Unlocking Engineering Leadership: Insights from the Automotive Industry

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Speaker 1: My name is Matt, and I will be talking to Felipe Streb about cultural variations in work
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practices and effective communication and trust building.
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Speaker 2: Hey, Felipe. Buenos dias.
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Speaker 3: Buenos dias.
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Speaker 2: How is your how is your German?
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Speaker 3: My German is basic. But Basic. Growing.
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Speaker 2: Yes. So I'm asking this question because, like, we meet today. You worked in, Spain.
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You're you're Spanish, and you worked in automotive industry, on the engineering side I mean, software engineering side.
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And now you are engineering manager for a company in Germany.
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I I mean, in the capital of automotive industry in Bavaria. Mhmm.
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And the first question that I wanted to ask you, how you end up, in Germany?
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Speaker 3: Yeah. It was it was a journey, I have to say.
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The reality is, like, I want to work in this type of industry.
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So Germany is a obvious step.
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And, also, to be honest, I want to go to German, and my son is learning German.
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So I think that's the true most important things that why we are here.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. Nice. And and is it, is it different than working in, in Spain?
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I mean, regarding the business because I know that you work for, right, for this digitalization center.
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Speaker 3: Yes.
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Speaker 2: And do you see, like like, distinctive differences in approach to engineering maybe or leadership?
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Speaker 3: It's a little bit different how people in Spanish work, how people in Germany work.
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In In Spanish, we work, let's say, more relaxed at some point, but we do more hours, to be quite honest.
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In Germany, it's more, okay, let's go to work and we work, but at the end of the day, I think
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we are working a little bit less hours or at least seems like it.
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So that's hours that we work.
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Now in the leadership, it's quite similar.
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To be honest, IT is a global thing.
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It's I've in my experience in Argentina, Spain, Germany, and other countries that I know in
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the road, they all work in a similar way.
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Of course, they have some differences, but IT is quite standard almost everywhere, I would say.
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So that's not a big of change.
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It does change how things apply sometimes, how what is expected, and how much structure companies wants.
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Is known for structures and rules. They really love that.
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In Spain, it's not so like that.
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We have, of course, rules and structure, but this, I feel, is a little more flexible.
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Speaker 2: So I assume because you said that you work more hours in Spain.
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So because I spend a lot of time in in Spain, and I noticed that the the siesta during the work,
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it's not not in the thing anymore.
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Speaker 3: Right? No. No. No. No.
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Not not that not that's happened anymore.
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But we in Spain, we do have a second breakfast, which is fun and weird. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: So let's talk about more about the experience that you've got in Spain because you worked for
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Sadcoat, which I assume this is kind of like a digitalization center, and you try new things,
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that could work in automotive. Am I correct?
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Speaker 3: Yes. In in part. Sharp code, it was born as a company that was doing software for the Volkswagen Group.
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Of course, which is part of Volkswagen.
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Now we do some digitalization for the company, for Volkswagen and SEAT and company tools, let's
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say, and they also do some software for the cars.
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And another project that I wasn't involved, but yes.
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So it's quite big what they are doing.
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Everything related to cars at the end, all the companies that do cars. So it's quite interesting.
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What I do know is that, well, last year, I think, they split.
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Now they are 2 different companies.
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So I don't want to say how they're working now, but that was what they were doing when I was there. And could you tell
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Speaker 2: a few words about the products on which you work there?
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Were there, like, a more user facing interfaces or some internal, software for for the cars? Yeah. We were doing
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Speaker 3: software for Volkswagen Group. Volkswagen Group is a really big company, really big company and old.
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So they have some good things, which is the size and the power that they have, but that's also
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sometimes not great because for them, it's difficult to move faster, have a lot of processes.
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So that's where ZARCO join or appear.
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They really ZARCO is much smaller, and they can move much more faster.
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So while we do an application in 1 month, maybe for group as a whole group, it for them, it
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was taking much more long it was taking longer. So,
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yeah, that's that's what we Yeah.
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Speaker 2: So you were like a SWAT team. That's what Yes.
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Speaker 3: To say. Yeah. The the what we are doing was a software forward site group.
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We were basically taking some information from them, from different systems, new systems, old
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systems, really old, really new.
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They have a lot of size and colors there.
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So with this information, we were able to move much more faster.
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And also in Spain, we have a great team.
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There are a lot of great IT professionals.
