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/technical storytelling: speak so they listen
35 Plays24 days ago
What separates teams that build features from those that solve problems? Ryan Donnelly, product leader and proud Callibrity alum, shares how his engineering roots shaped his approach to driving impact at scale. He unpacks the mindset behind modernizing in-house payments, building with empathy, and leading through storytelling. If you're navigating tech, product, or leadership—this one's for you.
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Transcript
The Art of Storytelling in Engineering
00:00:01
Speaker
One of the benefits, one of the values of going from software in a product and being able to relate to engineers, it's it's the same core principle looking elsewhere at other business stakeholders. As you look to at a Home Depot, right, very vertically structured, right? I got bosses on bosses on bosses on bosses.
00:00:17
Speaker
And my ability to relate to whatever level and tell a story at whatever at whatever level that they are so that they understand the root problem in a short amount of time, without going into too many details.
00:00:29
Speaker
To me, that's where the art of storytelling comes about.
Guest Introduction: Ryan Donnelly
00:00:42
Speaker
Welcome to the forward slash. I'm your host, James Carmen. And today we have with us Ryan Donnelly. He is a manager of product management at the Home Depot, where he helps lead strategic initiatives for making checkout smoother and more secure for millions of customers.
00:00:58
Speaker
He actually got his start in software development, including a stint here with us at Coliberty. all right, cool. um Before earning his MBA and making the jump into product product management.
00:01:10
Speaker
I got to be careful. I don't want to say project management because i know product management, that's taboo. From there, he went to a startup as the second full-time employee, helping grow a suite of SaaS products. These days, Ryan brings that same entrepreneurial, thanks for adding that word entrepreneurial, I think, did you like know i have a hard time saying that?
00:01:30
Speaker
Entrepreneurial mindset to one of the largest retailers in the world, focusing on payments, innovation, and driving meaningful results. Welcome, Ryan. Yeah, thanks for having me, James. So, so very excited
Career Transition: Software Development to Product Management
00:01:42
Speaker
to be here.
00:01:42
Speaker
um I will say first that Stint at Caliberty was very formidable um to my career as well as to my role or my transition into product management. um Provided me tons of tons of excellent background and actually where I really really gained a lot of interest in the role itself.
00:01:59
Speaker
yeah because You know, Caliberty, we're very heavy on the the the kind of the craft side of software engineering. We we focus very much on that. and then And then you go on and you're like, okay, I'm going to go product management. Like we didn't scare you away from software engineering, did we? were like No, no, not at all. I can i can get into my why um on making the transition if you'd like. though I don't know if feel like we're missing the intro with a nice solid dad joke or a nice solid, you know, a corny joke about about my career or my background or my cynic liberty, what have you.
00:02:28
Speaker
i Well, i did I did look up one. I came up with one. So I was i was at a i was at a bar the other night, and this ah carpenter walks in, right? And he's got his ladder with him. And i was like, what the heck are you bringing a ladder to a bar for? it And he's like, well, because I heard the drinks were on the house.
00:02:44
Speaker
only went Only one way to get them. You've got to escalate, right? You've got have
Innovations in Home Depot's Checkout Process
00:02:48
Speaker
a way to get up there. Okay, yeah. Well, I mean, just a lot quick little plug here. If you don't have a good ladder, Home Depot is a great place to get one.
00:02:57
Speaker
Absolutely tons of ladders at Home Depot dot com, even more selection. And as you go through checkout and you pay for that said ladder, either on dot com or in store, please let me know how the experience is.
00:03:09
Speaker
My guess is that it's pristine. It's fantastic. I, one thing I do love is I, I signed up for the, I forget what the program is, but where you basically register and you, you know you put your card in and I don't ever have to keep my receipts anymore.
00:03:22
Speaker
like That's all digital. It's in the, it's in the app. So that's, that's very convenient. I love that aspect of the checkout process. Yeah. Happy to get into that. That is what we refer to as credential on file. You don't need to use your card or have your card present for you to pay either online or
In-House Payment Systems vs. Competitors
00:03:37
Speaker
in store. And,
00:03:38
Speaker
um that ability to track your payments yeah that's all that's all based on that specific payment being used very cool payments is everywhere right we we payments are everywhere i guess is better way well can probably say it either way but you you have to deal with payments as as any company so you're at home depot and you're manager of product management tell me a little bit about that role and what what you do there So I currently support four teams across payments.
00:04:04
Speaker
um So that includes the device or the pin pads in store and the software that runs them, our account management team, which includes our private label credit cards, our ability to provide our customers an opportunity to apply for a credit card and use that credit card internally at each at Home Depot only, or apply for different installment loan products.
00:04:23
Speaker
so they can purchase a product, a ladder, a very nice ladder, and pay it off over the course of six months. No interest, that type of thing, or or whatever promotional opportunity we're able to give them.
00:04:35
Speaker
That's the account management team. I also work with a legacy authorization service. So we call that that our CAS team. You mentioned earlier the conversation that we had previously in which you know we talked about payments being everywhere.
