeah, and it, but it, it comes 

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with great benefits, right. 
You're just, you're very secure.

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Yeah. 
Like, they won't fire you if you

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know a lot. 
That's true. 

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And you're still, you know, 
still motivated to work and not,

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not doing anything stupid. 
You will, you will keep your 

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job. 
And that's, you know, for me, I 

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had kids in the middle of that 
time, and my wife chose to stay 

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at home. 
We chose for my wife to stay at 

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home with the kids. 
And that meant that there was 

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more pressure on me. 
You know, I felt more pressure. 

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And so I stayed a lot longer 
than maybe I would have done 

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otherwise. 
And one of the reasons was that 

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feeling of security. 
Exactly. 

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Switching concepts is is very 
powerful. 

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I feel like I I do it a lot in 
consultancies. 

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For me the downside is I have to
build up the relationships and 

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00:09:34,440 --> 00:09:36,360
the people like certain 
political credits and 

194
00:09:36,360 --> 00:09:40,160
relationships all from scratch 
again now to the point where I'm

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actually like, I don't know how 
long I would want to do that 

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because I feel like being in an 
org on the longer term also has 

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00:09:45,600 --> 00:09:47,920
its like. 
Its benefits, I love that. 

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00:09:47,920 --> 00:09:50,960
I mean, I wrote a piece once on 
why I love consulting and one of

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00:09:50,960 --> 00:09:53,200
the reasons was you get to meet 
new people all the time. 

200
00:09:53,200 --> 00:09:57,480
And I, I really enjoy that. 
And you start to see patterns, 

201
00:09:57,480 --> 00:10:00,640
but nowhere is the same. 
It's like being a doctor, I 

202
00:10:00,640 --> 00:10:02,600
guess, you know, no, no two 
patients are the same. 

203
00:10:02,600 --> 00:10:05,240
But, but you do start to see 
patterns of, of behaviour and 

204
00:10:05,240 --> 00:10:09,400
patterns of, you know, thoughts 
and and and so on. 

205
00:10:09,400 --> 00:10:11,560
And that's that's where the book
came from, I guess. 

206
00:10:11,560 --> 00:10:14,080
Yeah, Yeah. 
We talked about seniority and 

207
00:10:14,080 --> 00:10:17,120
moving to beyond seniority, 
breaking through a seating in 

208
00:10:17,120 --> 00:10:19,200
essence. 
Can you tell me more about that?

209
00:10:19,520 --> 00:10:23,680
I think there's, I mean it goes 
back to what I was saying 

210
00:10:23,680 --> 00:10:26,240
earlier, I guess about the, the,
the adding context. 

211
00:10:26,240 --> 00:10:28,520
I think it becomes easier as you
get older because you've had a 

212
00:10:28,520 --> 00:10:32,040
more of a varied experience. 
And I'm not just talking about 

213
00:10:32,480 --> 00:10:38,920
career, but also, I mean, when 
I, so I'm CTO now of container 

214
00:10:38,920 --> 00:10:41,320
solutions, which is a cloud 
native consultancy and we help 

215
00:10:41,320 --> 00:10:45,080
businesses with really 
challenging organizational 

216
00:10:45,080 --> 00:10:48,120
change, organizational technical
change problems all together, 

217
00:10:48,120 --> 00:10:50,200
all in one. 
So we don't, we talk about 

218
00:10:50,200 --> 00:10:59,360
strategy, but we also do do the 
do the tech And I joined as an 

219
00:10:59,360 --> 00:11:01,040
as an engineer. 
I wanted to get back to 

220
00:11:01,040 --> 00:11:02,320
engineering. 
You know, I had that sort of 

221
00:11:02,320 --> 00:11:05,200
kind of midlife crisis of like, 
what am I now as in my career? 

222
00:11:05,200 --> 00:11:08,360
And I was like, I want to get 
back to engineering. 

223
00:11:08,360 --> 00:11:11,360
That's when I was really happy. 
I guess I felt that urge to I'd 

224
00:11:11,360 --> 00:11:15,880
had AI had a kind of, I suppose 
it was a bad experience, bad 

225
00:11:15,880 --> 00:11:18,120
career experience and I kind of 
want to get back to my comfort 

226
00:11:18,120 --> 00:11:22,600
zone. 
But I found that as soon as I 

227
00:11:22,600 --> 00:11:26,440
joined that company, I was 
asking about the balance sheet 

228
00:11:26,640 --> 00:11:31,200
and you know, what's the, what's
the cash flow looking like and 

229
00:11:31,600 --> 00:11:35,400
where's the graph of, of, of 
revenue versus profit and so on.

230
00:11:35,920 --> 00:11:39,120
And everyone's like, no one else
is asking these questions. 

231
00:11:40,960 --> 00:11:43,760
You know, you should think about
going more commercial, being in 

232
00:11:43,760 --> 00:11:48,200
the more commercial side. 
So I then moved into into sales.

233
00:11:48,200 --> 00:11:51,400
So I was still with customers, 
but I was also heavily involved 

234
00:11:51,400 --> 00:11:53,840
in, in the sales process. 
And I really enjoyed that 

235
00:11:53,840 --> 00:11:56,360
because I got to meet, you know,
all the, all these clients were 

236
00:11:56,360 --> 00:11:59,800
coming to us talking about 
their, their challenges. 

237
00:12:00,720 --> 00:12:05,560
And I enjoyed meeting them and I
enjoyed talking to them and, and

238
00:12:05,960 --> 00:12:09,400
what I yeah. 
And, and so I love that work. 

239
00:12:10,480 --> 00:12:12,960
I still do, I still do that. 
But it wasn't, it wasn't only 

240
00:12:12,960 --> 00:12:16,000
what I did, but through doing 
that, I then I saw the 

241
00:12:16,000 --> 00:12:19,680
commercial side more more 
clearly how, why people buy 

242
00:12:19,800 --> 00:12:22,560
services like that, like the 
ones we had and how those things

243
00:12:22,560 --> 00:12:26,520
get sold and then how they, how 
they get handed over to 

244
00:12:26,520 --> 00:12:30,760
engineering. 
And I guess through that I got 

245
00:12:30,760 --> 00:12:33,360
to know the, the board. 
And then the board said, you 

246
00:12:33,360 --> 00:12:35,880
know, you've got to be AC if you
want to sit on the board. 

247
00:12:35,880 --> 00:12:43,400
So you're now CTO. 
And so I didn't set out to rise 

248
00:12:43,400 --> 00:12:46,320
up the, the hierarchy, but I 
just found myself because I was 

249
00:12:46,320 --> 00:12:49,520
in this new situation and I'd 
seen other situations before. 

250
00:12:51,120 --> 00:12:53,360
I wasn't just interested in, in 
the engineering. 

251
00:12:53,480 --> 00:12:56,080
And I still miss it. 
You know, I still don't do 

252
00:12:56,080 --> 00:13:00,320
enough of it as I'd like to, but
I find that as I get older and 

253
00:13:00,320 --> 00:13:02,040
this, I guess this is another 
aspect of it. 

254
00:13:02,200 --> 00:13:04,240
And, and I've had more 
experience, you know, I've got 

255
00:13:04,240 --> 00:13:07,840
30 years in in the field now, as
you know, 25 years in the field 

256
00:13:07,840 --> 00:13:13,680
now. 
I find that my value is far more

257
00:13:13,800 --> 00:13:18,400
in recognising what works and, 
and having the confidence to 

258
00:13:18,400 --> 00:13:20,760
say, no, this is, this is the 
right person to hire. 

259
00:13:21,160 --> 00:13:22,760
This is not the right person to 
hire. 

260
00:13:23,520 --> 00:13:25,880
This, this engineer is going to 
work really well with that 

261
00:13:25,880 --> 00:13:29,440
client and not with this client.
Those kind of judgement calls 

262
00:13:29,680 --> 00:13:35,240
are seen as more valuable than 
than before. 

263
00:13:35,240 --> 00:13:41,360
I mean, I was, I was reflecting 
to my, my CEO the other day that

264
00:13:42,040 --> 00:13:44,000
a lot of my job is now simply 
coaching. 

265
00:13:44,640 --> 00:13:47,080
It's calling out those meetings 
where, you know, no one seems to

266
00:13:47,080 --> 00:13:48,400
be talking. 
Why is no one talking? 

267
00:13:49,080 --> 00:13:53,240
That kind of conversation is far
more I do now than technical. 

268
00:13:53,360 --> 00:13:57,360
Now I have people we, I've hired
people I trust to make technical

269
00:13:57,360 --> 00:14:00,880
calls and I, I don't, I might 
disagree with them, but I don't 

270
00:14:00,880 --> 00:14:03,760
really ever overrule them 
because they have to live with 

271
00:14:03,760 --> 00:14:05,040
the consequences, their 
decisions. 

272
00:14:05,040 --> 00:14:08,080
If it's a, if I think it's a 
really bad decision, I might, I 

273
00:14:08,120 --> 00:14:10,200
might do that. 
But generally they're not, 

274
00:14:10,400 --> 00:14:12,120
they're not obviously bad 
decisions. 

275
00:14:12,120 --> 00:14:14,520
They're more like, well, I 
prefer this, but sometimes I'm 

276
00:14:14,520 --> 00:14:17,080
just too old. 
Like I'm not, I haven't been in 

277
00:14:17,080 --> 00:14:20,000
the field in the last 10 years, 
so maybe I'm slightly out date. 

278
00:14:20,240 --> 00:14:23,400
Had an argument with one 
engineer recently about Orms, 

279
00:14:23,400 --> 00:14:26,560
and he was in favour of using 
them in this particular context.

280
00:14:26,560 --> 00:14:30,400
And I'm like, I don't like them.
But, you know, maybe that's 

281
00:14:30,400 --> 00:14:33,600
because I'm old enough to 
remember writing all my sequel 

282
00:14:33,600 --> 00:14:37,800
by hand and. 
And, you know, not just not 

283
00:14:37,800 --> 00:14:39,160
wanting to let go of that. 
So. 

284
00:14:39,800 --> 00:14:44,560
Yeah, but. 
But I think also because if you 

285
00:14:44,560 --> 00:14:48,480
have grey hair and you're a 
little bit older people in 

286
00:14:48,480 --> 00:14:52,280
positions of seniority and 
authority, just trust your 

287
00:14:52,280 --> 00:14:55,640
judgement more. 
Yeah, you, you tend to make, you

288
00:14:55,640 --> 00:15:01,880
tend to have, I guess with age 
you tend to have more, you tend 

289
00:15:01,880 --> 00:15:05,960
to make less impetuous 
decisions, you tend to reflect 

290
00:15:05,960 --> 00:15:11,520
more on your decision making. 
So yeah, I think partly just 

291
00:15:11,520 --> 00:15:14,440
getting older helps, but but 
having that that wider set of 

292
00:15:14,440 --> 00:15:16,280
experiences can help too. 
Yeah. 

293
00:15:16,440 --> 00:15:19,920
I, I learned a lot I think when 
I moved away from software 

294
00:15:19,920 --> 00:15:22,120
engineering to actually being 
hands on responsible for 

295
00:15:22,120 --> 00:15:24,760
product. 
Because then I also got to touch

296
00:15:24,960 --> 00:15:28,400
a lot of other aspects with 
regards to, OK, what, how do we 

297
00:15:28,400 --> 00:15:31,240
do marketing or even how do we 
do more sales from that aspect 

298
00:15:31,240 --> 00:15:34,920
specifically or what certain 
decisions do we have to actually

299
00:15:34,920 --> 00:15:36,560
make? 
And how does that impact tech? 

