PA Leadership Coaching

I help Tech executives and leaders in Engineering and Product upgrade themselves, how they work, serve others, and create value in the world.

Leadership Coach

Inflow

Inflow's mission is to equip people with ADHD with the skills and support they need to reach their full potential.

I coach a number of folks across the org in their leadership development and in expanding their thinking to better cope with the complexity of day to day work.

Resident Leadership Coach

My role as Fractional CTO was focused on helping set Inflow up for success as the company grows: coaching and mentoring talented people, and to setup scalable processes across recruiting, software development process, and continuous improvement.

Fractional CTO

Hotjar

Hotjar is the Product Experience Insights software of choice for small and medium businesses.

I coach a number of engineering, product and UX leaders across the organization to be at their best when their best is needed.

Sharpist

Sharpist is the outcome-driven digital platform for people development that pays in on your KPIs by growing your employees with the power of coaching and personalized learning plans.

VP of Engineering

TourRadar

Reporting to the CEO, responsible for growing and nurturing the Engineering organization, along with its budget planning. Scaling up the company on the back of its series C round.

Doubled the team size within a year, to ~50 engineers, through a systematic, scalable and predictable hiring process, while increasing development and deployment velocity/frequency 3x.

Setting a clear direction and objectives for the team, communicating these effectively, and facilitating collaboration with different stakeholders across departments.

For a period of 4 months, led the Product org in addition to Engineering adopting a more structured, predictable and experimentation-based product development process.

VP of Engineering & Interim VP of Product

HelloFresh

(IPO: Frankfurt Stock Exchange 2017)

Responsible for driving and helping accomplish a long-term technical vision for a number of customer-facing teams. Aligning with the business and product vision of the company, empowering a fantastic and ever-growing group of engineers, and removing impediments to flow.

Heavily involved in engineering hiring, helping teams efficiently onboard new engineers, and coaching engineering managers in growing and nurturing their respective teams and individuals.

Director Of Engineering

Tasked with building a team for supporting and developing internal CRM technology. Being essentially a greenfield space at HelloFresh at the time, it led to the development of a modern event-driven architecture enabling us to tap real-time data fed into our CRM platform.

Engineering Manager

Architecting and develop a new Data Warehousing solution for the growing business. Hadoop, Apache Spark, etc.

Data Engineer

Architecting and developing the payments backend and integration with external payment service providers.

Senior Software Engineer

Sports Interactive

Portuguese localization of the market-leading football management simulation game Football Manager (formerly known as Championship Manager)

Translator

Universidade de Évora

- Backend development and maintenance of the University's Online Information System; 
- Design and implementation of integration mechanisms between the University's Online Information System and its counterpart Financial application;
- Design and implementation of public access APIs to the University's Online Information System, for use by external apps (kiosks, mobile platforms, etc) in different contexts.

Software Developer

LOUD! Magazine

Interviews, feature articles and album reviews for a leading Portuguese widespread metal music magazine.

Writer

InfluAds

Front and backend development of a PHP/Zend Framework based, MySQL/MongoDB driven, web app for use by the Influads network of publishers and advertisers.

Developer

Former VP Eng • Leadership Coach • I help you get in control of your work so it doesn’t control you.

🚀 Coach for tech leaders at all levels looking to step it up, and do well while doing good. If that's you, and you feel like someone who can expand your thinking could be handy, DM me. Let's chat!

🧠 Former engineering executive, manager and software developer, manager. Leadership, management and organizations through the lenses of complexity, systems, and how the brain works.

👹 The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world it’s either people or profit.

Paulo André

Multiple Clients

I work with CEOs and CTOs of growing SaaS companies to enable their engineering departments to generate more business value. These are some common problems I can help you solve:

🤦‍♂️ Our engineering department doubled in size, but productivity hit a brick wall!
🤷‍♂️ We’re totally dependent on the agency that developed our MVP!
🤑 Engineering is a Cost Centre instead of a Profit Centre!
🙏 Engineering Management Guidance Needed

Hire me as your CTO in a fractional capacity, or to troubleshoot a specific problem.

CTO | Coach & Mentor for Engineering Execs

CTO Logic

Writing a newsletter that delivers pragmatic, hard-earned advice for professionals at the intersection of software engineering, tech management, leadership, and business.

Chief Logician

Logiq Labs

✅ Managed 120 people (~90 engineers and product managers), across multiple sites internationally. 
✅ Led development of a FinTech B2B2C SaaS asset trading platform and scaled it to handle $180+ billion in annual trading volume.
✅ Led deployment and scaling of internally developed Marketing Automation platform (B2B2C SaaS) to successfully handle 9 million monthly unique visitors.
✅ Doubled the size of product & engineering department; led organisational transformation through mergers, spinoffs and implementation of Agile methodology. Member of executive management team. VP Engineering and VP Product reported to me.
✅ Managed comprehensive re-architecting, rewrite and successful deployment of internally developed B2B2C payments processing solution.

Chief Technology Officer

Responsible for engineering department of 40 people.