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So I think I think this type of companies, like, also I need these smaller groups, smaller companies
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that can move much more more faster, can iterate, can create, can innovate faster.
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Otherwise, you are just a big elephant that cost you to move. Alright?
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Speaker 2: Could you could you give me some examples, like, what kind of projects they were or maybe for
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what the kind what for what cars or what was it?
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Speaker 3: I was working in internal project that was to to check the different,
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incidents that cars may have, how to track them, how to solve it, and make some analysis on the most usual problems. Right?
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So this way, they can track much more they can track better how to fix the problems and how
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and if they are if they exist, some manufacturer problems, some problems in the line of building the cars.
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That's the the project I was working on, the first one, and then we moved to the second one,
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which is which was a little more like
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how can I say about data data analysis and how to store the information, how to process the
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information to have a really good metrics?
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Speaker 2: Any particular technologies that you use or you usually use for for for the projects that you
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worked on at the the Southco?
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Speaker 3: Southco was working a lot with Java and all the Java environment, which is Kotlin, Spring Boot,
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I don't know, yeah, moquito, this all this technology around it.
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Everyone who knows about Java will know what I'm talking about.
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All the technologies around is quite standard.
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But, yes, I knew about the other project that they were working in vastly different technologies.
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Speaker 2: Mhmm. We
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Speaker 3: have everything there. From cars, which is more like different, see low level code to data lakes
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and things like that in the company.
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So you can find anything there.
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Speaker 2: And you started as a software developer, and I'm wondering about your, your your way to the managerial level.
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Like, you are now engineering manager.
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And I'm just wondering was, like, what helped you shape yourself as a newcomer engineering manager?
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Any books, mentors, lessons learned that you remember were particularly important for you?
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Speaker 3: Yes. First, let's let's start from the beginning because, yes, I was the developer for almost
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10 years back end mainly.
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But I did find something in my years working as a developer that is sometimes, not forever,
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but sometimes, it's difficult to for developers to see the big picture, to see the projects,
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to see what is the business case. Right?
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Because you are just doing code.
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You have a ticket and say, yeah, we need to read an endpoint.
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We need to chase database and you just do it.
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But sometimes it's difficult to see, okay, what's the impact of this?
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That's the obvious and knowing problem that everyone knows that business talks something, IT talks an ethics.
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And it's sometimes, not always, but sometimes it's difficult to merge both words.
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So, that's why I find out, I mean, I'm Alexandrine, you know, so I know you like to talk.00:10:18,085 --> 00:10:23,845So, I was thinking okay, I'm already 10 years in IT.00:10:23,845 --> 00:10:26,890
I will like to move to business IT, let's call it.
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So I start developing this side of my career. I did my MBA.
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I worked a lot on
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on on the on the features, on the on the impact of what we were building.
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So that helped me a lot.
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Now an MBA is nice.
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It's interesting, of course, but this sometimes away from the day to day work.
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So I have a really good mentor, let's say, engineering manager in Spain.
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Now he was working at that point in code.
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He gave me the opportunity to change from developer to team lead at that point.
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We call it team lead, but most more or less the same.
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He teach me a lot of things.
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He give me the opportunity to to make the impact that I wanted with everything I knew, and we
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have weekly conversation about anything I wanted.
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He was always hoping to discuss, have ideas.
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I I think I in the first two weeks of my new position in that company, I went to him and say, hey.
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This meeting that you did, it was offered.
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You should not do that again.
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And she was with the with the face like, I mean, what? He took it.
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We had a really good conversation.
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He said, thank you for this.
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I mean, it's always good, the feedback.
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So I learned a lot from him.
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And he also recommended a really good book, crucial conversations.
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Speaker 2: Mhmm. A
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Speaker 3: big part of this engineering management probably is to have these crucial conversations.
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Conversations that are really important.
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Your day to day goes by, and then you have a really important conversation that maybe you expected, maybe you didn't.
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So it's important to sometimes stop. 5 seconds, think what's going on, think what is the conversation,
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what's the the impact of this conversation, and how it's affecting different people around it.
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And I judge I try to think it and not go just by feeling, but sometimes feelings are good, but
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sometimes you just have to get angry because of and no reasons, and there's no need for that.
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So I will recommend to everyone who wants to move this broad crucial conversations. Yes. It's a
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Speaker 2: good one. I I haven't heard about it, so I I already noted it, to check it out.