300
00:15:36,560 --> 00:15:39,440
And how do we balance then 
delivery versus quality? 

301
00:15:39,440 --> 00:15:41,760
And do we need to cut some 
things when going to production?

302
00:15:42,120 --> 00:15:44,920
And can I actually communicate 
those trade-offs well to get buy

303
00:15:44,960 --> 00:15:46,480
in? 
You're a product manager, Yeah, 

304
00:15:46,480 --> 00:15:48,800
right. 
So I think we used to call those

305
00:15:48,800 --> 00:15:51,040
project managers back in the 
day, but now we call them 

306
00:15:51,040 --> 00:15:53,560
product managers. 
I mean, it fills the same 

307
00:15:53,560 --> 00:15:55,560
position in in the in the 
system. 

308
00:15:56,160 --> 00:15:59,240
And yeah, you, you can't just 
think about the technical, 

309
00:15:59,240 --> 00:16:02,800
you've got to think about your 
stakeholders and the road map. 

310
00:16:02,800 --> 00:16:06,440
And did, did your key customers 
want this thing? 

311
00:16:06,440 --> 00:16:08,640
And do you have to sacrifice 
that other thing for it? 

312
00:16:08,720 --> 00:16:11,040
Those, those kind of decisions 
are really, really tough. 

313
00:16:11,320 --> 00:16:15,160
I mean, my, my first job was not
dissimilar. 

314
00:16:16,880 --> 00:16:21,320
So my first proper job in IT was
working for an online gambling 

315
00:16:21,320 --> 00:16:23,880
company. 
So it was sports betting back 

316
00:16:23,880 --> 00:16:29,840
end systems and the structure of
the business was that you had a 

317
00:16:30,520 --> 00:16:32,760
tech lead on a particular 
customer. 

318
00:16:33,920 --> 00:16:37,720
So it was a product, but, but we
had about 6 big customers and I 

319
00:16:37,720 --> 00:16:40,120
had, I was one of the tech leads
for the big customer. 

320
00:16:40,120 --> 00:16:44,560
And you were basically the, the 
project manager, I guess, or 

321
00:16:44,560 --> 00:16:46,440
project leader or, or however it
was. 

322
00:16:46,760 --> 00:16:51,000
And you had a project, you had a
project manager with you who 

323
00:16:51,000 --> 00:16:54,080
was, I hope I'm not upsetting 
people, but I think they were 

324
00:16:54,080 --> 00:16:58,120
slightly subordinate. 
So the techie was in charge, but

325
00:16:58,120 --> 00:17:01,960
the project manager was kind of 
probably the wiser old head who 

326
00:17:01,960 --> 00:17:05,280
would help you probably navigate
some of the things that as a 

327
00:17:05,280 --> 00:17:07,640
young techie you were you were 
not so greater. 

328
00:17:07,640 --> 00:17:09,240
I mean, that was kind of what 
happened. 

329
00:17:09,480 --> 00:17:13,800
And also they were more 
organised and the customer would

330
00:17:13,800 --> 00:17:15,520
look to them for the more 
organizational side. 

331
00:17:15,520 --> 00:17:18,160
They would look to you for the 
kind of, you know, are you going

332
00:17:18,160 --> 00:17:21,119
to break production this week 
with this release or not kind of

333
00:17:21,119 --> 00:17:26,400
questions. 
So so yeah, I learned a lot, I 

334
00:17:26,400 --> 00:17:28,119
guess, about balancing those 
things because I'd have 

335
00:17:28,119 --> 00:17:30,080
engineers saying, ah, but this 
is the right thing to do. 

336
00:17:30,080 --> 00:17:33,640
And you'd say, no, we this, 
this, this release can't fail. 

337
00:17:33,640 --> 00:17:36,480
Like, we're in trouble already 
for the last release. 

338
00:17:36,480 --> 00:17:38,520
So I want a safe release this 
time. 

339
00:17:38,520 --> 00:17:40,400
And they'd be like, yeah, but 
it's the wrong thing to do. 

340
00:17:40,400 --> 00:17:44,680
And, you know, you know, I was 
not prepared to have. 

341
00:17:44,680 --> 00:17:47,960
I was not well, well prepared or
mentored to be that role. 

342
00:17:47,960 --> 00:17:50,920
But it did teach me a lot about 
being in that role. 

343
00:17:50,920 --> 00:17:54,080
Yeah. 
I think I learned a lot about, I

344
00:17:54,080 --> 00:17:57,760
think 2 aspects of things. 
One, what people are responsible

345
00:17:57,760 --> 00:17:59,080
for. 
That's exactly what they're 

346
00:17:59,080 --> 00:18:02,400
going to look look at. 
So if I'm having conversations 

347
00:18:02,400 --> 00:18:06,120
with legal and compliance, they 
are there to mitigate risk or to

348
00:18:06,120 --> 00:18:08,280
kill it. 
The best is if there's not no 

349
00:18:08,280 --> 00:18:11,200
risk, because if we're in a 
bigger organization for some 

350
00:18:11,200 --> 00:18:15,080
aspects, especially tech, we 
don't need to afford risk. 

351
00:18:15,080 --> 00:18:17,880
So we need to squash it or 
accommodate it in any, in any 

352
00:18:17,880 --> 00:18:20,160
shape or way. 
So if I did my homework, I can 

353
00:18:20,160 --> 00:18:22,440
say, well, these are the risks 
that we already identified and 

354
00:18:22,440 --> 00:18:24,280
these are the mitigations that 
we have in place. 

355
00:18:24,640 --> 00:18:27,240
This is already in place and 
this is what we need to build if

356
00:18:27,240 --> 00:18:30,800
we want to go live with XY and 
Z, which is that is very 

357
00:18:30,800 --> 00:18:33,160
interesting. 
But then secondly, it's also how

358
00:18:33,160 --> 00:18:35,640
people are incentivized. 
So either people have certain 

359
00:18:35,640 --> 00:18:40,400
KPIs, and if we set KPIs, we can
kind of distill and influence 

360
00:18:40,400 --> 00:18:42,400
behaviors. 
Because all of a sudden if you 

361
00:18:42,400 --> 00:18:44,640
get a bonus or you don't get a 
bonus, yeah, you're going to go 

362
00:18:44,640 --> 00:18:46,760
for that bonus. 
So you're going to actually do 

363
00:18:46,760 --> 00:18:50,480
what the KPI is there for? 
In my experience, techies really

364
00:18:50,480 --> 00:18:55,120
clash with people whose whose 
job it is not to take risks. 

365
00:18:56,440 --> 00:18:59,160
And I come across this all the 
time because because as a 

366
00:18:59,160 --> 00:19:01,040
consultant working with 
companies that are trying to 

367
00:19:01,040 --> 00:19:05,000
change, there's an element of 
risk and innovation there that 

368
00:19:05,280 --> 00:19:06,920
most companies are really averse
to. 

369
00:19:07,520 --> 00:19:12,120
But the engineers I've worked 
with in the part, well, pretty 

370
00:19:12,120 --> 00:19:14,560
much all engineers I've worked 
with get really frustrated when 

371
00:19:14,560 --> 00:19:17,600
they deal with someone who works
in security or someone who works

372
00:19:17,600 --> 00:19:22,600
in legal who are only focused on
not making a mistake. 

373
00:19:23,920 --> 00:19:25,920
And as an engineer, you're 
always risk. 

374
00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:29,680
It's quite an entrepreneurial 
job, like you're always taking a

375
00:19:29,680 --> 00:19:32,760
risk. 
You're always, you know, even 

376
00:19:32,760 --> 00:19:36,960
when you trying to code a fix, 
you could spend a lot more time 

377
00:19:37,720 --> 00:19:39,800
checking that the fix is 
correct, or you could just run 

378
00:19:39,800 --> 00:19:42,320
it and see if it works right. 
And that's a trade off that you 

379
00:19:42,320 --> 00:19:44,200
make all the time. 
You're always, even in that 

380
00:19:44,200 --> 00:19:48,040
situation, you're taking a risk 
and you're always making these 

381
00:19:48,040 --> 00:19:53,960
judgements. 
And if your job is never to have

382
00:19:53,960 --> 00:19:56,680
a security breach, then you're 
going to say no to everything. 

383
00:19:56,680 --> 00:19:58,120
Yeah. 
That's the easiest way. 

384
00:19:58,120 --> 00:20:01,800
It's the easiest way and so like
you say, once you understand 

385
00:20:01,800 --> 00:20:04,520
their motivation, where they're 
coming from, what them 

386
00:20:04,600 --> 00:20:08,080
incentives are. 
And then you can kind of deal 

387
00:20:08,080 --> 00:20:11,240
with them in a way that they 
understand, which immediately 

388
00:20:11,240 --> 00:20:13,520
puts them at their ease. 
If you're saying I've identified

389
00:20:13,520 --> 00:20:15,480
all the risks for you, they go, 
great, you've saved me. 

390
00:20:15,480 --> 00:20:17,840
You've saved me the time here. 
Have you thought about those 

391
00:20:17,840 --> 00:20:19,040
risks? 
Yeah, We've thought about this. 

392
00:20:19,040 --> 00:20:21,160
And here's how we've mitigated 
and here's what we've done. 

393
00:20:21,560 --> 00:20:23,680
And suddenly the past becomes a 
lot clearer. 

394
00:20:25,040 --> 00:20:28,320
We actually, Container Solutions
is working on a project, an open

395
00:20:28,320 --> 00:20:31,440
source project called Continuous
Compliance Framework. 

396
00:20:31,840 --> 00:20:35,560
Yeah. 
And because we worked on 

397
00:20:35,560 --> 00:20:38,800
multiple projects which in 
regulated industries, which 

398
00:20:38,800 --> 00:20:44,680
involve spreadsheets and PDFs, 
and you know, you write down how

399
00:20:44,680 --> 00:20:49,960
you're mitigating a risk and how
you're the evidence you've got 

400
00:20:50,080 --> 00:20:52,040
to conform with this thing. 
And then every six months 

401
00:20:52,040 --> 00:20:54,480
someone comes along and does an 
audit on you. 

402
00:20:54,960 --> 00:20:56,640
So we had this experience over 
and over again. 

403
00:20:56,680 --> 00:21:00,920
We said a lot of this can be 
automated, but anyway, so we 

404
00:21:00,920 --> 00:21:04,760
produced this, this, this 
product that that allows people 

405
00:21:04,760 --> 00:21:06,760
to manage that and we open 
sourced it and we spent a lot of

406
00:21:06,760 --> 00:21:09,240
time working on it. 
And a lot of the value of that 

407
00:21:09,240 --> 00:21:12,960
is simply that if an auditor 
comes along, they see that 

408
00:21:12,960 --> 00:21:16,000
you've got your house in order. 
You know, it's not that your 

409
00:21:16,000 --> 00:21:20,040
software is necessarily more 
compliant than other software, 

410
00:21:20,040 --> 00:21:22,440
it's just that you're you're 
able to expose it more honestly.