Director of Research & Development

Morpheus Games

✔ Set up the company's engineering department and grew it to 13 members, in Israel and Kyiv, Ukraine.
✔ Worked with my teams to deliver the company's lottery tickets and betting e-commerce platform, and first B2C product, within 8 months (industry typical: 1 year).
✔ Provided technical and managerial oversight (and mentoring where required), and guided architectural decisions.
✔ Established standard and consistent processes for recruiting, evaluating employee performance, designing new functionality, managing the software development life-cycle (SDLC), controlling technical debt, deploying code, handling and resolving production issues.
✔ Invested heavily in automating every step of the development, testing and deployment pipeline (JIRA, GitHub, Jenkins, Docker, AWS EC2 and ECS) to support CI/CD (Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment).
✔ My department successfully passed multiple audits mandated by relevant governmental regulatory and standards bodies, based on the ISO 27001 information security standard. These examined both our internal engineering methodologies, processes and information systems, as well as the security of the deployed product, including undergoing (and surviving) penetration testing. These efforts also contributed greatly to being able to achieve PCI/DSS compliance.

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Jargon for keyword bingo players: Angular 5, Amazon Web Services, Node.js, microservices, using AWS SNS/SQS as an event bus, ELK (Elasticsearch / Logstash / Kibana) for logging and monitoring, Agile.

Director of R&D

Snappers.tv

Finalist - 4YFN competition at Mobile World Congress, Barcelona 2016

http://www.snappers.tv

Independent Consultant

✔ Development of web apps (Google Closure Library/Compiler, AngularJS, Bootstrap) including backends (Google AppEngine (Python), Node.js, Firebase, PHP, Heroku, Amazon EC2 & various cloud services) and even Outlook Add-ins (VB).
✔ Worked with a long term client on a concept that challenged conventional assumptions, and iterated it until it was mature enough and successful enough to be mainstreamed into production at the client's IT department.
✔ Work remotely, coordinating and collaborating with client teams.
✔ Experience with analytics and multivariate testing to increase conversions.
✔ Experience with spreadsheet & visualization techniques to support data driven decisions, for both engineering decisions and determining business goals.
✔ Worked with lawyers / corporate counsel to minimize client risk exposure, ensure compliance with relevant regulations, and to compose EULAs.

Technology & Product Management Advisor / Full Stack Developer

Claritude Software

Claritude Software's mission is to help busy people overcome email overload and increase their productivity. Our first product is SpeedFiler, a powerful add-in for Microsoft Outlook that makes it extremely easy to file incoming and outgoing email. SpeedFiler's super-fast, find-as-you-type folder selection window makes filing almost effortless, even if you have a deep hierarchy of hundreds of folders. When you send a message, SpeedFiler can prompt you to select a folder in which to file it, so you don't have to dump it in Sent Items. Supports Outlook 2003 and 2007. Ideal for busy people with full inboxes.

✔ Identified the problem and corresponding market niche and devised a product (SpeedFiler) with a simple, streamlined UX/UI that masked complexities of the solution.
✔ Sold multiple enterprise licences (1000+ seats) and tens of thousands of small business licenses.
✔ Developed partnerships with industry-specific enterprise resellers.
✔ Set up website; wrote sales and suppport content; integrated with credit card / invoice processing system; used web analytics and multivariate testing to improve conversions.
✔ Set up a blog to help market the product by becoming recognized as a thought leader in the relevant space. This led to quotes in other blogs, print magazines, radio shows and even a book!
✔ Worked with outsourced contractors to produce various components.

Founder & CEO

Finjan

Finjan Software (www.finjan.com), since acquired by Trustwave (www.trustwave.com), is a leading provider of proactive secure content management solutions for global enterprises, protecting over 4 million enterprise users from existing and future Internet threats.

✔ Member of executive team, reported to CEO 
✔ Initiated product management function; recruited and nurtured a cohesive team of 3 product managers and 2 technical writers
✔ Led migration of product portfolio from software to appliances; developed vision and requirements for an innovative next-generation product line and supervised its successful execution
✔ Acted as catalyst for development of revolutionary technology for the new generation product line
✔ Overall strategic and tactical responsibility for 9 products
✔ Active participant in strategic sales efforts to global corporations (including multiple successful deals of over 100,000 seats/$3M each) and in OEM and technology partner relationships
✔ Spokesman for press interviews, webinars, etc.

VP Product Management

Alchemedia

Alchemedia Technologies developed enterprise security products that prevent information theft by trusted insiders - today's costliest information security problem.

After leaving Alchemedia, I participated in the design review for Microsoft Windows Rights Management platform in Redmond. Microsoft has recently (2005) licensed Alchemedia's technology for use in their security products.

✔ Joined as Senior Product Manager; promoted to Director; reported to VP Marketing
✔ Initiated product management function at the company; built, trained, managed and mentored a team of 3 product managers and 2 technical writers
✔ Overall tactical responsibility for the product line; feature roadmaps, functional specifications, delivery schedules and marshalling products through Engineering and QA; technical white papers
✔ Cooperated with partners on integrated products 
✔ Held pre/post-sale contacts with global corporations; participated in sales/business development activities.

