The Innovation Engineer Podcast

What motivates people? Obviously there is the need to eat and pay your bills. But we often do things where we are not paid, we work longer or volunteer. You don’t find motivation, nor do you get motivation, but you create motivation. But how? Well, today we talk about Master, Autonomy and Purpose - the Motivation 3.0 framework defined by Daniel Pink in his book drive.

Does Mastery mean writing three unit tests for each line of code? Does every company need a big purpose like saving the world? Is it even worth working for an agency? Can you even be a good engineer if you don’t program in your free time? Do all product owners micro manage their engineers? And remember the basics: Don’t die!

Actually thinking about what mastery, autonomy and purpose means helps us to see why people are doing the things that they are doing. And not only understanding others, it’s also like looking into the mirror and understanding why I have this passion for this specific project or the passion to go into that one direction.

Or in leadership, understanding the people you are working with, why they are driven to a certain direction, or why they are behaving in a certain way, and trying to map this into their drive for autonomy, mastery, and purpose. You are not a manager anymore managing people. You are a leader and those are your new tools.

Hosted by two former CTOs who decided to stay hands-on, both veterans of the industry with decades of experience as engineers. You can expect many stories from current and past ventures. Meet Innovation Engineer Tarek Madany Mamlouk and Principal Engineer Sebastian "Waschi" Waschnick.

Key Takeaways

Read this book and understand what motivates people, it’s the first step as a leader.
You should own your drive to become happy. Happiness in what you’re doing in your job, in your daily life and can be supported by understanding your own Motivation 3.0
As a leader: Try understanding the people you are working with, why they are driven to a certain direction, or why they are behaving in a certain way. Try to map this into their drive for autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
By understanding others and seeing what other people are driven to helps creating empathy and a very collaborative culture and this helps you align with other people.
How good you are at your job has nothing to do with if it's your calling, you just do it for money or whatever reason. There is no direct correlation between it. There are software engineers out there who don't do programming in their spare time. And they can still be great. They could also be bad. But there's no correlation if they do stuff in their spare time or not.
Be open for purpose. Purpose might not be that obvious, like saving the world. Your personal purpose, the things that you are striving for, can be very abstract. So be open to anything that you are striving for. It might not be obvious.
As a manager and in every role, try to always delegate decisions down. Don't make decisions on yourself, except if they were delegated to you.

Show Notes

0:00 Intro
45:55 I’m a Java developer, I don’t care about anything else
48:50 Summary and Key Takeaways

*Stuff we mentioned*

We really need to talk more about cool gadgets - I promise we will do this more in future episodes!

📘 Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us → https://www.amazon.de/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/1594484805
📘 Rework → https://www.amazon.de/ReWork-Change-Work-Forever-English-ebook/dp/B003ELY7PG/
📘 Management 3.0 → https://www.amazon.de/Management-3-0-Developers-Developing-Addison-Wesley/dp/0321712471/

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Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Management 3.0: Leading Agile Developers, Developing Agile Leaders (Addison-Wesley Signature Series (Cohn))

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How do you measure and evaluate the performance of your senior engineers? Can you even do it as a non-engineer? And what are diminishers and multipliers in your team? I’m an introvert, will I ever become a real senior engineer! And how do you even decide who get’s a raise and who not? Clean Coders to the rescue, I need your help.

Welcome to The Innovation Engineer Podcast, your favorite place for picking brains of your favorite engineers. This time Ard asked us how you actually evaluate and judge senior engineers. We already talked about what makes a good senior engineer in episode 2 of our podcast. Can this even be done by a manager who didn’t touch code for a decade? Or even a manager who never coded? The simple answer: Yes! Because code quality and pure technical skills are the least important thing you are looking for in senior engineers.

Hosted by two former CTOs who decided to stay hands-on, both veterans of the industry with decades of experience as engineers. You can expect many stories from current and past ventures. Meet Innovation Engineer Tarek Madany Mamlouk and Principal Engineer Sebastian "Waschi" Waschnick.

