Challenges in fast growing tech companies

CHALLENGES IN FAST GROWING TECH COMPANIESTomas Kazragis

QUICK FACTS

50.000.000.000+ Transactions per day1.000.000+ Requests per second3000++ High performance serversComplex calculations per request needed in less than 20 ms7 data centers across the worldHigh availability load balancing and failover40 Gigabits per second internet consumption

BROAD TECH STACK

GROWING TALENT POOL

Technology part growth January 2015 – April 2016

Target for end of 2016 – 450 employees worldwide

ATTRACT & RECRUIT

ACADEMIES

http://academy.adform.com/

YELLOW BELTS

Success story: http://blog.adform.com/adform/yellow-belts-18-months-of-wisdom /

TALENT ACQUISITION

Company positioning: http://life.adform.com/Open positions: http://join.adform.com/Internal referralsSourcing:

aMeet-ups & conferences

Head huntingFollow talents

INTERVIEWS

Agreement between:TeamPeersLeads

Behavior & attitude vs Skills

ONBOARD

VALUES

Team results firstOwnership mindsetOpen, informal & dynamic

a

TEAM RESULTS FIRST

NO for brilliant jerks

OWNERSHIP MINDSET

Flat network organization:DevOps instead of DEV vs OPSEveryone contributes instead of controlling & reporting

It is my business: create -> release -> maintain -> improve

OPEN, INFORMAL & DYNAMIC

New initiatives and ideasPlans, roadmapsFinancesLessons learnedSharing informationFast adaptationWork hard – party harder!

RETAIN, DEVELOP & EMPOWER

TEAM FREEDOM AND ACCOUNTABILITY AT WORK

Constantly improve the way we workShare and gain feedbackParticipate in decision makingBalance between proficiency and learningCommitmentShare knowledge

FREEDOM TO CHOOSE

Use internal serviceDo it yourself:

PresentTryGet challengedCreate a service

Get it outside the company

FREEDOM TO CHANGE

Learn new things – books, conferencesChoose next me programTry new experiences – internshipsMove onDon’t forget to change!

FREEDOM TO ORGANIZE

Every function tends to become a bottleneckYou can try to solve them, but it’s a never ending storyGive freedom for teams to organize themselves

NETWORK ORGANIZATION

PROVIDING SERVICES INSTEAD OF OPTIMIZING AROUND YOURSELF

Imagine you have to earn moneyTry your customer’s shoesDevelop with 2x capacity in mindRework is expensive and hurts moraleTime costs as well

THE WAY WE WORK

RELEASE MANAGEMENT: DREAM

DEV VS OPS

RELEASE MANAGEMENT: CONSEQUENCES

RELEASE MANAGEMENT: SOLUTION

ACCESS RIGHTS MANAGEMENT

Previously Now

AUTOMATED SERVER DELIVERY

SOLUTION: MATURE SELF SERVICE

LOOKING FOR A ROLE MODEL

Within a team – “I want to become like you…”Outside the company – “How are you doing this?”

CHANGING PERSPECTIVE

Instead of wondering:How big is big?Can I buy?Can I refactor?What can I expect from tomorrow?Do I have a mandate?

Go and ask!

CONCLUSIONS

• Decentralization speeds-up growth• Happy employee leads to good results• Constant investment in employees ensures extra mile• Freedom goes well with ownership mindset• Transparency prospers in open environments• Freedom leads to innovations• Monitoring is a key for complex and dynamic environments• Technology is a team sport