00:04:49
Speaker
you know if you do have to accept payment no matter what kind of company you are and the degree to which you handle that software in-house versus you know pay for it externally. I think that's the the big difference here. right So payments is in-house at Home Depot, meaning we develop the software that does the authorizations and and the clearing and all those kind of like payments, um all those all those steps that are required for us to process customer payment.
00:05:14
Speaker
And that is all done in-house. And it's very interesting because, you know, you look at look at a company like Stripe or whatever, and they're charging like 2.5%. mean, you take that 2.5%, you know, we still have to pay fees for interchange rates and whatever else as you normally would across the network. But you you start to dive into that fee that they're charging you. And most of it is the interchange. So the amount of money that they're making off of you, the percentage they're making off of that 2.5% is very small.
00:05:38
Speaker
And then when you compare that to a company the size of Home Depot, you know, $160 billion, I think, is what we reported last quarter.
Home Depot-Branded Credit Cards
00:05:44
Speaker
or last fiscal rather, the amount of payments that goes through that, you know, that $160 billion absolutely makes sense for us to have team in-house and provide us the flexibility to develop what we need to develop and operate how we need to operate and ultimately to meet our customer where they want to pay.
00:06:02
Speaker
You know, it kind of seems like a a no-brainer for probably smaller companies that you use someone like a Stripe or whatever, but to do your processing and to do your payments there, but there's a certain scale. Is there, is there kind of a benchmark or or a known level in the industry that like, okay, once you reach this level that you're're you're, you're, you're going to want to start rolling up your sleeves and and digging in and building your own payment you know systems where companies are, is there kind of ah ah unknown a known level there?
00:06:28
Speaker
That's a really interesting question. I don't, I don't know the level, but I will say the, when we go to payment conferences, the peers that we'll see there are the targets, the Walmarts, you know, those types of behemoths that, um, it just makes sense for them based on an annual revenue perspective to just keep everything in house.
00:06:45
Speaker
Your own credit cards. So kind of what's the thinking for Home Depot? Why, you know, because it's it's probably, there's probably quite a bit of overhead there to, to put your own branded cards out there and and be able to support that and all that.
00:06:57
Speaker
What's the kind of the business motivation behind providing that that type of service for your for your customers? Sure. So we do we do have private label credit cards, as we call them, and a series of vendors that support us in that regard.
00:07:10
Speaker
The reasoning or the logic behind it is multifold. you know, the first is we want our customers the ability to use a a piece of credit card, a credit card, a a line of credit to pay for their things at Home Depot in and in an as easy fashion as possible and seamless as possible.
00:07:29
Speaker
As a part of that, we want to provide them the best deals as possible. So from a private private label perspective, we're able to give back to the customer. right We already have very low prices and that's that's Home Depot's ML.
00:07:42
Speaker
um we we're able to give back even more to the customer by removing that interchange aspect, right? So when you go with a major label credit card, you are paying more per transaction from the merchant perspective than if they use a private label credit card.
00:07:57
Speaker
Kind of keeps everything, as you call it, closed loop in the industry, in the payments industry. It's all in-house, right? these These credit cards are branded for Home Depot. They can only be used at Home Depot. From the pro perspective, we also offer different pro house, like what we call our pro house account.
00:08:12
Speaker
So the ability for a pro to open up a line of credit directly with Home Depot um and makes their their transaction even more seamless than if they were to just have a Home
Community and Culture at Home Depot's Pro Desk
00:08:22
Speaker
Depot credit card. and oh nice yeah The pro space is a really interesting one, I will say, because you know you have typically when you when you look at the pro,
00:08:31
Speaker
First off, James, have you been to a Home Depot like at 9 a.m. over in the pro space? Maybe like on ah one of those Monday holidays, you know, like your Memorial days or something. So they may not be as busy as as a normal weekday, but but that's when I would be going when the wife's like, hey, we should do this honey-do list item today. oh great. Yeah.
00:08:49
Speaker
If you don't remember, then you probably haven't because it is wild. It's like a party. So Home Depot has actually last year, Ted Decker implemented CEO's and implement it or return to store or get in the store get in the store program.
00:09:05
Speaker
And what that requires is Home Depot associates to go into the store and shadow or work for a day in any different function that they're interested in or that might assist that store.
00:09:17
Speaker
Last time I was in the store, which was just a matter of weeks ago, I sat at the ProDesk just to understand how everything operated from a software payments checkout perspective. And 9 a.m. hits, and it is like a party in there. People are coming in and like giving each other hugs. like The associates and the customers are all giving each other hugs. And and the thing that interests me so much is these are just like the guys that come day in, day out. They're just runners. They come in to get the product. They go back to their... to their um ah whatever job they're on.
00:09:47
Speaker
Right. And they're not even the ones paying. They're not the ones that are, um but they're not the ones paying. And it's just it's just amazing. the The community that they've built in this one store. I just noticed this and we don't do video for our podcast, but behind you, there is a, it looks to be an orange apron hanging up behind it.
Orange Apron: Connection to Sales Floor
00:10:05
Speaker
So is that a Home Depot apron?
00:10:06
Speaker
It is a Home Depot apron. It is a Home Depot apron. Yeah. And that is, it's funny. You'll see that a lot in and video calls, just different associates or, as we call them aprons, right? If you are not a contractor, if you are a ah Home Depot employee.