411
00:21:22,440 --> 00:21:27,120
And I suppose that one thing I 
see a lot in engineers is this 

412
00:21:27,680 --> 00:21:31,000
inability to see that because 
something is objectively 

413
00:21:31,480 --> 00:21:36,880
correct, that's not enough. 
You have to communicate that in 

414
00:21:36,880 --> 00:21:39,040
a way that that people 
understand and that that is a 

415
00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:44,000
whole job in itself. 
And many of the techies I've 

416
00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:47,000
worked with have got frustrated 
with that because they don't, 

417
00:21:47,080 --> 00:21:49,760
they don't see why should I have
to do that if I've done, done it

418
00:21:49,760 --> 00:21:55,400
correctly. 
It's a very, it's a very common 

419
00:21:55,400 --> 00:21:58,080
pattern that I've seen. 
And it's, it's, it's something 

420
00:21:58,080 --> 00:22:01,440
that some people never want to 
do, but some people can actually

421
00:22:01,440 --> 00:22:05,280
get a lot better at once. 
They realise that part of the 

422
00:22:05,280 --> 00:22:07,840
job is that is that is doing 
that. 

423
00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:10,560
Yeah, I mean, there's there's 
organisations where you don't 

424
00:22:10,560 --> 00:22:13,440
have to do that as much, where 
more risk is just part of the 

425
00:22:13,440 --> 00:22:15,120
game, like a start up, for 
example. 

426
00:22:15,600 --> 00:22:19,600
And I especially early on in my 
career, I did not have any hate 

427
00:22:19,600 --> 00:22:21,280
space to think about any of 
this. 

428
00:22:21,840 --> 00:22:24,360
But as, as you get more 
comfortable, I feel like there 

429
00:22:24,360 --> 00:22:27,720
is room for more learnings and 
more opportunities and you get 

430
00:22:27,720 --> 00:22:30,280
to experience and explore. 
I'm I'm definitely a person that

431
00:22:30,280 --> 00:22:33,720
doesn't like to have this 
thought of like, oh, woe is me 

432
00:22:33,720 --> 00:22:35,880
if there's a legal department 
and they always say no. 

433
00:22:36,640 --> 00:22:40,040
I would do my best and try kind 
of everything in my ability from

434
00:22:40,040 --> 00:22:42,480
my end to navigate that 
structure. 

435
00:22:42,720 --> 00:22:45,240
Because if in the end, then my 
conclusion is, well, in this 

436
00:22:45,240 --> 00:22:46,800
organization, it just really 
doesn't work. 

437
00:22:47,400 --> 00:22:49,080
I at least have the feeling I 
tried everything. 

438
00:22:49,160 --> 00:22:51,680
But if I haven't tried 
everything, I can't just make 

439
00:22:51,680 --> 00:22:55,280
the conclusion that this is a 
department where no is just what

440
00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:57,240
is happening. 
And I feel like with engineers, 

441
00:22:57,240 --> 00:23:00,400
sometimes even with tooling, 
it's like that is shit that's 

442
00:23:00,400 --> 00:23:01,920
always there. 
It's very black and white. 

443
00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:05,160
It's very dogmatic. 
Yeah, I think what you said 

444
00:23:05,160 --> 00:23:07,880
about the start up is it's a 
really important point because 

445
00:23:09,280 --> 00:23:12,240
if the start up is completely 
different, the the, the pressure

446
00:23:12,240 --> 00:23:14,840
to deliver is completely 
different. 

447
00:23:14,840 --> 00:23:16,880
I mean, in the book, in the 
following the money book, I talk

448
00:23:16,880 --> 00:23:20,280
about patrons and patrons. 
It's similar to customers. 

449
00:23:20,280 --> 00:23:23,520
It's not the same concepts, but 
if the start up, the patronage 

450
00:23:23,520 --> 00:23:27,240
system is much simpler, who, who
is funding the business, right? 

451
00:23:27,240 --> 00:23:29,160
That's one thing. 
And then who are your early 

452
00:23:29,160 --> 00:23:31,480
customers? 
They're your patrons, right? 

453
00:23:31,720 --> 00:23:33,440
And that's a relatively simple 
word to navigate. 

454
00:23:33,440 --> 00:23:35,880
And what they all want is fast 
delivery. 

455
00:23:36,120 --> 00:23:39,720
So that's what you give them 
when you get to a large company 

456
00:23:39,720 --> 00:23:43,960
like so I went from 30 nights to
join in a relatively start up 

457
00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:46,960
mode to 120,000 people at at a 
bank. 

458
00:23:46,960 --> 00:23:47,440
Oh. 
Wow. 

459
00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:50,920
Yeah, and, and suddenly 
everything's on a different 

460
00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:53,400
scale and I'm dealing with a 
legal department who always just

461
00:23:53,400 --> 00:23:57,680
says no. 
And one of the things was one of

462
00:23:57,680 --> 00:24:01,440
the things that happened was I 
ended up realising I'm in the 

463
00:24:01,440 --> 00:24:04,640
wrong company. 
Like it's not, it's kind of, 

464
00:24:04,640 --> 00:24:08,000
it's not me, it's them. 
Or rather it is me because I, I 

465
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:10,760
like to be entrepreneurial and I
like to take risks and I like to

466
00:24:10,760 --> 00:24:13,120
do things. 
I don't belong in a big, big 

467
00:24:13,120 --> 00:24:15,560
organization. 
And one of the themes of the 

468
00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:18,480
book is, you know, if you're, if
you're a techie and you're 

469
00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:23,440
seeing that the technology isn't
what you'd like it to be like 

470
00:24:23,440 --> 00:24:26,720
the architecture is wrong, 
whatever, you might end up 

471
00:24:26,720 --> 00:24:30,760
realising that the structure of 
the business is not going to 

472
00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:33,400
facilitate you doing the right 
thing. 

473
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:36,120
In fact, it isn't the right 
thing necessarily for that 

474
00:24:36,120 --> 00:24:39,440
business. 
So, you know, realise that, 

475
00:24:39,440 --> 00:24:41,240
understand that and decide what 
you want to do about it. 

476
00:24:41,240 --> 00:24:44,760
You can seek to change it from 
within, but you're probably 

477
00:24:44,760 --> 00:24:46,680
going to have to to a large 
extent play within the rules of 

478
00:24:46,680 --> 00:24:50,520
that game or go go somewhere 
that is more suited to your to 

479
00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:52,840
your instincts. 
Yeah, has has different rules 

480
00:24:52,840 --> 00:24:55,840
for the game completely. 
Yeah, I think it's very hard to 

481
00:24:55,840 --> 00:24:58,080
change an organization of like 
120,000. 

482
00:25:00,360 --> 00:25:02,880
I do think that especially 
nowadays with AI system 

483
00:25:02,880 --> 00:25:06,600
development tools, the build is 
really accelerating the build 

484
00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:08,920
phase of something. 
So we can create tools and we 

485
00:25:08,920 --> 00:25:12,640
can create software at a speed 
that is unprecedented and people

486
00:25:12,640 --> 00:25:14,960
have opinions on the quality, 
but let's just put that aside. 

487
00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:18,080
If we build more and more and 
more and we can create faster, 

488
00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:20,880
for me, two things are going to 
be very interesting, figuring 

489
00:25:20,880 --> 00:25:23,080
out what problem we're solving. 
So the right problems. 

490
00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:25,400
But then also, once you have 
something that you believe 

491
00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:28,520
solves the right problem, there 
is still the huge challenge of 

492
00:25:28,520 --> 00:25:31,200
distribution and adoption. 
Because the fact that you have 

493
00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:34,040
one tool probably means that 
you've solved the problem. 

494
00:25:34,040 --> 00:25:36,280
And if it's a really good 
problem, then you will have 

495
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:38,880
other tools that are very 
similar that are trying to solve

496
00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:41,320
the same problem. 
It might be a red flag if you 

497
00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:43,640
have the only tool that solves 
this problem, because then it 

498
00:25:43,640 --> 00:25:46,800
might not actually be a problem.
But let's say you found a 

499
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:49,400
problem you want to solve, then 
how do you actually get into the

500
00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:52,400
hands of the users and 
accelerate from that process? 

501
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:54,760
Which I think is interesting. 
Yeah, the cost of the cost of 

502
00:25:54,760 --> 00:25:58,640
engineering a solution to a 
problem has gone down. 

503
00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:02,240
Yeah, I often think of is is it 
Jevons paradox? 

504
00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:05,840
I wouldn't know. 
I think it's, I I'll check 

505
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:10,000
later, but I think it's, you 
know, this story where like, OK,

506
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:13,720
in the UK, in London, they built
the, they built a ring Rd. 

507
00:26:13,760 --> 00:26:17,600
around London that was designed 
to alleviate traffic and they 

508
00:26:17,600 --> 00:26:19,480
built it. 
And then traffic was worse than 

509
00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:21,720
before because you build more 
infrastructure and more people 

510
00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:24,360
use it, more cars on the road. 
It just got worse. 

511
00:26:24,360 --> 00:26:27,240
You just had another place. 
And I think the same is true in 

512
00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:30,400
San Francisco. 
Is it San Francisco, CA where 

513
00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:32,520
they've got like 8 lane 
motorways and they just add 

514
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:35,520
another lane and then that lane 
just gets yeah. 

515
00:26:35,520 --> 00:26:38,760
So the paradoxes you think it's 
going to alleviate the demand 

516
00:26:38,760 --> 00:26:42,600
actually goes up when you create
more, create more capacity. 

517
00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:44,760
We now have a greater capacity 
to write software. 

518
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:46,360
So more software is going to be 
written. 

519
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:49,160
So there's going to be 10 
solutions to every problem. 

520
00:26:49,160 --> 00:26:54,920
So, yeah, like you say, the the 
challenge is going to be how do 

521
00:26:54,920 --> 00:26:56,600
you differentiate yourself from 
the competition? 

522
00:26:57,080 --> 00:27:01,760
You know, and it may be that 
people who don't use AI to 

523
00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:04,600
produce a better architecture 
solution, which scales better, 

524
00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:07,440
or it may be that, you know, 
it's, it's all about the 

525
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:11,760
marketing and and so on. 
But yeah, it's, it's I think, I 

526
00:27:11,760 --> 00:27:13,920
think the economics of producing
software. 

527
00:27:14,960 --> 00:27:18,160
I mean, I remember when, when I 
started in the industry, there 

528
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:23,320
was there was no, there was not 
really even search engines 

529
00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:25,040
weren't that helpful. 
You had to get a book. 

530
00:27:25,120 --> 00:27:28,840
OK, if you only learn Python, 
you pretty much had to get a 

531
00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:30,320
book. 
That's how, that's how you 

532
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:34,560
learned. 
And the other year when I after 

533
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:38,640
3.5 of, yeah, I think it was 3.5
came out, I used it to build a 

534
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:43,120
React app myself. 
And I'd, I'd kind of tried to 

535
00:27:43,120 --> 00:27:47,520
read books on React and kind of 
couldn't, it didn't stick or, 

536
00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:49,480
you know, I just didn't, didn't 
find it worked. 

537
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:53,080
But this project helped me, 
helped me learn how React 

538
00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:55,640
worked, you know, from day one. 
And it was perfect because you 

539
00:27:55,640 --> 00:27:59,280
know, I would ask questions 
like, oh, is this, is this a 

540
00:27:59,280 --> 00:28:01,200
single threaded app? 
Is this, you know, how does this

541
00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:03,240
work? 
Is this asynchronous? 

542
00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:06,600
And because I had that 
experience before, it made it 

543
00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:09,400
very easy for me to learn. 
But you know, you see other 

544
00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:10,920
people use AI in a different 
way. 

545
00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:14,360
And, and I just think about the,
the maintenance challenges of 

546
00:28:14,360 --> 00:28:16,720
all this stuff. 
There are going to be businesses

547
00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:20,680
which have been built on, on 
these technologies which no one 

548
00:28:20,680 --> 00:28:24,120
knows how they work. 
And then they find that they've 

549
00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:26,160
they've hit a limit of what can 
be done. 