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And I have a feeling that the Spain has a really strong engineering culture.
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So, like, my experience was because I worked for BMW.
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I worked in the automotive industry for quite a while, and, like, a lot of my colleagues were from from from Spain. Mhmm.
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And and we even have, like, at at the brain hub at my company in in Poland, we we had 1, one
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engineer from Spain working with us from Warsaw.
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And I see a lot of similarities and, like, a really good engineering background to solve the problems.
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And I'm just wondering for you as a native because you work with, many people, like, many nationalities.
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And, like, from your perspective, is the engineering, like, really strong in Spain?
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Speaker 3: Yes. I, I was mainly working in Barcelona, but, yes, I think Spanish people really like this approach of solving things.
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They just don't go around on on saying, yeah, what's the best way to solve it, how we should ideally solve things. They just say, okay.
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This is a good solution.
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Go solve it, work it, and they do it.
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So I think it's a really good approach. It's a fast approach.
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They have really good quality, but always know when to balance quality with with, with value. Right?
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So, yes, I was pleased pleasantly surprised with the engineering quality in Spain, mainly in Barcelona.
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Speaker 2: Mhmm. And last time we discussed, kind of like
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developers do versus, like, what they should do.
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And I I think you have very interesting opinion about it. Maybe you could elaborate. Yes.
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Speaker 3: I always talk to my teams that developers are not just making code.
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We call it code bosses.
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You are just not doing code.
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Your work is not doing code.
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Of course, it's an important part. That's clear.
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But it's not just like that.
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I would say that it's maybe half of the work.
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It's not you should not be 8 hours a day just doing code, unless you have everything really
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clear, which is really weird.
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But a big part of the of being a good developer is to what we talked before is to understand
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the business, to understand the the needs, to understand what everyone is saying, to understand the market. Okay.
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What's what's the impact of what I'm building?
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What I'm building is actually valuable?
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Or from the cost perspective, from the developer's perspective, maybe I can even
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give ideas on how these different features can be approached.
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This is from the business side, also from the, let's call, more technical and day to day work.
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Sometimes PM make a plan because that's the work, the NPOs. Does it work? Sure.
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But the input from the IT department, from the developers, that maybe that robot cannot be that
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because, technically, it's not possible.
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So we have much more to say than just doing code.
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My experience, really good developers are these people that jump into into a conversation with
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managers, with CEOs, with anyone and say, hey. This is not possible. Or, hey. You are wrong.
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This can be done much more easier and faster and, of course, cheaper.
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Or they just bring new ideas that I know they have.
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But at least in my teams, I always at the beginning, I always bring these ideas and push them
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to to talk about them.
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And after a few months, you start seeing that the thing starts behaving in different way.
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They're just not waiting to see what happened.
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They just they just start pushing for the 4 things to be done. This is good.
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I mean, I really like it.
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I think this is much more value to a company, to a project, and to the career development of developers.
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Also, sometimes brings topics that are not so great because you decide you define a a road map,
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and then developers say, hey. I'm not agreeing.
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And they start between PMs and developers get and engineering managers is a little difficult
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because they always want to make something something great, some great technology things, and
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we need to create value.
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So there's a learning in the way.
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Speaker 2: Thanks for that. And, you work probably a lot of with hardware. Right?
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The automotive, like, on one hand, you have a software, but you have a lot of hardware, that
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you need to tackle with this, with this software.
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And I'm just wondering in your case, for instance, like, at the reef, like, what is your team structure?
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Who is your partner with crime with who you work the most, Like, you know, like, on the engineering
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side, I'm wondering, like, how do you, how do you structure the the the leadership, the teams
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on the engineering and product side? Yes.
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Speaker 3: In the leadership of IT development team, we have a really good open conversations, tech leads,
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engineer managers, CTO, principal engineer, head of engineering also.
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We have really good conversations. It's an open conversation. This is important.
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If you cannot say things that you like or things that can improve, you have problem.
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You are part of the leadership, so that's a space where you should talk about things that are
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not working or something that are not correct.
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That's one side you need to be really good at there, but that's the problem with the engineering management role.
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You are in the middle guy.
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You are not in the team, but you are not fooling the in the the leadership.
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Let's say, we are in the leadership, but there are other people there. You have the CTO.
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You have the people with higher ranks, basically. Let's say it.
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So, yes, you need to be the bridge between them.
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You will get the punches from both sides, so you need a really good conversation with the leadership and with the team.
