Maxim Poulsen

I Help Founders Build Efficient Go-To-Market Engines | Growth & Automation Nerd | Leading growth @getcontrast.io

Hi, welcome to my LinkedIn profile. 👋

I love everything related to Growth, Product, and Operations:
→ Automation
→ Analytics & tracking
→ Data science & engineering
→ Growth experimentations
→ Product-led growth

Do you work in Growth or Operations?
I'd love to have a virtual coffee.

I also love to play the piano.

Follow me for posts on productivity, growth, operations, data and more.

Get in touch 👉 maxim@getcontrast.io

Growth Manager

Studies show video is going to be the next big way companies will level up their marketing.

We are building a tool to help companies master this new channel.

Contrast is a full-stack video engagement platform, giving businesses video superpowers.

→ Create TV-quality live or recorded video
→ Clip, edit and repurpose your content
→ Host, measure and analyze in a Netflix-like experience

Tired of SEO-induced gray hairs?

Luckily HubSpot figured something out:

Join 300+ others to learn about SEO>AEO next week: https://lnkd.in/e84SeJ-e

GTM stuff @Contrast | #1 webinar platform for HubSpot | Growth & Automation Nerd

CTO | Author of Engineering Leadership newsletter (65k+ subscribers) - Helping you become a great engineering leader!

I am an engineering leader with a passion for solving complicated problems with innovative concepts. I love learning about new technologies, sharing my knowledge and teaching others. 

I have a proven record of successfully managing Agile teams, setting the correct direction and culture as well as creating right processes and continuously improving them. I have overseen hiring and building up the teams as well as have strong emphasis on coaching and mentoring to direct reports.

You can reach me at info@gregorojstersek.com.

Gregor Ojstersek

Software engineering is becoming position-less.

For years, our industry relied on clearly defined roles: frontend, backend, QA, DevOps, manager, and architect.

Titles were clear, and responsibilities (depending on the company) have been decently defined.

But that clarity is now fading.

Today, companies care less about titles and more about the impact.

- Engineers are expected to think about the product and business.
- Managers are expected to be more hands-on.
- Architect, EM, and Staff Engineer roles are getting closer together.

The boundaries are blurring more and more.

With better tools, AI-assisted engineering, and smaller teams, versatility is becoming more and more expected.

Learn more in the latest Engineering Leadership article: https://lnkd.in/dg3yh8AR

CTO | Founder of Engineering Leadership newsletter (183k+ subscribers) - Helping you become a great engineering leader!

Saying "I don't know" is a sign of seniority for me.

It’s impossible to know all of the things, especially in Software Engineering. So not knowing something is no issue at all.

On the contrary, it shows me that you are self-aware and confident in yourself by saying that.

The same is true with admitting mistakes. It's a lot better when you acknowledge that you've been wrong as soon as you know.

And not try to hide it and hope that nobody will find out.

Nobody is perfect, we all make mistakes. Admitting them builds trust.

Learn more in this Engineering Leadership article: https://lnkd.in/erdeDUXM

CTO | Founder of Engineering Leadership newsletter (184k+ subscribers) - Helping you become a great engineering leader!

Advice for engineering leaders building AI-native engineering teams.

1. Don't focus too much on code generation and metrics like lines of code produced by AI

Instead, look for the real bottlenecks, as more code won’t solve the problem. The bottleneck might be code review, planning, or system design, especially as engineers become much more productive.

2. Let engineers experiment

Give teams a generous, sometimes unlimited, token budget and the freedom to experiment. Encourage people to explore without pressure or fixed expectations about what success should look like.

Where this breaks down is when leadership has a very rigid idea of how AI should be used and forces that approach onto teams.

3. Look for people who are excited about AI

Do you already have people who are excited about AI and noticeably more productive? If so, help them spread what they’re learning.

Create space for sharing: internal hackathons, demo sessions, and dedicated channels where people can exchange tips and workflows.

4. Stay close to technical details

As a leader, it’s more important than ever to stay close to the technical details. At the same time, it’s critical to empower your team to make decisions.