Key Takeaways

Soft Skills are everything. It’s not the number of programming languages or number of years you have been coding.
It depends on your culture. What do you strive for? You need to write this down! Oriente yourself on the “Level-System” used in many US companies.
Performance works inwards and outwards. This includes your mindset and which value you bring to the company, but also making sure that your team performs.
Try to decouple the performance review and the salary negotiation. Salary is only a hygiene factor and should be orientated on the personal market situation of each developer..

Show Notes

0:00 Intro
1:33 What Tarek did to impress his superiors
2:58 The best metrics: Lines of Code or Story Points
4:19 What the git commit history tells you
9:33 The Dunning–Kruger effect
13:03 There is no linear path to increase your skill level, you can add value in different ways
14:20 Multipliers and Diminishers
17:45 Fire your best engineer
21:13 Introverts also speak up and are productive communicators
22:33 I’m an introvert, I just trained my soft skills
27:57 The hard questions - how to do the actual evaluation
29:03 Salary - decouple it from the evaluation, it’s only a hygiene factor
31:56 Should your salary be independent from your performance?
34:24 Encourage your engineers to talk with headhunters
35:47 Something like employee terrorism
37:55 Where does the value from that person come from? Druid knowledge?
39:42 There are only bad leaders - Team performance depends on leadership
42:07 The keeper test
43:45 The “We are a family trap”
47:28 Summary and Key Takeaways
50:38 Next time: We talk about the book “Drive”

*Stuff we mentioned*

🎙 TIE POD Episode 2 → “What makes a senior engineer”
📄 Dunning–Kruger effect
📄 Gitlabs Engineer Career Development
📘 Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
📘 Netflix “No Rules Rules”
📘 Clean Coders

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There is a new version of the internet coming, maybe it’s version 9 or web3? Some call it Metaverse, but nobody knows what it is. Nobody? No! Two engineers try to clarify and resist the marketing hype. Let’s find out why we need a markup description for ridiculous hats and what the Metaverse and web3 actually are. What do you prefer, Roblox or Fortnite?

Welcome to The Innovation Engineer Podcast, your favorite place for picking brains of your favorite engineers. This time we ask ourselves if the Metaverse and Web3 are actually legit. Is it just marketing? And aren’t we already at web9 or something? We talk about our experiences using VR and AR equipment, why Facebook did change their name to Meta and how this new alternative to the World Wide Web with http and URLs may look like.

Hosted by two former CTOs, both veterans of the industry, you can expect many stories from current and past ventures. Meet Innovation Engineer Tarek Madany Mamlouk and Principal Engineer Sebastian "Waschi" Waschnick.

Key Takeaways

tbd

Show Notes

0:00 Intro

*Stuff we mentioned*

📘 Ready Player One (book) or movie
🚴‍♂️ Peleton Bike for staying healthy
⛏ Roblox the game
🔫 Fortnite the game
🧤Power Glove for Nintendo's NES

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Will Israel (or better: Tel Aviv) be the next Silicon Valley? They sure already claim to be and call themself Silicon Wadi. But is it true, or is it just clever marketing? And where is Tarek? L'chaim!

In today's episode, we have a special guest - Hendrike Hedel. She's the head of tech program at the FreeTech academy and recently returned from a trip through Israel. Plus she's a fan of nerdy mugs. In fact, when COVID first started out, she made a series of Instagram posts featuring her particular mug of the day. She's a huge space nerd, building Lego models of the ISS, and even tried to become an astronaut herself.

Welcome to The Innovation Engineer Podcast, your favorite place for picking brains of your favorite engineers. This time we ask ourselves will Israel be the next Silicon Valley? Or is it already? What is even so special about the Silicon Valley?

Hosted by two former CTOs, both veterans of the industry, you can expect many stories from current and past ventures. Meet Innovation Engineer Tarek Madany Mamlouk and Principle Engineer Sebastian "Waschi" Waschnick.

