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Episode 221:

The Art and Science of Technical Leadership in Early-Stage Startups: Building World-Class Engineering Teams from Scratch with Sokratis Vidros of Novu

December 24, 2024

This week on The Data Stack Show, Eric and John welcome back to the podcast Sokratis Vidros, VP of Engineering at Novu. Sokratis shares his journey in the tech industry, focusing on startups and software engineering best practices. He emphasizes the importance of team dynamics, balancing creativity with stability, and effective communication in early-stage companies. The group discusses the challenges of building software, the significance of version control, and leveraging AI tools in modern data workflows. The conversation also covers hiring strategies, managing stakeholder expectations, fostering a culture of experimentation, valuable insights for those navigating the complexities of startups and data engineering, and so much more.

Notes:

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

  • Sokratis’ Background and Journey in Data (1:19)
  • Engineers Wearing Multiple Hats (2:17)
  • The Era of Early Startups (3:32)
  • Lessons from Building Software (7:15)
  • Importance of Team Dynamics (9:12)
  • Balancing Creativity and Stability (15:00)
  • Version Control in Data Analysis (18:57)
  • Opinionated Modern Data Software (21:14)
  • Creating Dashboards for Company Stats (22:41)
  • Hiring for Intuition in Tech (27:38)
  • Interview Process Insights (30:15)
  • Protecting Intuitive Thinkers in Companies (35:08)
  • The Challenge of Trust (39:21)
  • Loss of Control in Delegation (40:14)
  • Founder Work-Life Balance (42:15)
  • Advice for Early-Stage Engineers (44:03)

 

The Data Stack Show is a weekly podcast powered by RudderStack, the CDP for developers. Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

RudderStack helps businesses make the most out of their customer data while ensuring data privacy and security. To learn more about RudderStack visit rudderstack.com.

About the Podcast

Each week we’ll talk to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists about their experience around building and maintaining data infrastructure, delivering data and data products, and driving better outcomes across their businesses with data.

To keep up to date with our future episodes, subscribe to our podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, or the player of your choice.

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