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I'm always really open with the team.
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I always say my work first once you want that you should be able to say anything to me.
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I'm like the psychologist if you want.
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If you come to me, say whatever you want, doesn't matter.
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If you don't like something, you like something, you whatever.
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Of course, wire will only line is respect.
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That's the only one that should not be crossed.
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After that, yes, you are you are the bridge between them.
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I think the my partner in crime in if you see like this, it's not in the dev team. It's the PMs.
00:20:33,590 --> 00:20:33,990
Speaker 2: Mhmm.
00:20:33,990 --> 00:20:40,045
Speaker 3: Upon the income is the PMs because you are a bridge between dev leadership, the team, and business,
00:20:40,045 --> 00:20:44,465
and business is speak another language, so you need to be really close to them.
00:20:44,760 --> 00:20:49,260
So I try to have a really good conversation with them conversation with them.
00:20:51,160 --> 00:20:55,014
So I think they are the key people here.
00:20:55,955 --> 00:21:01,075
Speaker 2: And you mentioned a really interesting topic about, you want to be, like, a psychologist or
00:21:01,075 --> 00:21:05,010
you want to be to have the engineers open to you. Mhmm.
00:21:05,010 --> 00:21:10,825
And I have, like, a personally my myself this problem, and I and I heard it multiple times.
00:21:11,065 --> 00:21:17,065
Despite, like, I'm I'm talking with my team, and I'm saying, like, I'm transparent, that you
00:21:17,065 --> 00:21:19,225
can talk whatever you want to me.
00:21:19,225 --> 00:21:22,940
I mean, like, you can share it whether you have challenges or whatever.
00:21:23,240 --> 00:21:29,955
Like, I'm here to help, but I still think it doesn't, it doesn't work. Right?
00:21:29,955 --> 00:21:33,475
So, like, despite of that, you say people like, hey. You can tell.
00:21:33,475 --> 00:21:35,735
You can share with me if you have some challenges.
00:21:36,275 --> 00:21:41,240
But still, the people, especially if they are introverts, they don't want to do it.
00:21:41,940 --> 00:21:49,945
So I'm just wondering how do you encourage them, to share, like, you know, some difficult matters or feedback with you.
00:21:50,404 --> 00:21:54,265
Speaker 3: Yes. It will be great to have a serial ballot here.
00:21:54,804 --> 00:21:59,290
I already searched for it. It doesn't exist. Everyone is different.
00:22:00,470 --> 00:22:05,830
But, yes, Internet people is it's more difficult to connect.
00:22:05,830 --> 00:22:07,575
That's I mean, that's happened in IT.
00:22:07,575 --> 00:22:09,735
That's happened in in your own life.
00:22:09,735 --> 00:22:12,855
It happens with the neighborhood. It happened with everyone. Right?
00:22:12,855 --> 00:22:14,155
This is how it is.
00:22:14,920 --> 00:22:23,065
What I find out is that more in the company, the when you show that you are actually interested
00:22:23,065 --> 00:22:28,525
in the career growth, that they are having the work, and so they can stay more, and you are
00:22:29,705 --> 00:22:33,320
as honest as you can. That's everything you need.
00:22:33,320 --> 00:22:34,919
You need more than this.
00:22:34,919 --> 00:22:36,940
It will it may take time. Sure.
00:22:37,559 --> 00:22:38,919
Sometimes it takes a few weeks.
00:22:38,919 --> 00:22:45,705
Sometimes it takes a few months until they open and they start to share what is actually important for them.
00:22:48,140 --> 00:22:53,820
But when they do it, when they share something that is important with them, I always more willing to it.
00:22:53,820 --> 00:22:57,195
I always try to solve that problem as soon as possible.
00:22:57,195 --> 00:23:03,435
Give them the responses they need for some response and or make that a priority for me.
00:23:03,435 --> 00:23:08,490
So they see that if they share something with me that it was difficult sometimes for them to
00:23:08,490 --> 00:23:11,450
share, I will be on top of the start.
00:23:11,450 --> 00:23:13,130
I will be trying to solve it.
00:23:13,130 --> 00:23:23,760
So sometimes, yes, it's not the it's not the solution that they wanted, but you show that it was important.
00:23:25,260 --> 00:23:28,835
You make it a priority, and that's create trust at the end.