That means optimizing how decisions get made: clear ownership, clear escalation paths, and minimal friction.

To learn more, read this Engineering Leadership article: https://lnkd.in/d5ambTDW

Just asking for a friend :)

Happy Friday and have a great weekend!

First, build the RIGHT things. Second, build the things RIGHT.

It can be the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful project.

You can do the best work in the world:
- write the simplest code,
- add all the tests,
- create all the documentation.

But if you are building the wrong things for the users, it won't be perceived this way.

To learn more, read this Engineering Leadership article: https://lnkd.in/eJgJpbmS

I can tell a lot about engineer's seniority by the way they approach solving problems.

Here are 5 indicators that tell me if the engineer has a Senior mindset:

1. They ask all the right questions before they start solving the problem.

2. They REALLY take care of the problem, not just try to quickly patch it and leave it for others to deal with.

3. They focus on simplifying the solution as much as possible.

4. They know when the solution is good enough or when to optimize further.

5. They are self-aware and self-confident enough to admit when they don't know something.

To learn more, read this Engineering Leadership article: https://lnkd.in/eSHCwymt

Software engineering roles are getting closer together.

This is what I am seeing happening across the industry:

1. EM, Staff Engineer, and Architect roles are getting closer together

For middle managers, e.g., (Sr.) Engineering Managers, it’s becoming more and more common to be expected to take on Staff Engineer roles if needed, and Staff+ Engineers taking on manager hats if needed.

And the same for Architects as well → taking on a Staff Engineer role or manager role if needed.

2. Similar trend for PMs and Engineers

The role “Product Engineer” is getting more and more popular, and being product/business-minded is just going to be more and more important for all engineering roles.

Good examples are companies like OpenAI and Lovable, both of which look for their engineers to own projects end-to-end: the what, why, when, and also the how.

To learn more, read this Engineering Leadership article: https://lnkd.in/dg3yh8AR

Waiting for some pokemon AI tools to put it in the list :)

Happy Friday and have a great weekend!

First, build the RIGHT things. Second, build the things RIGHT.

This is more important than ever.

AI makes output cheap, impact becomes rarer. So, anyone can "ship more code", while business impact becomes that much more important.

And that's where the focus on building the RIGHT things is crucial.

To learn how software engineering productivity has evolved over the years, read the latest Engineering Leadership article we did together with Francisco Manuel Soto Ramírez here: https://lnkd.in/d9KqCUPs

AI tools are the onboarding buddy for AI-native engineering teams.

At OpenAI’s Codex team, the onboarding buddy is Codex. If you’re building AI-native engineering teams in your organization, it can be something else.

Here is an example that Thibault Sottiaux, Engineering Lead for OpenAI's Codex team, shared in our recent conversation:

"Codex walks new hires through onboarding, sets up their entire computer, and helps them understand the codebase, projects, and existing features. It basically acts like a highly skilled engineering mentor.

From initial setup to being productive, most of the onboarding process is handled by the AI tool. As a result, onboarding is much faster than it used to be."

At OpenAI, they also have a strong culture of shipping on day one, and that’s recommended for AI-native engineering teams as well. It’s really important for every engineer to provide value as soon as possible.

Normal traditional teams have the goal to ship code to production within the first week. In AI-native engineering teams, that should be on the first day.

Learn how to build AI-native engineering teams in this Engineering Leadership article: https://lnkd.in/d5ambTDW

How do the teams behind ChatGPT actually work?

I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Sulman Choudhry, Head of Engineering, ChatGPT.

The organization is much smaller and operates very differently from most traditional tech companies.

Teams are highly technical, roles often overlap, and many ideas start from the bottom up rather than from top-down.

At the same time, engineers frequently own problems end-to-end, research and product development happen side by side, and experimentation is a core part of their process.

Learn more about OpenAI's engineering culture in the latest Engineering Leadership article: https://lnkd.in/dJCFKQ2C

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The Battle

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Maxim Poulsen's LinkedIn Performance

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