*Key Takeaways*

ICQ started the whole VC and tech scene in Israel when it was sold for 200M$ in 1998
The "Silicon Wadi" is mainly concentrated in Tel Aviv
Not many well known products come from Israel, except the SodaStream (at least well known for Germans)
From the absolut numbers Israel VC scene is not that big, but per capita it’s no. 2 world wide in terms of VC volume
Israel is a walled garden and that makes it hard to be as attractive as the Silicon Valley, as only limited and specific people have even the option to go there
Most foreign people would not feel safe enough in Tel Aviv or in Israel in general to consider living or working there
It's more a marketing claim from Israel itself to be the next Silicon Valley, even if they are very successful in founding and creating new companies and products

*Show Notes*

0:00 Intro
The infamous Star Wars XMas episode

*Stuff we mentioned*

🫧 SodaStream for making sparkling water
💦 Brita Water Filter
📺 Star Wars XMas episode on YouTube
🥛🍫Koawach, Cocoa powder with caffeine
📘 Startup Nation Israel (Book)
Startup Investments → https://news.crunchbase.com/startups/countries-most-startup-investment/
VC Investments → https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=VC_INVEST

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I have a claim: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are already dead again, the hype is gone and nobody is talking about it anymore. The hype train moved on to the next topic. Nobody cares if your startup does anything with ML anymore. Or am I wrong? I guess Tarek totally disagrees with me. OK, what is actually the state of AI and ML? Where is it really used right now? And what happened to all those promising startups, which were faking voices, people or creating awesome things with the power of neural networks?! Is the only thing staying from the last hype that every company needs a team of Data Scientists? We have a word or two to say about this topic!

Welcome to The Innovation Engineer Podcast, your favorite place for picking brains of your favorite engineers. This time we ask ourselves what happened with the hype around Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning and what’s currently state of the art. I will live on forever, as a dead bot!

Show Notes

0:00 Intro
1:40 AI is from the sixties, it’s old
6:39 A problem of over promising and then under delivering
7:50 The Age of Prediction Machines
8:45 We were promised deep fake videos and voices
9:50 We as human being are just to impatient
11:42 Snapchat filters are amazing AI toys
12:19 Data Science is staying, ML and AI are dead
13:55 Prediction models are commodity, don’t build it yourself
15:14 What Netflix did and what Waschi did at Bertelsmann
18:49 The value is not in the ML model, but in running it in production
20:40 The new hype - MLOps
22:34 The rise of the plumber
23:25 Not really a new topic (it’s only new for Data Scientists)
24:55 What are all these people next to the developers doing?!
26:40 Our favorite ML project - the Coffee Maker Mood Bot
28:00 OpenCV combined with a RaspberryPI
30:31 Easy to use open source components for your ML project
33:49 Big Language Models to the rescue
35:19 Tarek does home automation in 2003
36:31 The next big thing in ML - Dead Bots
40:51 Ghost in the Shell and the answer if real AI can exist
44:33 It will take another like three years until my niece even know the word metaverse
45:56 Outro

*Stuff we mentioned*

The Matrix → https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Keanu-Reeves/dp/B079FGSYBZ/
Ghost in the Shell → https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Mamoru-Oshii/dp/B07FDMZ244/
Coffee maker mood bot(27:00) 📺 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1JFXmdE-CY
Gartner Hype Cycle → https://www.gartner.de/de/methoden/hype-cycle
OpenCV → https://opencv.org/
RaspberryPI → https://www.amazon.de/-/en/InnoConnect-Raspberry-Bundle-32GB-White/dp/B08L98DQBL/
Dead Bots → https://nftnewstoday.com/2022/05/31/live-forever-in-metaverse-with-somnium-spaces-new-tech/

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Today we ask ourselves if VR and AR are only toys for rich kids and nerds. I was promised full-body VR and a reality with way better graphics than our gray reality, but where is it? Or is the Oasis, our promised wonderland, already right before our eyes? Where are the breakthrough games and who is really using AR and VR? How is actually the porn expierenxe and VR and why is this not driving sales? Do I need to go shopping, right now?! And what should I buy, AR or VR googles? It’s all the fault of those damn crypto kiddies!