00:23:30,755 --> 00:23:36,890
Speaker 2: And regarding those lessons learned, I'm always looking for something, like, the best like,
00:23:36,890 --> 00:23:38,809
the most influential lesson learned.
00:23:38,809 --> 00:23:46,225
And I'm just wanted to ask you, like, what was the most important lesson learned you have, learned as a technology leader?
00:23:46,365 --> 00:23:48,385
What was what was it for you?
00:23:51,700 --> 00:23:53,240
Speaker 3: The most important thing,
00:23:56,340 --> 00:23:59,400
I learned it at the beginning with this in chat code actually.
00:24:01,445 --> 00:24:09,190
If you see that that you are part of the team, but you are not in the team.
00:24:09,429 --> 00:24:15,509
So if you everyone all the team wants something and you know that that's not correct, that that
00:24:15,509 --> 00:24:20,505
is not the way to go, You just share it with the team.
00:24:20,565 --> 00:24:26,025
Say this is not the way to go because the reasons that you may be sharing.
00:24:27,059 --> 00:24:31,639
But you have a responsibility to say, no. This cannot be done.
00:24:33,995 --> 00:24:34,955
This is not the way to work.
00:24:34,955 --> 00:24:36,315
This will be a problem for team.
00:24:36,315 --> 00:24:38,895
I'm sorry to the team, everyone wants this. Sure.
00:24:39,434 --> 00:24:41,455
My job is to say no today.
00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:43,820
And this is the reasons.
00:24:44,039 --> 00:24:48,940
And you should not say, okay. The team wanted. Let's go with democracy.
00:24:49,565 --> 00:24:54,685
Democracy is good, but sometimes you are part of the leadership, and you need to to to make
00:24:54,685 --> 00:24:57,025
hard choices even if they are lucky.
00:24:59,140 --> 00:25:01,799
So, yeah, that's one of the big lesson learned.
00:25:02,500 --> 00:25:10,945
Speaker 2: Yeah. Awesome. And the last question, that that I'm asking all of my guests, can you recommend
00:25:10,945 --> 00:25:18,200
any books or podcasts or resources that have been particularly helpful to you as a tech leader?
00:25:19,300 --> 00:25:20,600
Speaker 3: A part of this podcast?
00:25:22,345 --> 00:25:24,265
Speaker 2: A part of this podcast, of course.
00:25:24,265 --> 00:25:29,485
Speaker 3: No way. And then when I started conversations for me was really important.
00:25:29,625 --> 00:25:38,415
It's important when you are coming from their side to to learn this part, how to properly make these conversations.
00:25:41,595 --> 00:25:50,500
And then I try to keep updated with different news, different things that appear to me.
00:25:50,500 --> 00:25:55,345
I have a really good network in LinkedIn, so I always have different ideas.
00:25:56,605 --> 00:26:03,270
Coming up from there, something very important is just you to go through what you believe.
00:26:03,730 --> 00:26:10,385
For example, I believe agile is the best, so I will I will we will how Azure is the best.
00:26:10,765 --> 00:26:14,285
That doesn't have any sense. You already know that.
00:26:14,285 --> 00:26:16,205
So I always try to see the other side.
00:26:16,205 --> 00:26:20,540
Sometimes it's not easy, and sometimes you don't agree, which is can happen, but sometimes it
00:26:20,540 --> 00:26:21,840
give you a different perspective.
00:26:22,540 --> 00:26:25,440
More when you're working with people, you need to see different perspective.
00:26:27,195 --> 00:26:34,395
And the most important one of all is to have, let's say, mentor. Someone to follow. Sometimes to teach you.
00:26:34,395 --> 00:26:40,910
Sometimes that someone that already walked the line, already make the mistakes, and can tell
00:26:40,910 --> 00:26:41,970
you what it would be.
00:26:44,655 --> 00:26:46,755
These two things are the most important things.
00:26:46,815 --> 00:26:53,075
See other ideas, try to be open to new ideas, and perhaps have a mental with it.
00:26:53,840 --> 00:26:56,640
Speaker 2: Awesome. Thank you very much, Felipe, for today's talk.
00:26:56,640 --> 00:27:00,720
I really appreciate, your insights and lessons learned.
00:27:00,720 --> 00:27:01,780
Speaker 3: Thanks to you.
00:27:03,695 --> 00:27:08,595
Speaker 2: Follow Matt on LinkedIn and subscribe to the Better Tech Leadership newsletter.