00:10:21
Speaker
So that's a trip. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I probably have, you I've been at Home Depot for three years now and I, I may have nine to 10 aprons already. That's pretty cool. Yeah. I mean, every, every event, you know, we, everybody gives out aprons and it's, you know, branded and it's fun. It's fun.
00:10:38
Speaker
That is cool. I love the the connection you guys maintain to the sales floor, like being able to do that and get out and and and be among the customers and see them interacting with the things you're building.
Sales Associates to Software Engineers
00:10:49
Speaker
i really think that's that's awesome.
00:10:51
Speaker
I was at a spring conference or spring one conference in DC one time in Home Depot. Some gentlemen from Home Depot happened to be there. And this is one program that I i was like, it just blew me away. I was like,
00:11:02
Speaker
That's really cool. They, they were talking about how they can take folks, you know, from the sales force. So there might, might be, you know, Bill from the paint department and they'll say, Hey, Bill, you ever thought about a career in software engineering?
00:11:15
Speaker
Oh yeah, tinkered around. All right, well, which put you the through this program, they have their own program for training these people. They'll get them up to speed and and and build them into software engineers and train them and educate them and and become software engineers.
00:11:29
Speaker
And I think you pointed out a really cool thing is that's that's a great way. like They understand the customers because they came from the sales floor. I think that's just fascinating. I don't know. Am I missing something about the program? That's just my just brief recollection of what what they do.
00:11:41
Speaker
That's exactly And to me, the same root or underlining underlying reason behind the Get in the Stores program is all rooted in that. And that's, we want to provide the ability for any apron, any worker of Home Depot to empathize as much as possible with the customer to meet them where they are and serve their needs.
00:12:00
Speaker
Right. And that's it. And you kind of start with that, you know, start with a like that core principle of Home Depot and everything kind of just stems from there. That's very cool. Yeah, I love that. I was like, it's kind of blew my mind that they, number one, they could do a training program like that, like literally taking somebody out zero experience and get them. And I think it was like a 12, 16, something like, it wasn't a long duration.
00:12:24
Speaker
They were bootcamping these folks, getting them up to speed really quickly. Oh yeah. um Actually, there was an associate who was on one of the one of the teams that reports through me. And that's how she got her start. And she is an absolute rock star.
00:12:38
Speaker
That's awesome. mean, yeah it's one of those things. there's There's a little bit of hand-holding as as they get up to speed. and um But her her ability to understand a problem, empathize with whoever's probably feeling that problem, come to a resolution and code the problem. like That's what you want out of an excellent engineer, in my in my opinion. And you know that that kind of is a root in why I love product management and and what are the roles that I think product managers need to play.
Product Management Insights from Ryan Donnelly
00:13:04
Speaker
which I'm sure we'll get into, but if you're not providing that North Star and being very, very clear in your message as to what needs to be built, what it solves, and and being able to tell stories around it, like if you if you are in that if you are clear in that regard, provides your engineers the ability to go out and be creative in their solutions and make sure to solve the problem based on the entire context and not just like, you need this if if statement, this ends then statement, and then this, you know, like,
00:13:33
Speaker
getting very tactical and and how to actually build it. So um I think it it all it all stems from that empathy of in context of the problem that you're trying to solve at that time.
00:13:45
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's it's interesting. So the associate you were talking about, I mean, like the the same so the same thing, the it factor that made made her a good person on the sales floor and being an associate helping customers.
00:13:58
Speaker
It's the same thing that makes you a good software engineer and it's really just problem solving. And I've found that when we bring the, you know, the they call them like non-traditional type folks out that out of the industry that are that are not in the industry, into the industry.
00:14:11
Speaker
The folks that are in those jobs where they kind of can get problems thrown at them just randomly, they tend to be really, really good software engineers. And you you may know this gentleman since you might've worked with him, but we had a ah guy that's that works at Caliberty.
00:14:24
Speaker
His previous job was in HVAC. So, and you can imagine you show up at ah at a customer's house. Okay, what's wrong? I have no idea. Then you have to kind of triage the situation and figure it out.
00:14:35
Speaker
It's ah that core problem solving ability that really makes people good software engineers. And the code is, it's syntax at that point. How am I going to embody the solution to this problem?
00:14:47
Speaker
I completely agree there. I mean, if you start to pull back and ask the four whys six whys, whatever it is, right, you're going to somehow get to the same why, which is, and to your point, HVAC, I need to problem solve.
00:15:01
Speaker
Yeah. You transitioned, you know, as we were talking earlier from, from kind of a software engineer, a you know, kind of architect or whatever into um product management.
00:15:13
Speaker
What do you think, like, how, how has that impacted how you view what we do, you know, have been on, been on kind of both sides of that coin, so to speak. What, how does that change your, your perspective?
00:15:25
Speaker
I've always wanted to be on a team. right I'm a big team guy. I kind of view the product manager as the coach of the team, if you real if you will. And I've always enjoyed that role. As the coach, it means you get to be very strategic and offer your team a competitive edge, you know helping train, get them up to speed.