Welcome to The Innovation Engineer Podcast, your favorite place for picking brains of your favorite engineers. This time we ask ourselves what the state of VR and AR is and why there was no breakthrough during Covid.

Show Notes0:00 Intro
1:00 A toy for rich kids
3:45 Fake VR in Star Trek
4:10 The State of VR/AR
5:40 It's not Ready Player One
7:40 Catwalk C
8:38 VR Games
10:48 Motion Sickness is a problem
12:45 Addicted to this Game
14:00 Pokemon Go
14:43 Why the global pandemic was not a breakthrough for VR
16:25 VR Porn is bad
20:35 Old Medium on new Devices
22:39 Do we need better Devices?
24:30 Is VR more than Gaming?
26:20 WWDC
27:30 Next Generation Meeting Point
28:45 A Question of convenience
30:45 It's a Bridge-Technology
31:50 Working in VR
32:30 Real AR Goggles
33:55 VR is a Special Experience
35:00 Military VR
35:25 Wrap Up

*Stuff we mentioned*

Nintendo Virtual Boy 📺 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afcKtMNWfhk
Valve Index 👓 https://store.steampowered.com/valveindex
Beat Saber 🕺https://store.steampowered.com/app/620980/Beat_Saber/
Kat Walk C 🐱 https://www.kat-vr.com/
PlayStation VR2 for PS5 🎮 https://www.playstation.com/de-de/ps-vr2/

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In this special episode of TheInnovationEngineer podcast, I had the opportunity to chat with Siân Cleaver, Industrial Manager at Airbus Defence and Space. Being a total space nerd myself, I was eager to learn how she came to a career in spacecraft engineering but also about her engagement in the Artemis project and what we can expect from this new era of space exploration.

Welcome to The Innovation Engineer Podcast, your favorite place for picking brains of your favorite engineers. Usually we talk about blockchains, AI or quantum computation but today we discuss space exploration.

00:00 - Intro
01:10 - Who is Siân Cleaver?
02:41 - What brought you to Germany?
03:46 - Academic paths to spacecraft engineering
06:34 - What is your favourite part of your job?
09:53 - What do we hope to achieve with Artemis?
12:12 - How will traveling to the moon look like after Artemis?
14:39 - How many Artemis missions will there be?
15:42 - Are other nations building competing moon bases?
17:09 - Will there be a continued presence at the moon base?
18:32 - Will you watch Artemis 1 from Cape Canaveral?
20:37 - Making History
22:03 - "This is Rocket Science" - The biggest responsibilities
25:54 - Will the ESM be capable of traveling to Mars?
28:00 - A message to all space enthusiasts

Additional Resources:
https://www.airbus.com/en/OrionESM
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/Orion
https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/orion/index.html
https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis/

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Welcome to The Innovation Engineer Podcast, your favorite place for picking brains of your favorite engineers. Today we ask ourselves what happened to Clubhouse and what’s the future of Audio.

0:00 Intro
1:00
2:14 Why did Tarek visit the Silicon Valley
3:11 If you are not working with AI, you are doing something wrong
3:30 John Deere is becoming a mayor AI company
4:24 Why don’t you join an American company?
5:02 They are successful, so they must do something right
7:45 They aim for the moon and the will to achieve things
8:57 German companies work differently - all those laws!
14:40 Everybody is gettings promotions all the timer
15:42 Lead from top to down
20:17 Who has problems with his candid communication style?!
24:39 The level of sensitivity in the US is on a different scale
25:22 A German developer who is a really dirty mouth
26:37 This language hurts his ears
28:55 The Americans are one step ahead of Europe
32:20 There are words which don’t belong in a professional environment
34:11 Every time I talk about vacation - The sad truth about American thinking
36:19 Adjusting to the American work load
37:18 The reason Waschi would not move to the US
38:05 Working more would make me less productive
38:28 You have to work 16h in a row vs. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
40:20 I only hire lazy people because they think about the most efficient ways

