In January 2024, my comfortable tenure at Equal Experts came to an end and I went from 6 years of being a Java/Scala/AppSec consultant to being a head of engineering at a Middle Eastern fintech.

This piece of writing explores what this means. I had been a tech lead before and certainly had plenty of experience of sitting at the table where decisions are made and have never had any qualms about sticking my beak in where it might not belong.

First of all, let me set a little bit of context: During my time at Equal Experts (EE) I had discovered the true value of agile and how it can work. Before being part of that consultancy I’d seen a variety of waterfalls and some more or less “fragile” ways of working. The notion of agile being synonyms with jira and sprints came to mind. Also, at EE I (re-)discovered the agile manifesto and how wonderful throwing out processes that only exist for process' sake is.

Throwing out process I say? “Well, hello there cowboy!” you might think, but the agile way of working with continuous delivery on an opinionated platform at HMRC turned nervousness during a yearly “key business event” into fairly boring routine work, where quality AND speed of delivery goes up while keeping the costs way down - gone were the days of paying £10,000 to change a bit of text because it had to go through lots of process and analysts. Agile doesn’t mean Cowboy!

So when I was approached by a former colleague to be his head of engineering towards the end of 2023, the following two thoughts ran through my mind: “oh shit!” and “oh yeah!”

“Oh shit”

First thought was the completely normal imposter syndrome: what do I know about being a head of engineering? Do I even know what a head of engineering is? Well, we didn’t really have one in my previous gig. Head of agile? Platform architect? Head of product? None of that fit really. Google explained to me that a head of engineering basically helps to execute the strategy developed by the Chief Technology Officer.

“Oh yeah!”

So it would be quite a departure. And it didn’t feel comfortable at all! I hesitated. Then I stumbled across a talk about stepping outside your comfort zone being the only thing that enables you to grow.

Oh, there was also the matter that my comfort blanket (the 6-year engagement with HMRC) was being taken away. Fun procurement rules meant Equal Experts couldn’t bid for another extension.

So, imposter syndrome be damned, let’s do it!

“Oh shit”

So then I started. And I was not in Kansas anymore. There’s a tech leadership team in the UK, a large contingent from a Czech consultancy to build the app, a small business that’s in the process of being extricated from the large corporate parent group in Qatar and a target market in Oman and something which I characterised as dysfunction.

Probably best clarify what I mean by dysfunction considering my boss, their bosses and lots of people I work with will probably read this!

“Oh shit”

When I say dysfunction, I mean that there’s a big lot of forming and storming to do. Sometimes it feels like we’re in an identity crisis, we are setting up new infrastructure and new processes left right and centre. We have suppliers that work very waterfally - and that’s just the process of getting the “functional requirements specifications” signed off. We have back office functions that rely on parent group infrastructure that ties us to quite heavy process. And we have more steerco meetings than I want to shake a stick at and I don’t even despair anymore when we schedule another meeting to talk about a new process.

It doesn’t feel like a fintech startup. We are at a stage where moving fast is quite critical. We’ve got new markets to open. And we don’t want to lose opportunities by delaying. And anecdotally, the biggest regret in opening markets is not going into production sooner. On balance, getting real customers using a product is more important that filing off the rough edges.

And at the same time I understand the reluctance to move at a pace that risks breaking our necks. We’re not a completely new player, there is an existing business to protect. And we don’t want to fall foul of regulations which can be quite prescriptive.

“Oh shit”

Talking of prescriptive, prior to this new venture I had been almost exclusively working in the cloud. Now I was back in an environment where we were talking about a project plan to plug a network cable in a router and having to deal with the fact we’ve only got limited bandwidth into the data centre.

“Oh yeah”

Now you might think that this is all very dispiriting. But far from it, I thought of this as a great challenge. I’ve been in big places that displayed a great amount of agility and I have seen first hand how ditching complex process and working in an agile manner can be hugely powerful.

How not to do it

So I thought I’d throw myself into the fray and promote agile and OKRs as a way to combat waterfall thinking and detailed project plans. Surely that was the way forward. Everyone would understand this!

Well, I think my initial enthusiasm blew up in my face. Rather than nudging people in the right direction, I think I came across as a bit of a know-it-all that was trying to tell people how to do their job. Rather than welcoming “let’s make sure we don’t due process for process' sake” and “how great would it be to have OKRs”, I think I just pushed too hard.

Before too long I butted heads with the bloke who’d been running the engineering show previously. Thankfully, we managed to sort out our differences, as I would have been up the creak without a paddle if he’d walked off right when I started.

Probably the best piece of advice that I got was from an old colleague at EE who told me:

The biggest difference between developing and managing developers is that you won’t see the value that you bring to the table for a while. With coding, you can build something, deploy it and see the difference that you’re making. With people, it takes time!

That was a great piece of advice. I’m now trying to be less in your face and a little bit more careful with my suggestions, lest I step on too many toes.

Don’t be a Hero

One of the biggest lessons that I probably still need to get much better at was the temptation of throwing myself into swooping in when the fires start and trying to be the hero that fixes stuff. That might work a few times, but realistically, I’m not the engineer anymore. My responsibility is to think strategically, set the right environment and ways of working and then get out of the way.

Not sure how good I am at “getting out of the way” it as sometimes I feel like that my job isn’t done until everyone is equally unhappy, but I found that talking to people in one-to-one sessions helps. And it’s important to go outside the organisational structure and not just have chats with the people directly above or directly below. I enjoy talking with engineers who can tell me about the latest innovations - I’ve still got enough of a technical understanding to have a decent conversation. I can chat with product, marketing and risk and compliance and find out lots of interesting bits of information that come in useful.

Small and Often

I found writing Intranet News Pages (in SharePoint of all places!) a useful tool. I can put together some thoughts and send it out as an email. Kind of like the blogging I do here. At worst, nobody reads it and I can use the URLs to tell people “read this!” rather than having to explain over and over again. For example my post on the non-recurring meeting zone was just one of those intranet posts. And just a few days a go someone was complaining about a lack timeslots for meetings. I’ve just got the suggestion for you!

Build a Support Network

When you feel like you’re bashing your head against a wall, it helps to have a support system in place. Old colleagues, current collagues that you can have a chat with, sometimes a rant, sometimes just a listening ear. I think it is important in these situations to be open and transparent. So I guess, that’s what I’m doing here.

Postscript

For me, the jury is still out on whether I think I am doing a good job. But I am still enjoying it.

Tags agile leadership

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