00:15:44
Speaker
And then you can kind of call the plays. And based on that training and in the context that provided them, you see your guys execute. During my time at Caliberty, as I mentioned, you know I was working on a client um that had some great product managers. They were like far and above and any anything else I've seen in the industry. And I really embodied the way that they approached the team in solving problems. And I loved how a good product manager got the team behind them got them the information that they needed and set them off to run with it, right? The other reason is, you know, ultimately ah and'd I'd like to run a business and I find it's the same skill sets. you
00:16:21
Speaker
You walk back up six whys. And to me, the ability to set people up for success by providing them the full context, informing them of the why, making sure to over communicate and really be very clear in the expectations, you know, what what your OKRs are going to look like, what your keep key performance indicators are going look like the metrics that need to be hit to prove that you are on the right path.
Importance of Context and Storytelling in Product Management
00:16:42
Speaker
If you can set those up and be very thoughtful and strategic about those, then that provides a good engineer the ability to run damn near all the way, right? You set them off to the races and they're good to go.
00:16:53
Speaker
It was during my time at Caliberty that this was a very formidable, or it was a very formidable time because of those specific product managers on those on the on those teams. And also actually some research I was doing with the producer, Dylan, i'm just on Kaizen, kind of fell in love with the idea of continuous improvement and I saw the overlap of the two between you know continuous improvement and the product role. And that, yeah, that for me just kind of set in and became like a core principle and just a core way that I look at life.
00:17:23
Speaker
Now, that was a very long winded way to to to give you a why, but I'll get into the value that I think it delivers. I think it provides an amazing impact to engineering stakeholders.
00:17:33
Speaker
If you can enable, well, first off, enable them to see the the North Star and also shield them from questions or any kind of noise that detracts them from reaching that North Star or or continuing to pursue to that North Star.
00:17:46
Speaker
So my ability to start and have an engineering mindset has allowed me to kind of put myself up and and and be cover for them. It ultimately, I feel like it ah has allowed me to be more of a Swiss Army knife on the team in that regard.
00:17:59
Speaker
um So like more of a you know technical product manager, as you call them. I think the other thing is at Home Depot, the way we approach product in general or just the development life cycle is through the five Ds.
00:18:11
Speaker
Right. So you're defined design, discover discover, develop, deliver. And I think all across those having, having the, the ability to dive into develop that, that portion of actually coding and then pop my head up and look across all, all five D's.
00:18:27
Speaker
Um, I think it's just been really, it's been very beneficial for me. Good product managers. Um, that that I've found in the past where when they involve the team in some of that kind of critical thinking and problem solving and and how can we, you know,
00:18:43
Speaker
meet this need for the customer better and, you know, involve the team in that aspect of it. I think that that that's important, not just for getting the best outcome, but also just kind of, let's face it, you know, software engineers, if all if all you ever do is, okay, ticket shows up in my face, clackity, clackity, clackity on a keyboard, ding, done. Like if that's just your job every day in and out,
00:19:06
Speaker
It's not terribly rewarding for, especially for folks who they're not driven and they don't dig that stuff. I'm one of those weirdos that like, I do like coding, but, but I mean, it it can be monotonous at times. So I think that allowing some creativity to happen from, you know, kind of in both directions, right? it's not just feeding like, Hey, I'm, I'm the big smart product person. You go build what I say.
00:19:28
Speaker
that bi-directional communication I think is very important and and good ones do that. Do you feel like that you have an advantage because of your background in software engineering that you're probably more amenable to that than maybe some of your counterparts?
00:19:40
Speaker
Being able to technically understand and relate and empathize with an engineer is how they're approaching that OKR, you know, which feels like something that can never be reached. It feels so abstract that it's not even possible.
00:19:52
Speaker
Making that connection I think is where where a technical product manager can really move strides for the team. Yeah, and I would imagine that your your experience as a software engineer, one of the things that makes us struggle, you know meaning is a difficult thing in software engineering, deriving meaning from your work.
00:20:13
Speaker
um a lot of times we're not exposed to the why. Like, okay, I see I'm developing this module or I'm doing this, I'm writing all these tests or whatever I'm doing, but like ultimately how am I impacting someone's life? How am I making someone's life better? And and telling that story of like, okay, we're we're implementing this new credit card ah product from Home Depot, but that's so that...
00:20:37
Speaker
da da da right that that why behind I think that's really important. it helps us, you know when you when you are working those late nights, you kind of if you understand the why, it makes it a little easier that you're like, hey, what I'm doing actually does have a meaning behind has an impact in someone helping someone.
00:20:53
Speaker
So I think that's kind of cool. 100%, if you look at you know just any kind of corporate structure, it's like it might feel to that engineer that some guy in some ivory tower is like, hey, do this with some arbitrary deadline.
Unique Challenges in Home Depot's Payment Systems
00:21:06
Speaker
and if there's no ability to tell the story from from that why all the way down to the why we need to code this tiny widget, um for lack of a better term, then everything can be lost. And you and then yeah your outlook on those late hours becomes negative versus positive. Yeah.
00:21:22
Speaker
One of the things we love about pod, one the things I love about this podcast through our experiences at Caliberty, we engage with tons of different industries, tons of different people from those industries and and see these unique challenges and everything.