550
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:29,360
It's reached a size and so 
someone has to go in and unpick 

551
00:28:29,360 --> 00:28:31,720
it. 
I think that that's going to be 

552
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:33,640
an interesting, another 
interesting challenge. 

553
00:28:33,760 --> 00:28:36,480
Yeah, there was this, I think it
was a few months ago, this 

554
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:39,440
person, that vibe coded an app. 
It was kind of a social media 

555
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:41,560
thing where people uploaded 
pictures. 

556
00:28:41,560 --> 00:28:43,600
And I think it was either for 
forming friendships or 

557
00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:46,480
relationships in some form of 
way, specifically within a 

558
00:28:46,480 --> 00:28:48,400
community. 
And then there was a data breach

559
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:50,920
and people were like, well, 
surprised because this person 

560
00:28:50,920 --> 00:28:54,880
was preaching to the choir about
how it was vibe coded and how 

561
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:58,120
fast it went to market and how 
quickly it got users in usage. 

562
00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:01,040
And now it's I don't think it 
exists anymore due to that 

563
00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:04,160
breach specifically. 
Yeah, I'm, I'm thinking, you 

564
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:05,680
know, we're talking about, 
you're talking about a harness 

565
00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:06,720
there. 
Like there's a there's a 

566
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:09,440
compliance and security harness 
that must be around all these 

567
00:29:09,440 --> 00:29:12,480
projects, right? 
And it sort of makes me think of

568
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:15,040
that. 
There was that C plus was it the

569
00:29:15,040 --> 00:29:18,960
C compiler story? 
And people were like, wow, it's 

570
00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:21,680
written, it's written AC 
compiler in Rust using just. 

571
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:24,880
Is it 200 hours? 
Or two from Anthropic. 

572
00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:29,880
Yeah, I can't, I don't know the 
details, but I, I, I read a very

573
00:29:29,880 --> 00:29:33,520
good piece on it which said that
the actually interesting part of

574
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:37,040
that was the test harness. 
And it was a test harness that 

575
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:42,160
that was really beautifully done
that allowed the AI to, to, to 

576
00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:45,400
autonomously build, build the 
solution. 

577
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:48,600
And building a test harness is 
really hard. 

578
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:51,800
Yeah, absolutely. 
And maybe you can get an IAI to 

579
00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:53,880
help you with that. 
But, but, but that that 

580
00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:57,720
building, doing that right is 
going to be a real skill because

581
00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:02,440
you'll also have to think about 
security compliance, you know, 

582
00:30:02,440 --> 00:30:05,120
maintainability. 
These are all the things that 

583
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:07,400
that affect the cost of, of 
running that software. 

584
00:30:07,400 --> 00:30:10,080
So. 
Yeah, I, I had a certain 

585
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:13,320
perspective, I think on things 
like security and compliance, 

586
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:15,080
especially within software 
engineering. 

587
00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:16,480
I thought maybe that's kind of 
boring. 

588
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:19,600
And then I talked to someone in 
big tech that is responsible for

589
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:21,120
that. 
He's, I think one of the staff 

590
00:30:21,120 --> 00:30:23,280
engineers. 
So he influences a lot of 

591
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:25,760
decision making on that. 
And he gave me a completely new 

592
00:30:25,760 --> 00:30:28,800
perspective. 
He said that in essence with 

593
00:30:28,800 --> 00:30:31,240
software is very great, right? 
You create something new 

594
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:33,400
functionality, your user can 
have an opinion on it. 

595
00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:36,800
It's more subjective, can be hit
or miss, but he says when it 

596
00:30:36,800 --> 00:30:38,760
comes to security and 
compliance, it's a lot more 

597
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:41,120
black and white. 
So either we do it and we do it 

598
00:30:41,120 --> 00:30:42,560
the right way and we are not at 
risk. 

599
00:30:42,560 --> 00:30:47,320
So the risk is mitigated or 
you're at risk, which means that

600
00:30:47,320 --> 00:30:50,240
probably you, if you're 
responsible, you missed 

601
00:30:50,240 --> 00:30:53,360
something, right? 
So there's no or there's way 

602
00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:56,760
less margin for error. 
And then he said, for me, that's

603
00:30:56,760 --> 00:31:00,240
software engineering at a way 
higher level than when things 

604
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:02,240
are more grey, which I thought 
was interesting. 

605
00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:04,000
I. 
I have a different perspective 

606
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:07,680
actually, which is that. 
So when I, I'll give a bit of 

607
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:09,600
background. 
So when I worked at this this 

608
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:15,400
bank, we were looking at various
tools around security. 

609
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:20,640
So I was, I was in, I was the 
owner of the Docker product 

610
00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:22,120
within this bank. 
Cool. 

611
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:26,720
Yeah, it wasn't really cool. 
It was, it was kind of a it was 

612
00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:29,360
a kind of a, it was an 
interesting experience, right? 

613
00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:33,680
Because what that meant was that
it was actually quite well 

614
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:36,360
organised. 
Every technology had an owner 

615
00:31:36,360 --> 00:31:38,600
and that person was the point 
person for that technology. 

616
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:41,000
And I was the point person for 
Docker because at that time I'd 

617
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:43,000
written a book on Docker. 
And so they said you. 

618
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:44,120
Have yeah, they go to and I was 
like. 

619
00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:45,400
Great. 
Like and they were like, ha, ha,

620
00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:47,640
ha, he's got that job now, ha 
ha, you can deal with it. 

621
00:31:48,560 --> 00:31:51,640
And what that meant was then if 
anyone wanted to use Docker, 

622
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:53,760
they would phone you up. 
Really. 

623
00:31:53,760 --> 00:31:55,640
Yeah. 
And say as a single person. 

624
00:31:55,720 --> 00:31:58,000
Yeah, it would just say, I I 
want to use Docker, you're 

625
00:31:58,000 --> 00:31:59,800
listed as the owner. 
Get me docker. 

626
00:32:00,680 --> 00:32:05,160
And I had to explain over and 
over and over again that, well, 

627
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:11,000
Docker at the time gives you 
root, so sorry, can't happen. 

628
00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:14,160
Yeah, you're the department of 
no. 

629
00:32:14,280 --> 00:32:15,640
I was the department of no, 
yeah. 

630
00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:17,000
So I was put in that position, 
right? 

631
00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:18,880
And, and I understood the 
context. 

632
00:32:18,880 --> 00:32:21,880
So to me, it was like I'm just 
being perfectly reasonable and 

633
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:23,920
people were not happy with my 
response. 

634
00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:28,360
So it was interesting. 
I was suddenly thrust in this 

635
00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:30,560
from this position of like, hey,
let's use Docker. 

636
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:33,840
Docker's great and Docker can 
reduce the cost of development 

637
00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:36,160
and do all these great things. 
I'd done that in my previous 

638
00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:39,440
company and now I was in the 
position of saying no. 

639
00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:42,800
Maybe that actually contributed 
to the to the mindset that I 

640
00:32:42,800 --> 00:32:45,640
have now, which is kind of more 
tolerant because suddenly, yeah,

641
00:32:45,640 --> 00:32:47,760
I was, I was having to say no 
because I was like, I cannot do 

642
00:32:47,760 --> 00:32:49,840
that. 
Like even I do want to do that. 

643
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:51,360
I'd love to give you give you 
that. 

644
00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:56,480
Anyway, the point of this story 
is that as part of that, I was 

645
00:32:57,480 --> 00:33:03,640
heavily involved in the process 
of deciding which vulnerability 

646
00:33:04,840 --> 00:33:08,080
tool to use, vulnerability 
scanner to use. 

647
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:12,240
And I remember having this kind 
of moment where I, we were 

648
00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:14,920
looking at 3 or 4 different 
options and we had all the 

649
00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:18,600
outputs of them. 
And I was like, they all 

650
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:23,640
produced similar outputs, right?
And I was like, the problem here

651
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:27,440
is not that any of these tools 
is bad or good. 

652
00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:31,880
The problem is that I, there's 
like volumes and volumes about 

653
00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:35,600
how are we going to manage this?
And this is where it didn't, it 

654
00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:37,320
became not a black and white 
problem, right? 

655
00:33:37,320 --> 00:33:41,320
Because for each of these 
things, you had a number, it's a

656
00:33:41,320 --> 00:33:44,720
security risk number, right? 
And then you had to look at how 

657
00:33:44,720 --> 00:33:49,200
likely is it that applications 
are, are going to expose those 

658
00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:51,160
vulnerabilities. 
So you know, some, some 

659
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:54,040
vulnerabilities like 9, but if 
they're never exposed to the 

660
00:33:54,040 --> 00:33:56,400
Internet, it's no problem. 
Or if you're not using a 

661
00:33:56,400 --> 00:33:58,080
particular operating system, 
it's no problem. 

662
00:33:59,840 --> 00:34:03,640
So it wasn't a black and white 
thing like you had to actually 

663
00:34:03,640 --> 00:34:07,240
think like, what is the process 
for deciding which of these 

664
00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:10,480
things we should focus on? 
What is the risk benefit of, of 

665
00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:13,920
tackling them? 
So I that from my perspective, 

666
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:16,760
that was, that's the difference 
to what what you describe. 

667
00:34:17,120 --> 00:34:19,560
I mean, if you have a number 
against a thing and you can say 

668
00:34:19,560 --> 00:34:22,440
you've got that component in 
your, in your, in your Docker 

669
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:25,199
image, therefore, therefore 
you're exposed, go fix it. 

670
00:34:25,199 --> 00:34:29,040
I mean, that's, that's true. 
But the reality is that not 

671
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:31,040
everyone can go around. 
I mean, if everyone went around 

672
00:34:31,040 --> 00:34:33,560
fixing all their Docker 
containers at the time, no one 

673
00:34:33,560 --> 00:34:34,920
would have got anything done, 
no? 

674
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:38,040
That's why I think the best 
people in in the positions are 

675
00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:41,120
responsible for that also needs 
to have or need to have a 

676
00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:43,400
mindset that aligns with what 
the company is trying to 

677
00:34:43,400 --> 00:34:46,080
achieve. 
So if you're building software 

678
00:34:46,080 --> 00:34:49,000
as a service, one of your core 
components is still very much 

679
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:52,080
feature delivery and tailoring 
towards an end user. 

680
00:34:52,080 --> 00:34:55,000
And if you're then responsible 
for data privacy and security, 

681
00:34:55,400 --> 00:34:59,200
your margin of error is is very 
low to a point that at some 

682
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:02,240
point you cannot afford to have 
errors, but you still want to 

683
00:35:02,240 --> 00:35:04,920
have the mindset of, OK, these 
are the things that we have to 

684
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:07,480
accommodate for, but we still 
want to deliver as fast as 

685
00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:09,280
possible. 
Then it becomes interesting. 

686
00:35:09,280 --> 00:35:12,880
You mentioned customers and I 
would again, I would move that 

687
00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:18,400
out slightly to patrons, right, 
Because if a regulator, for 

688
00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:21,640
example, is a, is a big patron, 
maybe the biggest in, in a bank,

689
00:35:21,640 --> 00:35:25,600
it's the biggest patron there 
is, they can take away your 

690
00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:27,800
banking licence and then you 
don't have a business at all. 