Director of Product Management

Better On-line Solutions

Better On-line Solutions (www.bosweb.com, NASDAQ: BOSC) develops Voice-over-IP Telephony solutions and networking products for personal and IBM mid-range computers.
 
✔ Managed an e-commerce development product for IBM platforms, developed in cooperation with IBM.
✔ Responsible for technical relationship with IBM; coordinated development with senior IBM staff, including the chief security architect and managers of the HTTP and FTP server products. 
✔ Defined the functional specifications, designed the system architecture, object model and user interface. 
✔ Represented company at trade shows; delivered lectures and presentations at distributor and customer conferences. 
✔ Interviewed and hired prospective team-member candidates.

Product Manager / Team Leader

Engineering Management Expert • Fractional CTO • Remote • 🇮🇱

I help CTOs and Engineering VPs become indispensable by teaching them how to deliver high impact business outcomes, based on a strategic approach and tactical execution, through two 1:1 weekly programmes:

1. Indispensable CTO — Deliver High Impact Business Outcomes — You'll be able to recalibrate your tech department, and optimise it to produce business value that impacts the right metrics.

2. Sharper CTO — Sharpen Your CTO Skills — You'll sharpen up your decision-making abilities, leadership skills, deepen your collaboration with other executives, improve processes in your department, and optimise it for scaling up.

More details → itzysabo.com

I'm a product and engineering executive leader and manager, having alternated between Product and Engineering for much of my career.

As a business oriented software CTO and executive leader, I have experience across a broad range of industries (cyber, fintech, gaming, productivity), business models (B2B, B2C, B2B2C SaaS) and company growth stages.

I help CEOs, CTOs, Engineering VPs, Engineering Managers and teams deliver more business value in less time, by working with them to identify and solve systemic problems that are holding them back, and to align engineering with the company's business goals.

I have built engineering organisations from scratch, managed departments up to 120 people in size, and learnt how to execute hypergrowth, mergers, acquisitions and spinoffs, as well as reorganisations and downsizing.

I have also successfully prepared organisations for audits, certification and licensing in regulated industries.

I am highly analytical, organised and systematic. 

My superpowers include:
- Sharpened problem-solving instincts.
- Leading and managing teams remotely.
- Hiring trustworthy people, then trusting them.
- Proceeding with confidence through labyrinths of uncertainty.
- Communicating effectively with people at all levels of an organisation.
- Seeing the bigger picture, but able to dive into details where necessary.

Itzchak Sabo

CTOs are impostors.

Good CTOs are great impostors ...
... at first.

My first time as a CTO was an accident waiting to happen. 
My technical skills got me there, which is a mistake.

It could have gone very wrong, because apart from technology, the CTO job requires:
- Management skills
- Leadership (not the same thing)
- Business acumen 

Many CTOs are missing the last 2-3 items. 
They have to fake it for a while until they catch up. 

A classic case is the first time technical founder, who has commonly skipped a few career steps on the way to CTO. Hopefully, they manage to grow professionally in step with the growing company's needs.

Startups are frequently in uncharted waters. Even experienced CTOs need to figure out how to approach situations they don't feel trained for. 

It's all fine. Many executives feel like impostors. 
Until you realise that your special and relatively rare skill is figuring out how to handle new, and often ambiguous situations, and daring to bet on the right course of action. 

BTW, after a while, you realise that all the other execs are winging it just as much as you are. That's your job.

Helping CTOs engineer BUSINESS outcomes | Coach @ CTO Grandmasters | Fractional CTO

CTOs: your worst productivity bottleneck is INVISIBLE.

Even if you:
- Prevent re-work by improving quality ...
- Remove cross-team dependencies ...
- Plan and design more thoroughly ...
- Improve quality of requirements ...
- Streamline your processes ...
- Attain elite DORA scores ...
- Double your headcount ...
- Triple your velocity ...

... this invisible bottleneck will still drag you down:

Your development pipeline is simply full of the wrong things! 

It's clogged with work that won't create any noticeable business outcomes for the company. 

You can crank through it at high velocity but still provide no tangible business outcomes for your company.

According to Eliyahu Goldratt's Theory of Constraints, you need to maximise the flow of VALUE, not tickets or story points.

Your bottleneck is at the *entrance* to your development pipeline. 
Not enough business value is getting in.

It's not your fault, but you CAN solve it -- it will transform your company!

Bootstrap this process by coming to my free online workshop! You'll receive an immediately practical framework that enables you to manage up, down and sideways, aligning everyone to ensure that engineering can focus intensely on engineering business outcomes that truly move the needle for your company.

Over 100 CTOs and Engineering VPs have benefitted this year.

Details & testimonials: https://lnkd.in/duabxJBj

taplio

The Battle

Paulo André

Itzchak Sabo

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taplio

The Battle

Paulo André

Itzchak Sabo

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

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);}Itzchak Sabo's LinkedIn Performance

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