00:21:38
Speaker
When it comes to Home Depot, what are some of those kind of unique challenges in the payment space that that that you all face and that you can share? Sure. So right now we are in the mat in the middle of a large, very large retirement effort.
00:21:53
Speaker
So we have some core legacy systems that are being sent down and migrating to all new platforms. You know, I think it's the same story that almost every engineer, products manager, and like any, like it's the same, same story we all face.
00:22:05
Speaker
um But that's, that's been my life for the last couple of years.
Migrating Legacy Systems at Home Depot
00:22:09
Speaker
um So as a part of that, I've developed definitely some keen insights or what I feel are keen insights into how I personally operate, how I like, or how I, how I use product management and the core principles there to help drive the team towards success.
00:22:25
Speaker
So I know you, as we' we're talking along, you kind of mentioned, brought up a few times, OKRs and that sort of thing. ah how How do you incorporate kind of those um those key results into you know when you're driving product outcomes and for for your teams? how How do you incorporate those metrics?
00:22:43
Speaker
That's kind of an interesting aspect. You don't really hear. a lot of teams leading with like, Hey, this is the needle we're moving and and this is the, why we want to move it. Like starting with that, it's it's kind of a byproduct after the fact they don't drive things with, with those OKRs a lot of times in our experience, or at least in my experience that I've found.
00:23:03
Speaker
Tell me a little bit bit about that. Sure. So I will say as a, any typical retirement effort, you're kind of just like, I need to move X from Y box Z on in the cloud, right. Or whatever it is.
00:23:17
Speaker
And, you know, I feel like so many times when, when that's the approach, first off, you're just doing a lift and shift and feels like throwaway work, or not throwaway work, but it's just like, it's just mundane work. It's just, I'm just rewriting this over here.
00:23:32
Speaker
i will say as a part of this, this retirement effort that we've been a part of, what I've found is that is it's incredibly important to actually put the time in to doing the product discovery. Because there are so many assumptions that are that are being made when, when you again, you talk about moving X application on Y server to wherever else.
00:23:52
Speaker
You're making assumptions that you need to make it look the same. And without doing the necessary product discovery, you don't even know if this team's actually using this still, if it's providing the value to them that that we originally thought it was.
00:24:04
Speaker
And so to get to your point on OKRs, starting with the discovery aspect, you can start to derive what those OKRs should look like for a good product, right?
00:24:16
Speaker
That was the existing legacy service. And then from there, you can build your new product to actually match those objectives and key results. And the good news is you have a head start because you you should already have metrics in place.
00:24:28
Speaker
And if not, hopefully it's pretty easy to get them in there because you've got a working code base, right? You've got a working system that it theoretically, you just got to take a little bit of time from the discovery aspect to throw those metrics in there and start to start to build your observability and visibility into that specific piece of software.
00:24:46
Speaker
So I think you know that was one of the things that that we've done or one of the core things that we focused on as a part of this retirement effort is Like, what are we doing? How many times are we doing it?
00:24:57
Speaker
Do we need to focus our time on it? Because we are under a time crunch for this retirement effort. So if it's not worth our time, it's not valuable to us based on the use, based on you know our previous assumptions.
00:25:10
Speaker
then why do it?
Product Discovery and Legacy Migrations
00:25:11
Speaker
Yeah. It's, it's interesting. you You bring up an interesting aspect. And um so when we're doing, you know, legacy migration to a new code base or whatever, anytime we're upgrading, modernizing, whatever you want to call it, there's always that, you know, kind of the, the, the the term feature parody, right? Like ah do exactly what that system used to do. And I love the idea of taking a fresh look at it, ah doing it, doing a product discovery again,
00:25:39
Speaker
Do we feel like, you know, maybe, because as you were saying, like some of some of the aspects of the old products, the the legacy product that's still there, they're almost like they're they're unnecessary now and and and nobody uses it anymore.
00:25:53
Speaker
You know, today, you know, a modern software engineering shop would would know that you need to you need to kind of cull those things out of the system over time. You kind of prune your system, curate it and make make sure, it you know, the code stays clean.
00:26:07
Speaker
Do you feel like that that aspect was we didn't do that in the past? And that's why there's kind of these leftover things that are just like, you know, just keep driving forward. don't Don't go back and clean things up. Just keep keep going forward.
00:26:19
Speaker
um Do you feel like that was kind of the mindset before and we kind of turned a corner? Oh, absolutely. I mean, if you look at a large company, right, they want you to focus on the value generating software, right?
00:26:31
Speaker
And it's very hard, in my opinion, to show value by going back and pruning and doing your code cleanup, right? So many times there are concessions made and, yeah, we're going come back and do this.
00:26:42
Speaker
When you get 10, 15 years down the road, it's very obvious when something didn't, you didn't come back and do it. Actually, i shouldn't say it's very obvious. It's very, it's it's not obvious at all. And that's why that's why Discovery, you know, is valuable in this regard.
00:26:53
Speaker
um But yeah, I think it's, to answer your question, I think it's because it's hard to show value for doing the pruning or the cleanup after the fact.
