Today we are talking to Andy Sen, the CTO of AppDirect, and we discuss Being accountable to yourself, AppDirect’s platform for innovation and why individual ownership is one of the core values at their company.
All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast!
Andy joined Nicolas and Daniel as the technical co-founder of AppDirect in 2009, and currently leads the Engineering team. Andy is a long-time proponent of Agile software processes and rapid development cycles with over 15 years of eCommerce and web application development experience.
Previously, Andy headed product management for Salesforce.com’s AppExchange marketplace. He has also been responsible for implementing the world’s first and largest digital photo print-to-store service at Walmart.com.
Andy graduated with a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the Georgia Institute of Technology and started his career as a consultant for the eBusiness group at IBM Global Services. In his free time, he enjoys traveling with his wife and family.
Show Notes
What is AppDirect
Offer tools that make it easy to manage multiple clouds across multiple vendors
Lets you integrate once with AppDirect and then pass them out to multiple company
Platform for innovation
Kudos on the website
Started as a computer science grad at Georgia Tech
what was your earliest experience with Technology? Xenex spectrum
Talking about kids
Traveling – Skiing in winter – Hawaii in summer
Agile software talk
Jeff McKenna Agile manifesto signer
As you scale the team you have to scale your processes
Agile is the framework you use as a point of reference
Come full circle from 5 people to big teams to distributing work
Over 300 people in technology at AppDirect
Pie Chart of Week – Context switching is bad
What are the biggest milestones in 9 years. – Just can’t code anymore
Needing layers of management in technology
Lots of pressure on individual ownership – Ownership is one of the values at AppDirect
Where did you learn your discipline
Elon Musk First Principles
Setting goals and being accountable to yourself
Take the time to look at the pioneers in the field and apply the things that are applicable.
Not thought about writing a book
What piece of advice would you give yourself 10 years in the past
Be in the moment, Reflect on what’s happening
What pumps you up the most about AppDirect – Global Trend Businesses using more cloud software.
Hangs out Twitter SenAndy