The Culture Map by Erin Meyer
https://thenextweb.com/news/john-deer...
https://avdi.codes/the-three-virtues/

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Today we talk about one of the current hype trends, which has been going strong for some years - Audio! Podcast or audiobook, why is it so popular? Does it even make sense to go backward and remove the video again, after it killed the radio star? Do you even remember Clubhouse? We talk about the real reason why Clubhouse did not have an Android app and why it used the invite system. And what does podcast actually mean and where does the word come from?

Welcome to The Innovation Engineer Podcast, your favorite place for picking brains of your favorite engineers. Today we ask ourselves what happened to Clubhouse and what’s the future of Audio.

*Show Notes*

0:00 Intro
1:00 Audio is an old format, where is this current uprising coming from
1:50 Why audio is one of my favorite topics
2:10 As a parent audio is your go to choice of media
3:20 My day feels like 30 hours thanks to podcasts and audiobooks
3:58 I did not understand where this hype is coming from
4:57 Do you know what the first video was that MTV played?
6:47 It does not make sense to remove video and have audio only
7:25 Who would listen to a podcast on a TV?
8:56 Is it interesting to watch people talk to each other?
9:23 The content is the valuable thing
10:19 Everyone can do a podcast
10:54 My favorite podcast - the one produced the worst
12:10 The Stack Overflow Podcast - Recorded phone talks since 2008
12:39 The Axel Springer Tech Review Podcast - recorded with Teams
13:46 There is one podcast I cannot leave - The Rooster Teeth Podcast
15:00 Why is audio so successful? It’s personal.
16:54 That one strange app, Clubhouse. Is it dead again?
18:29 The Clubhouse waiting list with 10 million people
19:00 The hype is kind of over, nobody is talking about it anymore
19:46 Clubhouse is live streamed interactive podcast
20:30 It’s so bad it feels like a telephone call in the 90’s
22:00 Exclusiveness sells well for a while, but it has a bad product-market fit
24:40 They are more scalable than video conferences
25:32 Clubhouse is not the next big thing
26:08 The American audio market is the indicator for other countries
27:24 Companion Podcasts for TV shows - you wouldn’t believe those numbers
28:25 It’s not peaking, it’s still growing very strong and it’s booming
29:19 The Battlestar Galacticast on YouTube
31:34 Rick & Morty, szechuan sauce and The Sauce Podcast
33:12 Crime in Germany - Someone scratched my car
33:55 You can create content for each fandom
34:58 The unknown app with 1M requests a minute with 2 backend engineers
37:08 The end of the story: Python just sucks for backends
38:06 The real reason Clubhouse had an invite system an no android app
39:28 A startup should not start with the goal of scaling, but target speed
41:08 Where does the word podcast even come from?
44:33 What’s this? I just open Spotify and search for it
46:25 Radio and mixtapes are dying, sad times for radio
47:23 Our children will call it radio, not podcast
49:45 Next episode teaser

*Stuff we mentioned*

📺 The Buggles - Video Killed The Radio Star
Runners World Podcast (German)
The Stack Overflow Podcast
Rooster Teeth Podcast
The Tech Review Podcast & Youtube Video
Blogpost from Clubhouse about “thundering herd effect”
Elon Musk Brain Implant
Rick & Morty, szechuan sauce and The Sauce Podcast
The Battlestar Galacticast

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Should I buy NFTs? Or is it a scam and you are the greater fool. Who can actually sell it? It’s just a token that you are buying! Be an engineer, buy ETFs, not NFTs! Today is all about Decentraland, Smoking Goldfishes, the value of art and a 44 billion dollar market.