Clean Code and Technical Debt in Software Development
00:27:03
Speaker
I mean, we look at, you know, i mean, you know, Uncle Bob and and clean code and and like the accelerate book. I think that we're starting to educate the the industry more that that these things do actually matter. Quality matters. You know, um the code does matter.
00:27:19
Speaker
So do you feel like the the industry is latching onto that idea and then, getting it i know there's always going to be a aspect of eye rolling when we say that you know because of course it's it's kind of self-serving that we just get to go tinker and do you know things that aren't actually adding dollars to the bottom line visibly get it but like do you do you feel like the industry is is understanding and coming alongside us geeky software engineers and and and under understanding that aspect of of quality and and maintenance along the way It's definitely a topic that needs to be taken into account. You should always put your best foot forward and always focus on your work, right?
00:27:57
Speaker
However, I mean, think of your years as as a software developer. you know When you started, if you could go back and rewrite the things that you first wrote in your first five years of being a software engineer, like you would 100% do it now because you know how things can yeah how to how to make things more abstract, make things more reusable, make things more clean.
00:28:15
Speaker
et cetera. So I kind of think it's like that. I mean, everybody's, everybody's growing. We're not paying a bunch of 25 year software veterans, right? Cause you can't, that's impossible to do. um So I think it's, I think it's just by nature of how teams are are made up, you know, typically teams have senior and then they're supposed to do the code reviews and make sure everything looks clean, but can they read through all code?
00:28:39
Speaker
I don't plausible to expect that you're only going to have clean code, right? So so what can you shoot for? I think if you can start to gear up metrics around, you know, what looks good for your team, what good looks like for this specific team in this specific space with this specific makeup, I feel like that's where you can kind of gauge, again, that question of what good looks like.
00:29:01
Speaker
I know you were you were you were talking about a couple of weeks ago when we prepared for this episode, the the kind of that the art of storytelling and then how that's super important for for product development and you know product engineering.
00:29:15
Speaker
Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I thought that was a really interesting thing. I hadn't hadn't really heard anybody talk about that and out loud before.
Storytelling in Tech Leadership
00:29:24
Speaker
One of the benefits, one of the values of going from software and a product and being able to relate to engineers, it's it's the same core principle looking elsewhere at other business stakeholders. you know And as you look to at a Home Depot, right very vertically structured.
00:29:40
Speaker
and I got bosses on bosses on bosses on bosses. And my ability to relate to whatever level and tell a story at whatever at whatever level that they are so that they understand the root problem in a short amount of time without going into too many details has has proven to be um very helpful for me. And some of the peers that I look up to are so good at it, right? The ability to take a step back and understand and kind of goes back to the core principle that I even mentioned from a Home Depot perspective of being able to meet our customers where they are.
00:30:12
Speaker
And it's it's the same way for, you know, if I'm if i am in a room some VP and I need to explain some very detailed process that they have no idea even happens, like how do I do that well?
00:30:23
Speaker
Well, it's through telling a story. And in my opinion, the best way to tell a story is put them in the perspective of somebody that is going to go through that route. Now that gets very hard for back-end systems, so can you you know so it's helpful to then personify the data, personify the systems.
00:30:40
Speaker
And in doing so, I think, the to me, that's where the art of storytelling comes about.
Value of an MBA in Tech Leadership
00:30:47
Speaker
your Your ability to relate and then your ability to personify and and tell a story from from start to finish to get buy-in, to provide an understanding of the problem at hand and the potential solution.
00:30:59
Speaker
Yeah, I think a lot of us, ah you know, hardcore geeks, you know, as part of of a struggle of us when we grow up in the industry is, you know, if we we live at that, you know, very, very minutia level detail, optimizing code here and there, big O notation kind of thing, right? Like that's our world and we we have to get into ah like a serious flow state and even even do it to deal with something like that, right?
00:31:23
Speaker
Yeah. um when we're trying to talk to those business folks, the pointy haired bosses of the world, so to speak, it's like, we were like, well, actually the B tree algorithm, you know, like we, we want to talk at that level, like, cause that's our world. Right. So yeah, I think it's um as you grow up in the industry, learning that aspect of and storytelling, I hadn't heard it really articulated that way, but I like that.
00:31:45
Speaker
I'd love to like, maybe you talk about the future. And one thing that kind of came to my brain here as we were talking is like, you know, What we're doing right now, we feel like, you know, we're we're the modern software engineer. We're doing it right.
00:31:59
Speaker
However, what do you think, you know, just like we're doing right now, like you're doing right now, you're replacing legacy systems. Do you feel like in 40 years, that the same type of activities are going to be going on in 40 years. and they're going be looking back at what we're doing they like, what were those idiots thinking? You know, same thing we kind of think we say, you know, when we're looking at the legacy systems, are we doing it so right now that we will avoid that in the future? Or is it, is it just this constant like cycle of renewal in our industry?
00:32:30
Speaker
I think we'll be doing it in the future, but I think at a much different level. it'll be much higher, right? Probably more system oriented collections of systems versus, you know, where we're looking at single files and and multiple files to to rewrite.