691
00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:34,240
So understanding your customers 
is very important, but also in, 

692
00:35:34,240 --> 00:35:37,520
in and again, in, in a, in a 
bank's case like the customer 

693
00:35:37,520 --> 00:35:41,160
is, I don't want to say less 
important than the regulator, 

694
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:45,120
but but you're thinking about 
the regulator first, because if 

695
00:35:45,120 --> 00:35:47,360
a customer leaves, it's not, not
that big a deal. 

696
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:51,560
And if you get to retail 
banking, it's the regulator and 

697
00:35:51,560 --> 00:35:53,280
individual customers don't don't
matter. 

698
00:35:54,240 --> 00:35:57,200
If you get to Wells banking, 
it's a bit different each and 

699
00:35:57,600 --> 00:36:00,360
that's often actually why you 
see in banks, wealth banking 

700
00:36:00,360 --> 00:36:05,520
applications are more bespoke 
and less kind of off the shelf 

701
00:36:05,520 --> 00:36:07,400
generic tooling. 
They tend to have been written 

702
00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:12,440
because someone, some group of 
someone or group of customers 

703
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:15,120
who are very important to them 
wanted something a certain way. 

704
00:36:15,120 --> 00:36:16,440
So you want to be able to change
that. 

705
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:20,320
And it's a very good example of 
how the money, the architecture 

706
00:36:20,320 --> 00:36:22,600
follows the money in a retail 
bank. 

707
00:36:22,600 --> 00:36:25,040
You just want off the shelf 
tools that are like volume 

708
00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:28,240
centric in a bank. 
You don't. 

709
00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:32,320
Technology isn't often a huge 
differentiator. 

710
00:36:33,680 --> 00:36:36,320
People would argue with me about
that, but but basically you want

711
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:38,560
something that's safe and 
reliable and just runs. 

712
00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:43,840
And so if you have millions of 
customers, you're not going to 

713
00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:47,040
listen to your customers in the 
same way as you are a wealth, A 

714
00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:49,000
wealth management part of a of a
bank. 

715
00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:52,960
This thought that architecture 
follows money. 

716
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:54,640
Where did it originate from? 
Where? 

717
00:36:54,640 --> 00:36:59,000
Where's the seed plant? 
So the seed was planted when I 

718
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:02,480
did my first degree I guess. 
So I studied history at 

719
00:37:02,480 --> 00:37:06,640
university and in the UK the 
study of history is essentially 

720
00:37:07,600 --> 00:37:10,880
a degree where you have to argue
cases. 

721
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:13,960
In fact, law and and history 
were the War One thing. 

722
00:37:14,600 --> 00:37:19,880
And the thing about the study of
history is that if you're asked,

723
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:22,280
you know, why did the why did 
the Second World War happen? 

724
00:37:22,840 --> 00:37:25,840
And if you just wrote an essay 
saying it happened because of 

725
00:37:25,840 --> 00:37:28,720
Adolf Hitler, you'd get very, 
very low marks because you 

726
00:37:28,720 --> 00:37:31,200
haven't considered the systemic 
causes. 

727
00:37:31,400 --> 00:37:34,120
Not that individuals can't, 
can't, can't affect history, 

728
00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:37,040
but, you know, they don't 
operate in a vacuum. 

729
00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:41,000
So historians are systems 
thinkers from the ground up. 

730
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:43,800
They're thinking about, you 
know, economic production. 

731
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:47,800
They're thinking about 
commodities, you know, mining, 

732
00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:52,040
how money, well, how money moves
around the world and so on. 

733
00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:57,480
And so there's this joke that 
all historians are Marxists now,

734
00:37:57,480 --> 00:37:58,840
which doesn't mean they're left 
wing. 

735
00:37:59,280 --> 00:38:01,840
It means they think of things in
terms of economic forces. 

736
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:05,760
So economic forces shape things.
And that's that's that's why 

737
00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:09,360
things happen. 
And, and so this sort of 

738
00:38:09,360 --> 00:38:11,680
systemic thinking, I was already
interested in Florence 

739
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:13,960
University, but it really 
cemented that, that way of 

740
00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:18,880
analysing a problem. 
And so by the time I got to 

741
00:38:18,880 --> 00:38:23,360
working at, at a bank, I was 
ready to understand this. 

742
00:38:23,360 --> 00:38:27,560
So I worked on the Openshift, 
the Kubernetes platform at, at 

743
00:38:27,560 --> 00:38:29,360
this bank. 
And this is 2016. 

744
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:32,120
So it's the very early days. 
I think it was version, I think 

745
00:38:32,120 --> 00:38:35,920
we went to production with 
version .23 point 2 of 

746
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:39,040
Openshift, which is like 1.2 of 
Kubernetes. 

747
00:38:40,800 --> 00:38:43,400
One of the big challenges we 
had, this was kind of the first 

748
00:38:43,400 --> 00:38:49,800
pattern that I really kind of 
developed was that usage of this

749
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:52,560
platform was exponentially 
growing, right? 

750
00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:54,000
Every three months it would 
double. 

751
00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:57,160
People would just people really 
wanted to use it. 

752
00:38:57,880 --> 00:39:03,320
And you'd think that if your 
users user base double s every 

753
00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:08,720
every three months, you'd get 
more funding to but no. 

754
00:39:10,400 --> 00:39:14,480
And you know, this wasn't used 
to people around me, but I was 

755
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:18,200
thinking, OK, so so why are we 
not not getting more funding? 

756
00:39:19,160 --> 00:39:22,040
And the reason is that that we 
were in a business unit that was

757
00:39:22,040 --> 00:39:26,360
a cost centre and that business 
unit got its funding every year,

758
00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:30,480
argued for it every January. 
And there were fights at board 

759
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:32,000
level and eventually they'd get 
their money. 

760
00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:34,360
And then the money was allocated
to the different teams within 

761
00:39:34,360 --> 00:39:35,680
them. 
We were just one team within 

762
00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:38,400
that. 
And if we did super well and got

763
00:39:38,400 --> 00:39:43,440
doubled our user base, there was
no metric to to allocate funds 

764
00:39:43,440 --> 00:39:44,840
to us. 
But then what's the incentive? 

765
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:50,080
Why do people do their best? 
Because we're morally superior. 

766
00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:51,440
OK, that's fine. 
That's good. 

767
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:53,200
But like to double? 
Yeah. 

768
00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:54,760
Yeah, why? 
Why? 

769
00:39:54,800 --> 00:39:56,320
Why did we make the effort to do
that? 

770
00:39:57,080 --> 00:39:59,520
Well, from my perspective, it 
was the guy who hired me. 

771
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:01,760
He was really motivated to solve
this problem. 

772
00:40:01,880 --> 00:40:05,440
He loved building teams to solve
problems like this and and. 

773
00:40:06,160 --> 00:40:08,920
He's he, he worked at this 
business for 30 years. 

774
00:40:08,920 --> 00:40:10,680
He's actually a colleague of 
mine now and brought him with. 

775
00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:11,360
Me. 
That's nice. 

776
00:40:11,360 --> 00:40:14,120
Yeah, Yeah, really cool and. 
He's a, he's a wonderful guy. 

777
00:40:14,160 --> 00:40:22,000
And, and, and he, he, he did 
that, I think, I think why did 

778
00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:23,400
he do that? 
I don't know. 

779
00:40:23,480 --> 00:40:25,000
It could be intrinsic 
motivation. 

780
00:40:25,000 --> 00:40:26,960
I think it was just intrinsic 
motivation somewhere. 

781
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:29,240
Yeah, I think it that's what got
him out of bed in the morning. 

782
00:40:29,280 --> 00:40:32,160
It's the thought that, you know,
he could see conceptually why it

783
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:34,440
worked out. 
Interestingly, he wasn't a sort 

784
00:40:34,440 --> 00:40:37,320
of coder by background. 
He was, he'd worked in in IT for

785
00:40:37,320 --> 00:40:40,280
a long time, but he loved 
working with techies and he 

786
00:40:40,280 --> 00:40:42,680
loved enabling them. 
And he was a great, great sort 

787
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:46,560
of leader of that group because 
he navigated a lot of the, and 

788
00:40:46,560 --> 00:40:50,000
he still does this now. 
He navigated the governance and 

789
00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:54,160
the regulatory side for us and 
he actually got it done. 

790
00:40:54,160 --> 00:40:55,640
It wasn't the techies that 
really got it done. 

791
00:40:55,640 --> 00:40:58,320
It was, it was kind of him who 
who really spearheaded it. 

792
00:41:00,520 --> 00:41:04,720
But yeah, I mean, now I would 
say his, his interests, his 

793
00:41:04,720 --> 00:41:06,840
motivation was misaligned with 
the organization. 

794
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:13,760
And one of the things we tried 
to do was to see if we could get

795
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:16,920
a way of moving the funds from 
the other business units who 

796
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:20,600
were consuming this central 
platform to fund us so that 

797
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:24,920
every, every team who uses it 
pays for the centre. 

798
00:41:26,000 --> 00:41:29,120
We didn't get anywhere and I 
wasn't in the the thick of that,

799
00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:34,440
but I understood that it's very 
hard to get in an organization 

800
00:41:34,440 --> 00:41:37,880
like that gets the people who 
make those decisions and and get

801
00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:39,640
them to change the way the 
finance work. 

802
00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:41,280
I mean, it's just, it's very 
hard. 

803
00:41:41,280 --> 00:41:42,680
It's very hard. 
It's very hard. 

804
00:41:42,680 --> 00:41:43,880
It's like this is the way we 
work. 

805
00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:44,920
Like we're not going to change 
it. 

806
00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:49,760
But that was my first kind of 
like, oh, right, we're doing the

807
00:41:49,760 --> 00:41:51,400
right thing technically and 
we're doing the right thing. 

808
00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:53,720
Like I think we're doing the 
right things and we we're 

809
00:41:53,720 --> 00:41:57,880
obviously successful, but and, 
and the pressure from the other 

810
00:41:57,880 --> 00:42:01,040
business units was enormous. 
And we used to say to them, OK, 

811
00:42:01,040 --> 00:42:02,760
do you want to give us two of 
your staff? 

812
00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:05,720
To to help us, yeah. 
And they were like, no, that's 

813
00:42:05,880 --> 00:42:06,640
why should. 
We do that. 

814
00:42:06,960 --> 00:42:13,000
Yeah. 
But yeah, so, so that was that 

815
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:15,160
was the first time I really sort
of saw it. 

816
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:17,120
And then I looked back at my 
previous job. 

817
00:42:17,120 --> 00:42:22,320
So I went for that, that online,
online gambling company, we had 

818
00:42:22,440 --> 00:42:25,080
what I like to call the exact 
wrong number of customers to 

819
00:42:25,280 --> 00:42:28,680
build the right software. 
So we had like 30 customers of 

820
00:42:28,680 --> 00:42:34,080
which six were really big. 
So 6 was like 80% of our income.

821
00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:35,600
Oh wow. 
Yeah. 

822
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:38,120
And they were really, they were 
obviously in competition with 

823
00:42:38,120 --> 00:42:39,840
each other. 
We were the only back end game 

824
00:42:39,840 --> 00:42:42,680
in town and they were really in 
competition with each other. 

825
00:42:42,680 --> 00:42:47,280
So they're the leadership of 
this six companies said we want,

826
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:49,640
we want a, they said to our 
management, we want, we want a 

827
00:42:49,640 --> 00:42:52,720
product. 
We want basically like we don't 

828
00:42:52,720 --> 00:42:54,840
want to spend all this money 
doing upgrades. 