We also explain what NFTs are, how they are generated, how to sell them, the legal problems and how Waschi lost his crypto wallet - twice. How much money did he lose? No one will ever know.

*Show Notes*

0:00 Intro
0:35 Anime is overtaking NFTs!
1:00 Everything is about NFTs, everyone has an opinion and nobody knows what it means
1:45 I deleted my crypto wallet - twice
3:30 The difference between Bitcoin and a NFT
4:40 Is the image stored in the token?
5:55 You do not use the blockchain to store the actual item
7:15 600k$ for the Nyan Cat
8:20 We are not violating any intellectual property, because you only own the token
9:00 Who can create a NFT for the Nyan cat and how can I sell it?
11:00 Who is stupid enough to buy virtual items for Diablo 2 on eBay?
11:50 A World of Warcraft account sold for a thousand Euro.
12:45 NFT is buying stuff for fun
13:00 Decentraland! This is just for show.
13:45 CryptoKitties, where are you now?
17:00 Crazy Ape - I have no idea what I just bought15:00 The first NFTs - worth nothing anymore.
15:45 Why do I need a blockchain for playing the game?
17:30 Did you see CryptoKitties as a game or as an investment?
18:00 JomaInTech want’s to monetize - so he sells NFTs.
19:45 What defines the value of art?
21:20 I’m an engineer, I buy ETFs, not NFTs
21:50 Thinking Slow, Thinking Fast
22:10 It’s a bubble, you don’t know when it will burst. Did you invest in Tezos?
23:40 There are people who become millionaires by playing around
24:15 44 billion US Dollars are in the NFT market
24:20 The most expensive NFT: 91.8 million US Dollars for 3 white dots
24:45 It’s wrong to say a NFT is not valuable
25:25 This reminds me of the Dot-com bubble, 95% lost everything
26:10 Thundering Herd Effect or Greater Fool Theory?
27:30 Reinvesting is a bad idea, don’t be too flashed
28:20 The biggest winners right now are the artists. The legal wars start.
29:55 I just downloaded the NFT generator
30:20 I’m wondering if 2022 might already be the end of the NFT craze
31:00 There is so much crap on the marketplaces. Why didn’t you sell your smoking goldfishes?
31:50 It feels like a scam, it’s simply snake oil
32:50 You are Robin Hood, stealing from the rich VCs!
33:35 Don’t buy NFTs, sell them
34:30 If you want to have a printout, you do not need to buy the NFT
35:35 I see a huge wave of law suits coming
36:50 There still is a verbal contract
37:50 It will be a new goldrush for attorneys
38:30 I have no interest in gambling
40:30 Bitcoin should die (from a technical point of view)
42:20 Everything is artificial, how much engery do we burn for TV Shows?
44:30 Buy another car! Argentina is not like that big of an industry nation.
45:45 It only matters if it helps society improve
46:20 It burns literal coal to power bitcoin ricks
47:50 China forbid crypto mining
49:00 I still want to buy a NFT to support my favorite Youtuber or the WWF
50:30 Buying NFTs for a good cause
50:05 It’s an image of a ball. That’s art.

*Stuff we mentioned*

The following list of resources contain affiliate links. By using those links, this channel receives a small commission without any additional costs for you. Any support is highly appreciated!