00:32:43
Speaker
um So I think, you know, I think it'll become more, we're we're at a very foundational level. I think artificial intelligence and and everything else will allow us to continue to step up and focus on the bigger and bigger and bigger problems as as strategic thinkers and problem solvers.
00:33:00
Speaker
And so I think, Yeah, we'll just continue to shift ourselves up. And in doing so, i mean, you look at history over time, right? That's the ability to create a tool to abstract the hard work that you were previously putting into it is it's human nature.
00:33:17
Speaker
and we want to We want more time to spend with our families. And how do you do so? You provide an ability to be more efficient. and And that's kind of at the place we're at now. Yeah. All right. So let's, let's get into our, our next segment. What what we call ship it or skip it.
00:33:34
Speaker
Ship or skip. Ship or skip. Everybody. We got to tell us if you ship or skip. Okay. So I highlighted a few, we we came up with some ideas and I, and so I, I highlighted a few that I thought might be appropriate for our conversation.
00:33:49
Speaker
First off, Getting an MBA, you mentioned ah that you did get an MBA. that all it's cracked up to be or not? From the soft skill perspective, yes.
00:34:01
Speaker
And what I mean by that is I was working a full-time job, but then still had to sit down and force myself to focus on reading the textbook, getting my homework done, communicating with other people who I didn't i didn't want to talk to at the time um by the nature of you know team projects and whatnot.
00:34:17
Speaker
From the soft perspective, absolutely yes. From the... the information that I actually learned, I could have picked up a book of my own, you know, but it's, it's that, it's that those guardrails that were set up and forced me to do this.
00:34:33
Speaker
Yes. I would say ship it. Ship it. I know for, for me particularly, I think if I was a you know, won't say just a software engineer, but like if I was continuing on kind of at the individual contributor level,
00:34:48
Speaker
may not be as important. I think I can pick up business concepts from from books to be more empathetic with and business minded to be a better engineer for my you know clients or customers or employer.
00:35:00
Speaker
But for what I do now as as a CTO, the, like, you know, I went, I studied computer science. I didn't learn about cost of goods sold. I didn't learn about, you know, all the, you know, gross profit margins, all those things. I didn't learn about that stuff. Right. I don't even think I took an accounting class and in school. Right. So I do think it would have been beneficial for me to learn that. when, and you're right.
00:35:22
Speaker
and I do a ton of reading about, you know, leadership and and business and all that stuff. But like, I think that a structured taking me through a structured program and knowing like, Oh, here's the things you need to read. Right. You know, like not knowing what, who Michael Porter is, you know, those, those sorts of concepts that I had to like stumble across in my reading and my research or get a book recommendation from someone.
00:35:42
Speaker
Uh, it may have done so in a more structured and probably quicker fashion. I might've gotten to where I needed to be quicker, but yeah, I think I, I would, if I could go back two or three years ago, i would probably tell myself, Hey, go get an MBA or or at least take some business classes and understand this stuff.
Future of Cryptocurrency Payments in Retail
00:36:00
Speaker
All right. So for our next ship it or skip it topic, I wrote down, what about like in in a retail setting, accepting crypto payments, so cryptocurrency payments in you know at ah at a checkout register. What do what do you think about that?
00:36:16
Speaker
From an industry perspective, there's definitely a push toward allowing that. And you know there are there are startups all over the place that allow for things like that, which makes complete sense. And it it provides the trust factor across the network.
00:36:30
Speaker
And so I think, I absolutely think there will be some type of play in that. It'll probably be like in the, I touched on the private label stuff. It could be in that regard, right? Private label networks or hopefully not, maybe undermining Visa and MasterCard and Amex and then the way that they network or have created their networks and that's how they make their money.
00:36:51
Speaker
Like Visa and MasterCard, they don't provide a product. They just provide like a physical card or anything. They just provide the network for for people, for banks to operate on. Right. um So the rails, so speak right? Exactly. yeah Amex is different. Obviously they do supply both the network as well as the cards themselves and the, in the product themselves.
00:37:11
Speaker
um But I think I'd be interested in in that regard, and more of disruption to the norm versus um like disrupting a retail, a retail individual.
00:37:25
Speaker
So yeah. So you're, you're shipping or. Depends on the outlook. but I would say ship it. Yes. Yeah. For me, um you know um i'm I'm an architect. We always say this. My answer is always, it depends, but but it it doesn't really depend. It's, I say ship it because you have to. I think the the world is such that the the demand is there. So I think you're going to have to do that. as you' It's like one of those, you're going have to check that box for your customers. Cause if you don't want everybody else's right.
00:37:54
Speaker
I think that, we're the ship has sailed on that i think we're all already kind headed in that direction as an industry now and this is this is kind of a weird aspect of me and the way i i'm a bit of a luddite which is funny as a cto uh crypto i've never i've never been i don't own one bit of cryptocurrency i just i i'm for something about me just does not trust you know okay yes it's decentralized ledger but don't know.
00:38:20
Speaker
I just, um' ah i'm I'm a bit of a skeptic and when it comes to crypto and it's, I don't know. I just can't latch onto it.
AI in Product Management: Assistance and Oversight
00:38:27
Speaker
Okay. So the third ship it or skip it is there's a lot of buzz in the product world.