829
00:42:55,080 --> 00:42:58,080
Do we just want a product, we 
pay for it every year and it's 

830
00:42:58,080 --> 00:43:00,640
predictable and so on. 
And our management said, OK, 

831
00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:04,360
great, we'll go build products. 
We went to build those products.

832
00:43:04,360 --> 00:43:07,360
And then the businesses we 
worked with on the ground, they 

833
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:09,760
didn't want that because they 
were in competition with each 

834
00:43:09,760 --> 00:43:12,440
other and they wanted their 
thing in production. 

835
00:43:12,440 --> 00:43:15,280
So they'd get their bonus or 
whatever it is that they, they 

836
00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:20,640
got and they, they were just 
weren't interested in, in, in 

837
00:43:21,120 --> 00:43:26,480
the, the challenges of, of, of 
platform, sorry of product to 

838
00:43:26,480 --> 00:43:30,120
delivery. 
They just wanted their thing. 

839
00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:33,720
So you ended up with six 
different code bases that were 

840
00:43:33,720 --> 00:43:35,400
broad. 
Well, I mean, they weren't, 

841
00:43:36,120 --> 00:43:37,680
there were six different 
implementations. 

842
00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:41,480
So there was shared code, there 
was code that was specific to 

843
00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:43,360
the client. 
And then the the database 

844
00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:45,800
schemes were roughly similar, 
but not exactly the same. 

845
00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:48,960
And of course this meant that if
you wanted what the other 

846
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:51,920
customer had, there was an 
integration cost. 

847
00:43:51,920 --> 00:43:52,880
Oh no. 
Yeah. 

848
00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:55,680
Yeah. 
And why is that? 

849
00:43:55,680 --> 00:43:59,520
Because the patrons of the 
business, the big payers, they 

850
00:43:59,720 --> 00:44:02,640
they wanted things quickly. 
They didn't care about. 

851
00:44:02,640 --> 00:44:06,080
I mean, online gambling was a 
very unregulated industry at the

852
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:10,080
time and it was a very risk 
taking business. 

853
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:13,920
Because if the World Cup is 
coming up and you have a, a 

854
00:44:13,920 --> 00:44:17,560
promotion in your retail stores 
for the World Cup and it's tied 

855
00:44:17,560 --> 00:44:21,240
with what's going online and 
you're a week away from the 

856
00:44:21,240 --> 00:44:25,640
World Cup and the software isn't
ready, just get it out there. 

857
00:44:25,640 --> 00:44:28,800
And, and I literally was sat in 
meetings where people would say,

858
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:31,720
oh, it's fine. 
We'll we'll put it in production

859
00:44:31,800 --> 00:44:33,480
and then we'll let support deal 
with it. 

860
00:44:33,720 --> 00:44:34,800
Of course. 
Yeah. 

861
00:44:35,120 --> 00:44:37,400
And I, I was in support, so I 
moved to support. 

862
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:41,680
It was, it was really well paid.
I had kids and it was regular 

863
00:44:41,680 --> 00:44:45,800
hours and there was overtime. 
So I was like, I'll go to 

864
00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:47,000
support. 
No, on call. 

865
00:44:47,280 --> 00:44:49,560
It's on call. 
Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

866
00:44:49,680 --> 00:44:51,880
And I, I really enjoyed it, 
actually. 

867
00:44:52,040 --> 00:44:54,320
For a pure techie, it's great 
because you just see the 

868
00:44:54,320 --> 00:44:56,040
problems. 
Someone brings you a problem and

869
00:44:56,040 --> 00:44:57,240
you're like, how are we going to
solve this? 

870
00:44:57,520 --> 00:44:59,440
I loved it. 
I absolutely loved that work, 

871
00:44:59,440 --> 00:45:01,400
but it was quite stressful. 
It was very stressful. 

872
00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:04,360
Oh yeah, I can relate. 
I started in operations my 

873
00:45:04,360 --> 00:45:05,640
career completely. 
Right. 

874
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:09,040
I mean, it's a great, it's a 
great apprenticeship because you

875
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:11,120
you're at the sharp end, you're 
seeing how things actually get 

876
00:45:11,120 --> 00:45:13,760
done and the compromises that 
get made probably helped you in 

877
00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:15,240
the product it. 
Definitely did. 

878
00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:17,280
Yeah, yeah. 
Not just product, but also just 

879
00:45:17,280 --> 00:45:19,760
the engineering part of what we 
need to accommodate for 

880
00:45:19,760 --> 00:45:25,480
operationally. 
Yeah, I mean, yeah, so I mean, I

881
00:45:25,480 --> 00:45:28,920
love that job for lots of 
reasons, but one of them was the

882
00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:32,560
way it changed. 
Like I, you asked me about 

883
00:45:33,760 --> 00:45:38,680
contrarian viewpoints, right. 
One of them was we, we used to, 

884
00:45:38,680 --> 00:45:41,400
people used to say, oh, the 
engineers should write the 

885
00:45:41,400 --> 00:45:45,200
documentation for support. 
And I was like, no. 

886
00:45:45,200 --> 00:45:46,440
That makes no sense. 
No. 

887
00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:48,280
Support should write the 
documentation. 

888
00:45:48,360 --> 00:45:50,920
And so I'd sit with these really
smart people and they would say,

889
00:45:50,920 --> 00:45:52,880
Oh yeah, the really interesting 
thing about this project is this

890
00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:56,680
engine I wrote that, I was like,
I'm pretty sure that that works.

891
00:45:57,080 --> 00:45:59,480
And even if it doesn't work, I'm
not going to be able to fix it. 

892
00:45:59,480 --> 00:46:02,440
No, but I know that split brain 
problem is a thing. 

893
00:46:03,080 --> 00:46:04,640
And they were like, oh, that 
shouldn't happen. 

894
00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:05,640
Of course. 
And what happens? 

895
00:46:06,800 --> 00:46:08,800
Like 2 months later, we have a 
split brain problem. 

896
00:46:09,400 --> 00:46:12,080
And so we were like, no, we, we 
will, we will write the 

897
00:46:12,080 --> 00:46:14,040
software, you will explain to us
what the software does and we 

898
00:46:14,040 --> 00:46:15,480
will write our own 
documentation. 

899
00:46:15,480 --> 00:46:17,320
You will check that 
documentation and then we will 

900
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:19,680
use that documentation for, for,
for support. 

901
00:46:20,800 --> 00:46:22,760
We call IT support. 
Then they call it SRE now. 

902
00:46:22,840 --> 00:46:24,200
I mean, you know. 
It's evolved. 

903
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:29,320
It's evolved, yeah, But we were,
we were former tech leads and 

904
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:33,760
very senior engineers who moved 
to support because it was a fun 

905
00:46:33,760 --> 00:46:38,120
place to work, believe it or 
not, We were empowered so I 

906
00:46:38,120 --> 00:46:42,680
could fix stuff in production 
without telling anyone, and then

907
00:46:42,680 --> 00:46:44,920
I would go check it into the 
source later. 

908
00:46:47,080 --> 00:46:49,480
So it was, it was a very 
responsible job with a lot of 

909
00:46:49,480 --> 00:46:51,680
freedom. 
But you had the challenge of of 

910
00:46:51,680 --> 00:46:54,960
these, you know, the very 
demanding customers because the 

911
00:46:54,960 --> 00:46:56,600
site was down. 
They were losing money per 

912
00:46:56,600 --> 00:46:58,880
second. 
So there was a lot of pressure 

913
00:46:58,880 --> 00:47:00,760
to get it back up. 
In the teams that were 

914
00:47:00,760 --> 00:47:03,480
developing the software for the 
patrons that you mentioned, you 

915
00:47:03,480 --> 00:47:06,920
mentioned 30 customers, six of 
which brought in 80% of the 

916
00:47:06,920 --> 00:47:09,320
revenue. 
How many people actually were 

917
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:12,280
aware of these revenue streams 
and the impact that it had on 

918
00:47:12,280 --> 00:47:15,520
them, the decision making that 
was being done or how many 

919
00:47:15,520 --> 00:47:17,400
people were just there and they 
got requirements and they 

920
00:47:17,400 --> 00:47:19,200
executed? 
I wouldn't want to answer this 

921
00:47:19,200 --> 00:47:21,960
for them, but my impression was 
that people weren't thinking in 

922
00:47:21,960 --> 00:47:24,440
that systemic way and people 
generally don't. 

923
00:47:24,440 --> 00:47:29,480
They think it's because of the 
people around them being stupid 

924
00:47:29,480 --> 00:47:33,080
basically. 
Which is a common pattern 

925
00:47:33,080 --> 00:47:35,760
actually, yeah. 
Yeah, and, and one of the nice 

926
00:47:35,760 --> 00:47:39,360
things about this sort of these 
ideas I've written about and 

927
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:42,680
developed is that it helps you 
understand it's not about 

928
00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:46,960
individuals doing stupid stuff 
or being stupid necessarily. 

929
00:47:47,640 --> 00:47:51,840
It's the system, like hate the 
hate the was it hate the don't 

930
00:47:51,840 --> 00:47:53,400
hate the player, hate the game 
kind of thing. 

931
00:47:55,280 --> 00:47:58,280
So I don't know how aware they 
were of it, but I remember I 

932
00:47:58,280 --> 00:48:00,720
started to say like, we have the
wrong number of customers and 

933
00:48:00,720 --> 00:48:03,760
people would kind of laugh and 
go, yeah, I guess so, yeah, 

934
00:48:03,760 --> 00:48:06,920
yeah. 
I guess the problem with that 

935
00:48:06,920 --> 00:48:08,880
thinking though is that it can 
make you quite defeatist. 

936
00:48:09,040 --> 00:48:10,760
I agree and I really don't like 
that. 

937
00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:13,200
Yeah, yeah, yeah. 
There was this quote that Gregor

938
00:48:13,200 --> 00:48:15,080
Hope shared. 
He shares it in his trainings 

939
00:48:15,080 --> 00:48:18,680
and he says if decisions from 
the top don't make sense, they 

940
00:48:18,680 --> 00:48:21,560
know something you don't. 
So rather than being they're 

941
00:48:21,560 --> 00:48:22,960
idiots, they're highly competent
people. 

942
00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:25,160
They got into a position for a 
reason. 

943
00:48:25,520 --> 00:48:28,360
It is very unlikely that they 
just throw a dart on a dog 

944
00:48:28,360 --> 00:48:30,680
burden, whatever it lands, 
that's the impact on you. 

945
00:48:31,160 --> 00:48:32,800
So try and make it explicit, 
right? 

946
00:48:32,800 --> 00:48:34,960
They know something you don't, 
so figure out what that is. 

947
00:48:35,360 --> 00:48:38,360
There's a story I like to tell, 
which is kind of an amalgam of a

948
00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:42,240
lot of these stories. 
But there was a, a database 

949
00:48:42,240 --> 00:48:45,720
table we once worked on that had
a column. 

950
00:48:46,480 --> 00:48:49,600
And this column was used in a 
really crazy way. 

951
00:48:49,600 --> 00:48:53,200
Like it was in this context, 
the, the column name was 

952
00:48:53,240 --> 00:48:54,880
completely unrelated to how it 
was used. 

953
00:48:55,560 --> 00:48:58,280
It was overloaded. 
So depending on the context, it 

954
00:48:58,280 --> 00:49:00,760
would have a different meaning. 
It was a single, a single 

955
00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:03,720
character column, but it had a 
different meaning depending on 

956
00:49:03,880 --> 00:49:06,280
the context. 
And we had all sorts of support 

957
00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:09,120
calls about this because, 
because engineers missed this 

958
00:49:09,120 --> 00:49:12,760
nuance and it just looked like a
really dumb decision. 