CryptoKitties! Get started now. Or not.
The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFTs
The Innovation Engineer video about “NFT - What does it stand for?”
The Innovation Engineer video about “Cryptokitty - The Harbinger of Crash”
Some strange crypto stuff name Tezos, just asking for a friend
The most expensive NFT “The Merge”, sold to 28,893 collectors, and it’s not a static picture
2nd most expensive NFT: “The First 5000 Days” - The artwork is currently being displayed in an online gallery in the metaverse.
Etherium 2 changes from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake
China banned crypto mining
Thinking Slow, Thinking Fast from Daniel Kahneman
- Amazon.de:
  - English Kindle: https://amzn.to/3NXTlmB
  - English Paperback: https://amzn.to/3QqwPVi
  - English Hardcover: https://amzn.to/3MZzh2f
  - German Kindle: https://amzn.to/3mSHKJE
  - German Paperback: https://amzn.to/3HsHUBa
  - German Hardcover: https://amzn.to/3mUytRx
- Amazon.co.uk:
  - English Paperback: https://amzn.to/3tBrUqI
  - English Library Binding: https://amzn.to/3NY4WT1

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0:00 Intro
1:49 Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters
2:37 Team Maturity
3:04 An unpopular Opinion
4:09 This is not a Team
4:44 My favorite CTO
5:21 The Fox News of Germany
7:29 Self-Organization needs Leadership
10:08 Put your Ego aside
10:50 This is not Anarchy
11:07 You can't always choose
11:19 There might be Hierarchy
11:59 Abstract Goals
12:38 Alignment
13:49 Micro-Management
15:37 I hate Scrum?
16:07 Agile is about Communication
17:09 Domain Driven Design
17:34 Keep it Simple
18:52 OKR
20:51 Making Money is the Goal by Law
21:49 Because Management says so
22:15 Scrum is the Training Wheels of Agile
23:01 Forget Story Points
25:10 Bottleneck PO
26:04 Double Leadership
28:09 Accountability
28:27 Radical Candor
29:43 The Friend Trap
30:37 Growing into the Culture
31:22 Fire the whole Company?
32:23 Spotify Model
33:33 Becoming part of the problem
34:14 Working like Self-Driving Cars
36:29 Missing Alignment in a Start-Up
37:54 I believe in Self-Organizing Teams
38:32 A very Senior Thing to do
40:16 Outro

The following list of resources contain affiliate links. By using those links, this channel receives a small commission without any additional costs for you. Any support is highly appreciated!

Self-Organizing Teams:
amazon.de (english paperback): https://amzn.to/3alLNv0
amazion.co.uk (english paperback): https://amzn.to/3tAPyDZ

Radical Candor:
amazon.de (english Kindle): https://amzn.to/3Mbs7ax
amazon.de (english paperback): https://amzn.to/3xeITBx
amazon.de (english hardcover): https://amzn.to/3xecaMz
amazon.co.uk (english paperback): https://amzn.to/3x5ZJ47
amazon.co.uk (english hardcover): https://amzn.to/3NTfm5G
amazon.co.uk (english audio cd): https://amzn.to/3NTfouk

Spotify Framework:
amazon.de (english Kindle): https://amzn.to/3NhDgbi
amazon.de (english paperback): https://amzn.to/3GMPYfR
amazon.de (german Kindle): https://amzn.to/3xgtKQg
amazon.de (german paperback): https://amzn.to/3zg2r9Z
amazon.co.uk (english paperback): https://amzn.to/3NT28pK

Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity (Revised, Updated)

Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity

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Today we asked ourselves: What makes a senior engineer? And why is Tarek not a Senior Innovation Engineer? 20 years of experience and still not a real senior! How many programming languages do you need to speak and why does scrum not allow speaking with me. Is it about money?

