More than one year ago, I left a comfortable corporate job as CTO and started working for myself. I have written here about the early lessons, the tax surprises and the emotional roller coaster of the first months. This is the post I was most curious to write: the twelve-month verdict. What did a year […]
A few months ago, an engineering manager I advise asked me a question that has been rattling around in my head ever since. He was building a small team and wanted my opinion on hiring. Not which stack, not which seniority levels, not which titles. What kind of person he should bet on. It is
I visited an event last week, set up by the BVL with the topic of Energy meets Logistics – how logistics companies can earn money with energy and energy storage. The pitch was rather simple: logistics companies have a lot of space available for rooftop-solar, they have heavy machines which (if electrified) could earn some
One year ago, I wouldn’t have been able to write this article. Not because I didn’t have opinions about software development, years and years in engineering leadership will give you plenty of those, but because I hadn’t written production code in years. When I went back to the IDE as a solopreneur, I expected to
One of the greatest privileges of my shift from corporate executive to Solopreneur is the freedom and the necessity to learn. In a corporate C-level role, you are often consumed by management overhead, leaving little time to “touch the metal.” Now, as a freelancer, I have the opportunity to experiment rapidly. For me, this meant
If I asked you, “Will the new mobile app features be ready for the trade fair in March?”, what would you say? In many organizations I help, the answer is a hesitant “We hope so.” When I dig deeper into their data, I find that their teams meet their Sprint Goals about 50% of the
“We have Scrum Masters, but I’m not sure what they actually do all day besides setting up meetings and asking people what they did yesterday?” I hear this often during due diligence or organizational assessments. I have also caught myself asking this question during my own time as CTO. CEOs and investors look at the
“We implemented Scrum six months ago, but we aren’t shipping any faster. In fact, it feels like we are spending half our time in meetings talking about why we can’t work. Should we go back to the old way?” I hear this frustration often from CEOs and investors. They buy into the promise of Agile:
I recently had a discussion with a friend who is in the trenches of founding a startup. They are currently building their MVP, and he asked me a direct question: “Do I need a fractional CTO?” My answer was immediate: “No, not at this point.” But this conversation prompted me to reflect. If an early-stage
I am the kind of person who likes riding on roller coasters. I like it when adrenaline rushes through my body after the long way up. But I did not expect me being a Freelancer to be similar in many ways to riding on a roller coaster. This article explains some similarities I see –