959
00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:19,840
And it turns out that the origin
story of this horrible mistake, 

960
00:49:19,840 --> 00:49:22,720
which looks like someone was 
being a complete idiot. 

961
00:49:23,720 --> 00:49:28,200
It was a week before a key key 
accounting date and something 

962
00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:32,760
had to go to production. 
And if in this context, putting 

963
00:49:32,760 --> 00:49:35,240
something in production was much
easier if you change the 

964
00:49:36,480 --> 00:49:38,960
application code than if you 
change the database. 

965
00:49:38,960 --> 00:49:43,200
Database schema changes required
and, and an outage. 

966
00:49:44,560 --> 00:49:48,880
And so for very good business 
reasons, they made that decision

967
00:49:48,880 --> 00:49:50,240
at the time. 
Now you can argue about whether 

968
00:49:50,240 --> 00:49:51,960
that was the right decision in 
the long run, whether it costs 

969
00:49:51,960 --> 00:49:54,640
money, blah, blah, blah. 
But it was rational actors 

970
00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:56,840
making a judgement call at the 
time. 

971
00:49:58,720 --> 00:50:00,800
And they probably figured, oh, 
someone will fix it later, 

972
00:50:00,840 --> 00:50:03,280
which, you know, how many times 
have we heard that? 

973
00:50:03,280 --> 00:50:05,520
I think you should have an 
opinion on the other will fix it

974
00:50:05,520 --> 00:50:06,840
later. 
But yeah, the fact that they 

975
00:50:06,840 --> 00:50:09,760
made that decision with that 
context, that's fair game. 

976
00:50:10,040 --> 00:50:13,280
Yeah, I mean, and, and this this
pattern happens all the time. 

977
00:50:13,440 --> 00:50:16,840
And, and it's so easy to say, 
oh, I wouldn't start from here. 

978
00:50:16,840 --> 00:50:20,120
Or, you know, this is this is, 
this is, this architecture is 

979
00:50:20,120 --> 00:50:21,480
wrong. 
And it's, we should, we should 

980
00:50:21,480 --> 00:50:22,960
correct it. 
It's like, well, OK, how are we 

981
00:50:22,960 --> 00:50:25,040
going to do that? 
Who's going to pay for all that?

982
00:50:26,680 --> 00:50:31,800
So, so, yeah, I, I, but, but 
you're right. 

983
00:50:31,800 --> 00:50:39,000
Like being understanding why the
system is working against your 

984
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:43,280
instincts can make you 
defeatist, I think. 

985
00:50:43,280 --> 00:50:46,440
I think I want people to be 
motivated to try and change 

986
00:50:46,440 --> 00:50:51,480
things, but I want them to 
understand that it might be that

987
00:50:51,960 --> 00:50:55,560
that it's, it might be that the 
system is is rigged against them

988
00:50:55,840 --> 00:51:00,120
and not to punish themselves too
hard for that. 

989
00:51:00,880 --> 00:51:04,120
I had one job once where the, 
the, the, the, I worked there 

990
00:51:04,120 --> 00:51:06,320
for a year and the project was a
complete disaster. 

991
00:51:06,720 --> 00:51:08,520
And I remember really, really 
fighting it. 

992
00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:14,440
And eventually I woke up one day
and thought, actually, why am I 

993
00:51:14,640 --> 00:51:17,040
trying so hard? 
Why am I killing myself doing 

994
00:51:17,040 --> 00:51:17,960
this? 
I'll just stop. 

995
00:51:18,800 --> 00:51:20,240
And I did. 
And like 3 months later, the 

996
00:51:20,240 --> 00:51:22,480
project was canned. 
And, but for those three months,

997
00:51:22,480 --> 00:51:25,120
I kind of had fun because I 
worked, I attached my someone 

998
00:51:25,360 --> 00:51:28,000
myself to someone who still 
believed in it and said, how can

999
00:51:28,000 --> 00:51:30,320
I help you? 
And he was a, he was a great 

1000
00:51:30,320 --> 00:51:32,440
techie and he, he had me working
on all these things. 

1001
00:51:32,440 --> 00:51:34,120
Like that's where I learned 
flux. 

1002
00:51:34,120 --> 00:51:37,760
And I just got back to the desk 
and just studied coding and, and

1003
00:51:37,760 --> 00:51:39,800
I was like, this is going 
nowhere, but at least I'm 

1004
00:51:39,800 --> 00:51:42,880
learning something. 
And so that understanding helped

1005
00:51:42,880 --> 00:51:46,120
me to kind of not kill myself 
doing that. 

1006
00:51:46,120 --> 00:51:48,080
So I think it's it's striking 
that balance. 

1007
00:51:48,440 --> 00:51:51,360
I received the question along 
the lines of system thinking 

1008
00:51:51,360 --> 00:51:55,840
earlier as well and I I'm not 
sure how I would explain to 

1009
00:51:55,840 --> 00:51:58,040
people how to start thinking in 
systems. 

1010
00:51:58,440 --> 00:52:00,840
I'm curious how how you would 
describe it since it kind of 

1011
00:52:00,840 --> 00:52:03,480
feels from your perspective you 
had it in education. 

1012
00:52:03,480 --> 00:52:06,600
Yeah, Yeah, that's a really good
question because I read the book

1013
00:52:06,600 --> 00:52:09,600
The Donna Meadows Thinking 
Systems and it starts with the 

1014
00:52:09,600 --> 00:52:13,240
bathtub and and goes from there.
But I don't think I it actually 

1015
00:52:13,240 --> 00:52:20,440
developed my thinking. 
I guess I don't know how. 

1016
00:52:20,520 --> 00:52:22,400
How do you start? 
I guess, I guess you just, it's 

1017
00:52:22,400 --> 00:52:24,920
practice, like you start looking
at problems and rather than 

1018
00:52:24,920 --> 00:52:28,200
thinking, I guess you start 
taking the individual out of it,

1019
00:52:28,560 --> 00:52:30,560
especially in in human 
challenges. 

1020
00:52:30,560 --> 00:52:33,920
I mean, bathtubs are one thing, 
but you know, most of the things

1021
00:52:33,920 --> 00:52:36,160
engineers are dealing with are 
human organisations. 

1022
00:52:37,240 --> 00:52:40,920
And if you start taking, if you 
start thinking empathetically, 

1023
00:52:40,920 --> 00:52:44,000
like why is this security 
engineer saying no to me all the

1024
00:52:44,000 --> 00:52:48,600
time? 
It's psychologically easier to 

1025
00:52:48,600 --> 00:52:51,480
think they're just, they're just
an idiot. 

1026
00:52:51,640 --> 00:52:53,920
They're just, they're just, they
don't like me, you know? 

1027
00:52:54,160 --> 00:52:56,800
It's an easy out. 
It's an easy out for every for 

1028
00:52:56,800 --> 00:53:00,440
you, but if you if you dig into 
it then you you can you can 

1029
00:53:00,440 --> 00:53:03,080
understand it better. 
But I don't really have a better

1030
00:53:03,080 --> 00:53:07,560
answer than that. 
Yeah, I do feel like solving 

1031
00:53:07,560 --> 00:53:10,720
problems and figuring out where 
I'm battling systems versus what

1032
00:53:10,720 --> 00:53:13,200
is then causing an issue. 
I think that really helped. 

1033
00:53:13,200 --> 00:53:14,960
But you and I both worked in 
operations. 

1034
00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:18,720
The default example that I have 
in mind stems from my experience

1035
00:53:18,720 --> 00:53:21,040
in operations where my 
colleagues were doing the same 

1036
00:53:21,040 --> 00:53:23,400
thing over and over again. 
And I just started and I was 

1037
00:53:23,400 --> 00:53:25,720
like, there's no way in hell I'm
going to be doing this thing for

1038
00:53:25,720 --> 00:53:28,480
the rest of my life. 
That was my thought early in 

1039
00:53:28,480 --> 00:53:30,840
career. 
And then I, I talked to some 

1040
00:53:30,840 --> 00:53:33,120
people, it was a change needed 
in the database. 

1041
00:53:33,120 --> 00:53:35,400
And then those symptoms never 
happened again. 

1042
00:53:35,960 --> 00:53:38,080
And that for me was the most 
concrete example that I could 

1043
00:53:38,080 --> 00:53:40,000
think of. 
But it has a lot to do with, 

1044
00:53:40,440 --> 00:53:43,120
first of all, patients, but 
second of all, so a little bit 

1045
00:53:43,120 --> 00:53:46,240
of curiosity, why are things 
happening the way they are? 

1046
00:53:46,240 --> 00:53:48,520
And like you mentioned, empathy 
plays a part in that when we're 

1047
00:53:48,520 --> 00:53:51,080
talking about other people also 
acting in a certain way. 

1048
00:53:51,560 --> 00:53:53,800
But I find this question quite 
particularly hard. 

1049
00:53:54,200 --> 00:53:56,880
Yeah. 
So I mean that that whole thing 

1050
00:53:56,880 --> 00:54:01,000
of, of why do some people solve 
the root cause, find a way to 

1051
00:54:01,000 --> 00:54:05,400
solve the root cause and why do 
some just happily, I mean, some 

1052
00:54:05,400 --> 00:54:10,080
people, you know, it made me 
think actually, I got into 

1053
00:54:10,080 --> 00:54:13,280
Erlang quite, quite heavily when
I was working at that, that 

1054
00:54:13,280 --> 00:54:16,160
gambling company because it was 
really good a fit for, for some 

1055
00:54:16,160 --> 00:54:18,720
problems we solved. 
And I spent months teaching 

1056
00:54:18,720 --> 00:54:21,720
myself Erlang. 
I built like a little poker 

1057
00:54:21,960 --> 00:54:24,160
server in it. 
And yeah, it was great. 

1058
00:54:25,440 --> 00:54:30,960
And we, we started writing a 
tool for real time updates of, 

1059
00:54:31,520 --> 00:54:35,160
of price changes and Erlang's a 
perfect fit for that. 

1060
00:54:35,160 --> 00:54:38,520
So, so we built that and we said
like we should, we should be 

1061
00:54:38,520 --> 00:54:42,400
doing this, you know, we should 
roll this out across the 

1062
00:54:42,400 --> 00:54:45,440
company. 
And people in senior position 

1063
00:54:45,440 --> 00:54:46,600
were like, I'm not sure about 
this. 

1064
00:54:46,600 --> 00:54:48,120
And I just thought they just 
don't get it. 

1065
00:54:48,120 --> 00:54:49,960
They don't get it. 
Erlang is that's the way. 

1066
00:54:51,000 --> 00:54:56,280
And we, they said, OK, we'll try
it with, with an engineer on a 

1067
00:54:56,280 --> 00:54:57,960
project. 
And they picked a kind of 

1068
00:54:58,520 --> 00:55:02,760
typical engineer and he really 
struggled, really struggled with

1069
00:55:02,760 --> 00:55:05,680
it. 
And like he was motivated and he

1070
00:55:05,680 --> 00:55:09,840
wasn't stupid at all, but he's 
very competent. 

1071
00:55:10,040 --> 00:55:13,240
But he just wasn't into it and. 
Then it's a hard sell. 

1072
00:55:13,240 --> 00:55:15,680
It's yeah, he wasn't into it. 
And and it was like, well, 

1073
00:55:15,680 --> 00:55:18,760
that's the litmus test. 
You have an, you have 700, 

1074
00:55:18,800 --> 00:55:21,240
basically 700 engineers working 
for this company. 