*Show Notes*

6:20 Social intelligence, good communications skills, intrinsic motivation? I don’t care - do you need Java, C or Python developers?
7:00 The number of programming languages is not a good metric for being a high level senior engineer. And recruiters don't want to hear that.
8:05 Seniority comes from your skills to teach others and to communicate
8:35 Working software is only a byproduct for achieving business goals and those are the things young engineers don’t want to hear
9:40 What are you actually doing in your job? Programming? That’s not true, you are trying to create a product.
10:20 STFU The scrum process does not allow you talking to me
11:10 I love the netflix culture team, companies are like professional sport teams
11:20 Each young engineer should aim to be a CTO
12:50 The thing I’m doing right now without titles is way more fun than being a senior c level manager
15:50 Is it about a promotion, or about money? Oh, I can give you a title instead.
18:45 Specific titles are like blue blood - you become a royal
19:50 You can think of it as an investment into the future
21:10 Titles lose their magic, I actually want more flexibility and a 4 day workweek
21:50 I heard you are a TikTok star in secret → fun with facts
25:00 The European market is following the American, and the US market is more strict and has more hierarchie → The level system of American companies and why is it so strict? Check FANG who defined those levels levels.fyi
27:40 What does it mean to be a level 5 engineer?
28:45 Try to hire good people and see where they fit
29:10 One piece of advice on how to become a senior developer: The Clean Coder from Robert C. Martin for understand what makes a professional developer
31:05 The Lean Startup, you are not payed to write code, you are paid to grow a business
32:00 its kind of a disease, a senior engineer loves the problem, not the solution
32:40 What makes a senior engineer?
35:50 bad presentation because he is unstructured
37:30 if I ever write a blog post I’m just going to quote you

*Stuff we mentioned*

The Netflix Culture Code, a famous slide deck which cause uproar in the valley
And a book from Netflix explaining this culture: No Rules Rules
Domain Driven Design, that one famous book, but maybe read this shorter summary
The Clean Coder, the book Tarek bought for each new engineer he hired
levels.fyi shows the level systems of different companies and how much money your are missing on right now
The Lean Startup, the book which started all this talk about lean and startups
Did we miss talking about gadgets this week? So sad. Try my new favorite bone conduction headset instead. I also have a cheaper and older model, it’s nearly as good.

*What should we talk about next?*

YouTube: The Innovation Engineer
Leave a review/comment on YouTube; it's like podcasts, but with video.

Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software

No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention

The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses [By ER]-[Paperback]

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We all drank more coffee when we were younger. But how do you stay Healthy as an Engineer? We talk about electro shocks to the crotch, how a pandemic can be the third driver for innovation, about VR and equipment for VR workouts, why engineers against all cliches are very sporty, how you can train your posture with tech gadgets, EMS (Electronic Muscle Stimulation) and running a world record on a treadmill together with other virtual runners.

Show Notes

0:43 Can you drink too much coffee?
1:40 Drink more coffee to move more often
2:17 Having not enough sleep makes you pee a lot
4:45 Suit with electro shocks (EMS)
9:00 Running is not enough to keep the back pain away
10:45 Thanks to covid, I have 2000 steps less a day
16:10 Innovation is not only driven by porn and war, innovation is driven by a global pandemic
16:30 EMS Suites at home
17:00 VR vs Workout, let’s play Beat Saber!
18:10 This is a sex thing
24:00 Sports in VR - Sweating into your VR headset
25:45 Running with other people (not in VR) → Check Florian Neuschwander https://run-with-the-flow.com/
29:45 Why Tarek started doing YouTube and TikTok
33:30 Just do it! Start a podcast. How and why we started doing it.
34:35 How the stackOverflow podcast started
35:35 How we started programming
37:30 Nutrition is key in staying healthy.
39:00 Unhealthy Habits of young engineers
40:55 Drink more water.
43:00 Uncomfortable shocks to move more and correct your posture
45:00 Ultimate posture training: Asia military drill with a needle under your chin

Stuff we mentioned

VR Body-Sensor-Feeling-Suite
Florian Neuschwander on treadmill with virtual runners
TikTok fun.with.facts
Posture detector
Blackroll posture back strap
EMS Suite
Beat Saber, the workout game in VR
Full-Body VR training machine ICAROS Home

What should we talk about next?

YouTube:The Innovation Engineer
Leave a review/comment on YouTube; it's like podcasts, but with video.

The Innovation Engineer Podcast: Recent Episodes

Tarek Madany Mamlouk, Sebastian Waschnick