00:38:34
Speaker
Um, I mean, there's a lot of buzz in every world regarding AI, but I think in product, it's like, oh, we don't need product people anymore. We just have AI generated stuff and like the do our designs and do this and all like, where where are you on that? is is Is that something that you would say lean into, ship it, or or is this like, skip it?
00:38:53
Speaker
Absolutely ship it. there's There's always going to be the human interaction, you know but you look at the Atlassian tool set, ah Confluence, and then into Jira and Jira Align and and all of those different products, they're they're definitely leaning into it. And I see them as they are the front runner when it comes to um product development, lifecycle software.
00:39:14
Speaker
um So I think if you can continue to... There's a problem with that. You got to sell your soul to the devil, as as I call it, right? You got to put everything in there and you can't use any other tool and you got to make that tool work for your team versus like, or you make your team work for that tool versus making that tool work for your team sometimes.
00:39:32
Speaker
There's flexibility. i'm I'm with you there, but like, you know, there will be times where you need to you need to make it work. But if you if you sell your soul and you go all in, then absolutely ship it because the productivity gains are outstanding.
00:39:45
Speaker
mean, if I can spend, you know, for one of my product managers, if they could spend 50% of less time writing stories and working on strategy and communication and storytelling and all those other things that we're expected to do, i mean, that's that is incremental value that they can then generate for the team.
00:40:04
Speaker
I'm in agreement with you on that. i think but the The part, again, I'm a Luddite, right? um When it comes to AI, as long as the human in the loop activities are still there for where they make sense. Like if you take away the fact that you went down to the the the Home Depot and you're watching the actual customers,
00:40:23
Speaker
ah how they interact with the systems you're building and and and how you're helping them and making their, their life you know easier on them. Like a computer can't do that.
00:40:34
Speaker
Right. They, they can't do that. The level you can write with that human level of empathy and that that's just that they can't do that. But yes, absolutely. When it comes to like, ah Somebody said it last, or I was at a banking conference a couple weeks ago, and in the way they said it, i loved it. It was, ah we we make our humans superhuman, right? So we still have humans, but human beings, right? We still have human beings, but we're making them superhuman with AI. So just making them more effective at what they do. Like you're saying, like, I don't have to spend six hours a week.
00:41:05
Speaker
just typing out JIRA stories or, you know, and all that stuff. So yeah, I'm with you on that. chip it. think there are two important factors. The one is can summarize documentation from the past, from a code perspective, from a confluence perspective, right? The documentation, the product discovery, all the product work that we did, I can summarize it moving forward and it's easier for me to look things up.
00:41:29
Speaker
And the second piece is I can delegate. and then delegate to this bot to generate these things. And then that's where the human in the loop comes in into play, right? the You obviously got to confirm that what was generated matches your expectations, but it at least helps you with that ideation of how would I structure things if you kind of give it a prompt and then you just detail it and gear it up and it then it eventually fits and you put your human touch on it.
Quick-Fire Personal Questions with Ryan
00:41:53
Speaker
All right. We are at the point of our episode that that is the most important, the most impactful ah for our audience, and that is what we call the lightning round.
00:42:03
Speaker
It's time for the lightning round. Rapid fire,
00:42:14
Speaker
don't slow down. Hands up quick and make it count. In this there's way out. It's time the lightning round. Please remember there are ah correct answers to these questions.
00:42:26
Speaker
Are you ready? Fired up. Fired up. Okay. Have you ever slapped someone in the face? Yes. Do you like the name Charlie for a girl? Charlie's Angels, yes.
00:42:38
Speaker
Have you ever been to Africa? No. Would you go to a movie alone? i would. Never have. Are your grandparents mildly rude? Absolutely.
00:42:50
Speaker
And all the better for it. Super Mario Brothers or Zelda? I have a three and a half year old son who's on Mario. So super Mario Brothers. All right.
00:43:00
Speaker
Well, that was fantastic. I believe you got all the questions, right? Uh, from my calculations. so Uh, so 100% gold star. Uh, fantastic. Any final thoughts or advice that you'd want to share with the audience?
Closing Remarks and Listener Engagement
00:43:14
Speaker
Not necessarily, but I do really appreciate the time. If anybody has any questions or is looking for any follow-up conversations, like I'm um a learner. I love to learn to new perspectives and I'm definitely open to it. This has been fantastic. I really enjoyed our conversation today.
00:43:29
Speaker
ah Thank you to the to our listeners for tuning in and thank you to you know everybody that makes this podcast possible, you know editing, producing, all of the things. Thank you to everyone. ah Don't forget to subscribe, ah rate and share the forward slash podcast with your friends.
00:43:45
Speaker
If you have any ideas for topics or you would like to appear on the podcast as a guest, ah please email us at the forward slash at Caliberty.com. And that's C-A-L-L-I-B-R-I-T-Y.
00:44:00
Speaker
Thank you again, Ryan. it was ah It was a pleasure having you on here. It's great to see you again after it's been a while. I haven't seen you in a while, but ah it's been, we really enjoyed it. And thanks everybody for tuning in. This has been the forward slash and I'm your host, James Carmen.