1075
00:55:22,320 --> 00:55:23,720
They're not going to all learn 
Erlang. 

1076
00:55:25,040 --> 00:55:27,640
So either this is like an elite 
thing that only three or four 

1077
00:55:27,640 --> 00:55:30,200
engineers are going to do and 
that's one, that's one option. 

1078
00:55:30,280 --> 00:55:31,560
But I didn't really think about 
that. 

1079
00:55:32,080 --> 00:55:34,320
It was only afterwards I 
realised, oh, it did fail and 

1080
00:55:34,320 --> 00:55:36,800
that's why it failed. 
And actually it wasn't about the

1081
00:55:36,800 --> 00:55:39,120
technology, it was about the 
adoption. 

1082
00:55:41,640 --> 00:55:44,600
We had similar challenge. 
The reason I got into DACA was 

1083
00:55:44,600 --> 00:55:47,600
because we didn't have any test 
environments. 

1084
00:55:47,600 --> 00:55:52,240
We didn't have any really any 
CI, which sounds shocking now, 

1085
00:55:52,240 --> 00:55:57,680
but we just didn't. 
I know it's different now, but 

1086
00:55:58,280 --> 00:56:01,760
Docker allowed us allowed me to 
put together all these scripts 

1087
00:56:01,760 --> 00:56:04,600
and just shove it into a single 
container and then daily builds 

1088
00:56:04,960 --> 00:56:07,680
do a daily build of each 
customer's environment. 

1089
00:56:07,680 --> 00:56:10,400
Yeah, perfect. 
Yeah, it was, It was brilliant. 

1090
00:56:10,880 --> 00:56:16,000
And I remember getting up at a 
conference and saying people 

1091
00:56:16,000 --> 00:56:18,280
were saying like, why don't you 
just, why don't you just use 

1092
00:56:18,280 --> 00:56:21,960
Chef? 
And I was like, we have 600 

1093
00:56:21,960 --> 00:56:26,240
engineers, you know, teaching 
them all chef is a big deal. 

1094
00:56:26,560 --> 00:56:29,880
And then the guy got up after me
and was like, I don't get why 

1095
00:56:29,880 --> 00:56:32,680
teaching 600 people chef is a. 
Skill issue, yeah. 

1096
00:56:33,360 --> 00:56:37,760
Yeah, it's like a skill issue. 
And we were like, OK, yeah, 

1097
00:56:37,760 --> 00:56:41,480
fine. 
But actually that was that talk 

1098
00:56:41,480 --> 00:56:43,320
where the guy kind of put me 
down. 

1099
00:56:45,760 --> 00:56:47,760
That talk is where I got the job
at the bank because the guy at 

1100
00:56:47,760 --> 00:56:49,600
the bank said this guy 
understands. 

1101
00:56:49,600 --> 00:56:51,920
Knows what he's doing. 
Well, this guy understands that 

1102
00:56:51,920 --> 00:56:53,960
it's not just about the tech, 
it's about all these other 

1103
00:56:53,960 --> 00:56:55,560
things. 
But he can do the tech too. 

1104
00:56:55,560 --> 00:56:59,280
So let's let's go talk to him. 
Yeah, incredibly important. 

1105
00:56:59,680 --> 00:57:02,400
I love that in the moment you 
have these points and I also 

1106
00:57:02,400 --> 00:57:06,040
have these where you might not 
understand where certain 

1107
00:57:06,040 --> 00:57:08,720
decisions are being made, but I 
feel like as you get more 

1108
00:57:08,720 --> 00:57:12,120
experience, you appreciate those
moments because they taught you 

1109
00:57:12,120 --> 00:57:13,960
something that you didn't 
realise at the time, but now 

1110
00:57:13,960 --> 00:57:16,400
reflecting, you actually 
understand them better. 

1111
00:57:16,960 --> 00:57:19,840
It shows a lot of growth I 
think, and I wish that upon a 

1112
00:57:19,840 --> 00:57:22,120
lot of people. 
I feel like if you experience a 

1113
00:57:22,120 --> 00:57:25,920
lot of things and you have a way
that is like reflecting. 

1114
00:57:25,920 --> 00:57:28,680
For me, it's a lot of these 
dialogues to be honest, because 

1115
00:57:28,680 --> 00:57:31,800
I love picking people's brains. 
I love reflecting based on what 

1116
00:57:31,800 --> 00:57:35,040
someone says, also on my own 
experiences, and I'm having a 

1117
00:57:35,040 --> 00:57:37,520
lot of fun doing so. 
But through that I learn a lot 

1118
00:57:37,520 --> 00:57:40,480
about my own journey in that 
way, and I hope people have 

1119
00:57:40,480 --> 00:57:43,320
environments and also people 
where they can do the same and 

1120
00:57:43,480 --> 00:57:45,320
kind of brainstorm in that way. 
Yeah. 

1121
00:57:45,320 --> 00:57:49,400
I mean, one of the changes I've 
got now, so as I mentioned, I'm 

1122
00:57:49,400 --> 00:57:55,040
CTO of this consultancy is I 
know I can see across my 

1123
00:57:55,040 --> 00:57:57,760
organization, we've got these 
engineers who are having these 

1124
00:57:57,800 --> 00:58:02,720
amazing experiences, like really
interesting experiences, but at 

1125
00:58:02,720 --> 00:58:04,920
the same time they're under 
pressure because, because when 

1126
00:58:04,920 --> 00:58:07,200
you're on a client, the client 
kind of consumes you. 

1127
00:58:07,240 --> 00:58:08,960
You're, you're really just 
thinking about the client. 

1128
00:58:09,480 --> 00:58:12,480
But I want our engineers to 
learn from each other. 

1129
00:58:12,720 --> 00:58:15,520
And I've, I've struggled with 
this so much like how can I get 

1130
00:58:15,760 --> 00:58:19,400
this cross pollination and this 
cross, you know, this experience

1131
00:58:19,400 --> 00:58:21,920
to crossover. 
And the best way I've found 

1132
00:58:21,920 --> 00:58:24,320
actually is having a Friday 
lunchtime. 

1133
00:58:25,000 --> 00:58:26,120
Let's just have a chat about 
what's. 

1134
00:58:26,160 --> 00:58:27,680
Going on, put them together. 
Yeah. 

1135
00:58:27,680 --> 00:58:30,840
And I, I, I'd say like you're 
not allowed to prepare if, if 

1136
00:58:30,840 --> 00:58:31,960
you're going to talk on 
something. 

1137
00:58:33,040 --> 00:58:35,280
Well, no, you don't have to 
prepare. 

1138
00:58:35,320 --> 00:58:37,400
Like if you come unprepared, 
that's totally fine. 

1139
00:58:38,040 --> 00:58:40,120
And that allows the people who 
are focused on the client to 

1140
00:58:40,120 --> 00:58:41,560
just turn up and just start 
talking. 

1141
00:58:42,360 --> 00:58:44,800
And we fill the hour every time.
I always think like we haven't 

1142
00:58:44,800 --> 00:58:46,880
got enough to fill this hour, 
but people then start talking 

1143
00:58:46,880 --> 00:58:49,040
about this, then the other. 
There's a lot of discussion of 

1144
00:58:49,040 --> 00:58:50,440
AI at the moment. 
Of course. 

1145
00:58:50,600 --> 00:58:53,160
We also have non-technical 
people coming along and we're 

1146
00:58:53,160 --> 00:58:57,640
having to explain to them how AI
works and they're super 

1147
00:58:57,640 --> 00:59:00,680
interested and we're trying to 
we're trying to communicate with

1148
00:59:00,680 --> 00:59:03,080
them. 
And I think just that whole 

1149
00:59:03,080 --> 00:59:06,120
that, that forum, it's just a 
little bit like what you're 

1150
00:59:06,120 --> 00:59:12,120
talking about, I think is a is a
wonderful way of improving the 

1151
00:59:12,160 --> 00:59:14,520
experience and value of our, of 
our engineers. 

1152
00:59:15,240 --> 00:59:17,600
Because one thing I love about 
consulting is you're you're 

1153
00:59:17,640 --> 00:59:19,960
meeting all these different 
clients with different content. 

1154
00:59:19,960 --> 00:59:22,440
You can learn so much faster. 
Yeah, yeah. 

1155
00:59:22,440 --> 00:59:25,040
If you like finding people 
around you that are very 

1156
00:59:25,040 --> 00:59:28,360
enthusiastic, that have this 
passion and they're also open 

1157
00:59:28,360 --> 00:59:31,520
and have the patience and 
willingness to share, that's the

1158
00:59:31,520 --> 00:59:33,520
best environment to be in. 
Those are the environments you 

1159
00:59:33,520 --> 00:59:36,560
want to seek, cultivate. 
I, I take hiring very, I mean, 

1160
00:59:36,560 --> 00:59:39,240
you have to take hiring very 
seriously if you're, if you're 

1161
00:59:39,400 --> 00:59:42,920
running a consultancy. 
And I always tell the people 

1162
00:59:43,520 --> 00:59:45,440
when we're hiring them, like 
what are we looking for? 

1163
00:59:45,440 --> 00:59:49,200
We're looking for curiosity, a 
certain level of technical 

1164
00:59:49,200 --> 00:59:53,440
capability and adaptability and 
ability to communicate. 

1165
00:59:53,440 --> 00:59:55,280
Those are the things we're 
really looking for. 

1166
00:59:55,320 --> 01:00:01,540
And you know the the technical 
capability is a as a kind of non

1167
01:00:01,540 --> 01:00:04,080
negotiable. 
That's what gets you in the. 

1168
01:00:04,080 --> 01:00:06,520
Board, but do you need, do you 
need to know everything about 

1169
01:00:06,520 --> 01:00:08,520
everything? 
No, you just if, if you're 

1170
01:00:08,520 --> 01:00:12,040
curious and you're motivated and
you can communicate well, you 

1171
01:00:12,040 --> 01:00:19,480
can go very far as a consultant.
So yeah, that's and, and so it 

1172
01:00:19,480 --> 01:00:21,840
comes through in these, in these
sessions we have because 

1173
01:00:21,840 --> 01:00:25,320
everyone is like super, super 
interested in sharing their, 

1174
01:00:25,320 --> 01:00:29,120
their knowledge and, and, and 
experience and learning from 

1175
01:00:29,120 --> 01:00:30,400
each other. 
That's really cool. 

1176
01:00:30,600 --> 01:00:31,840
Yeah. 
I've really enjoyed this 

1177
01:00:31,840 --> 01:00:32,920
conversation. 
Me too. 

1178
01:00:32,920 --> 01:00:34,960
Yeah. 
It was really fun figuring out 

1179
01:00:35,120 --> 01:00:37,920
what makes seniors go beyond 
that ceiling, I would say. 

1180
01:00:37,920 --> 01:00:40,720
And then also picking your brain
about certain systems and 

1181
01:00:40,720 --> 01:00:42,600
systemic thinking. 
That was a blast. 

1182
01:00:42,760 --> 01:00:44,480
Thank you so much for coming on.
Thank you. 

1183
01:00:44,800 --> 01:00:45,840
Cool. 
We'll round it off here. 

1184
01:00:45,840 --> 01:00:47,680
If you're still with us, let me 
know in the comments section 

1185
01:00:47,680 --> 01:00:49,880
what you thought of this episode
and we'll see you in the next 

1186
01:00:49,880 --> 01:00:50,080
one.