From Hands-on Dev to CTO: Jess Szmajda, CTO of Axios
CTO Think Podcast4 Kesä 2019

From Hands-on Dev to CTO: Jess Szmajda, CTO of Axios

We have an exceptional guest for our 50th episode in Jess Szmajda, CTO of Axios, and we cover a whole lotta ground: From building "horrible PHP sites", to constructing retail tech teams from scratch, we then tackle the subject of taking on the role of CTO of a fast-growing media firm, being a trans CTO, and promoting a more diverse community in technology. Whew! We start out discussing the difference between a CTO and Director/VP of Engineering, title creep, and whether the idea of a "software architect" has any relevance at all. We then cover wider ground with managing small vs large teams, the adoption of Spotify squads/pods in team management, and adding new business (TV) that is vastly different than the core company product (online publishing). The subject matter covers a vast amount of ground, but it's all valuable in today's tech community.

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Business Metrics and the Lack of Context

Business Metrics and the Lack of Context

We discuss business metrics, reporting, statistics, and how many of the numbers, without context, lack much value. Can your business deliver the Five Nines? Does it even need to? What kind of performa...

23 Huhti 201942min

Typescript Pain. Is there any Gain?

Typescript Pain. Is there any Gain?

Randy is diving back into the Chasms backend using Firebase Functions, which is written (by him) in Typescript. We discuss the ins and outs as to why Typescript was chosen, some pain points that cropp...

16 Huhti 201933min

Writing a Job Description for a Non-specific Job

Writing a Job Description for a Non-specific Job

Don's firm is looking to hire a non-senior Python developer to help spread the workload of the engineering team. We discuss how he's writing up the job description, who he's really looking for in the ...

9 Huhti 20191h 8min

Document Datastores and Many-to-Many Relationships

Document Datastores and Many-to-Many Relationships

While continuing work on the Chasms app, Randy asks Don for his two cents on an approach to solving a document datastore (firestore) schema involving a many-to-many relationship. A discussion ensues t...

2 Huhti 201928min

Customer Perspectives and Managing Expectations

Customer Perspectives and Managing Expectations

A customer claims the service provided didn't meet expectations despite them choosing the more “economical” solution. Another client’s manager felt a contractor “yelled” at them, but the contractor fe...

26 Maalis 201949min

Building an App (and Learning) with Vue.js

Building an App (and Learning) with Vue.js

Randy has started working on the Chasms project again, and after the previous episode with David Rogers, he chose to use (and learn) Vue.js to get it started. Don and Randy discuss the various librari...

19 Maalis 20191h 1min

Hiring Good Consultants

Hiring Good Consultants

This week we talk about how we’ve hired consultants in the past, where we’ve failed, and the perspective of consultants that might help tech leaders understand who they’re hiring.

12 Maalis 201950min

Just Doing It Yourself Because of Liam Neeson

Just Doing It Yourself Because of Liam Neeson

As a continuation to a previous episode, Don discusses why he's going to roll up his sleeves and handle a data-gathering project himself. He attempts to support his choice using a reference to a Liam ...

5 Maalis 201954min