S1 - Episode #10: Vinoj Zacharia - Senior Engineering Manager - FloQast
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About Vinoj:
Vinoj Zacharia is a Senior Engineering Manager at FloQast, offering accounting workflow automation software created by accountants for accountants to work smarter, not harder.
Vinoj is a developer-turned-engineering-leader who builds data-driven, empowered, accountable, collaborative teams from the ground up. He is passionate about scaling people, processes, and tech as well as working with products to make customers happy. He’s worked with many successful and non-successful startups in their early stages and has learned a lot and gained a wealth of experience.
Synopsis:
In this episode of The Technology Leadership Podcast, Vinoj Zacharia discusses hiring and retaining employees, explaining how they do it at FloQast. Learn about the changes in hiring resulting from the pandemic and how to adapt for remote hiring and working methods, which are likely to continue in the future. Hear about the shift from EC2 Instances to Lambda as well as the concept of lead time and how it can help companies grow even further today.
Key Takeaways:
Standardisation of programming language to help engineering teams.
The importance of bringing your tech lead PM engineers in early so they can play an essential role in building software.
The switch to remote hiring methods today and Vinoj’s view on the future.
The success of remote companies in attracting candidates.
Identifying and optimising teams around software challenges.
Focusing on eliminating pain points, so that engineers on product teams can focus on their product and customers.
Matching people to the type of work that you're doing and the styles of organisation to set up businesses for success.
The essential skill required by engineers - their ability to drive others to clarity.
Learning to accept the natural occurrence of failure as only part of the process, especially early in an engineering career.
Episode Outline:
[01:04] Vinoj talks about his childhood fondness for computers
[06:42] Vinoj explains what FloQast does
[11:13] Discussion on how FloQast has scaled and the themes and patterns of what makes engineering teams move forward.
[15:57] Vinoj shares how people and team management are done at FloQast
[20:36] Reflection on how the hiring process has changed since the start of the pandemic
[24:22] Overview of remote hiring from the perspective of a company
[28:49] Consideration of how to retain employees for multiple years
[34:04] Outline of what leadership means to Vinoj
[35:50] Vinoj talks about how to scale engineers and cultivate the next leaders
[41:53] Overview of the shift FloQast has taken from EC2 Instances to Lambda, the concept of lead time and its benefits for businesses
[46:03] Vinoj’s reflections on the things he would do differently if he were to start over
[48:16] Vinoj’s view on the biggest challenges in technology and start-ups right now
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