Let's talk about humans & tech

cto.coffee is a podcast about humans in technology. It features short conversation between me and varying guests, where we talk about the human side of technology and developing software.

Subscribe to the podcast’s feed, follow the show on Spotify or on Apple Podcasts.

cto.coffee Newsletter

If you’re interested in getting occasional (max. 1 per month) emails with updates from this site and what I’m learning on my journey to become a better human and leader, subscribe to my newsletter. Feel free to check out the longer version of why I started this newsletter, if you want to know more first.

Latest Writings →

Launching the cto.coffee Newsletter

End of April 2020 I sent out the first edition of my cto.coffee newsletter. It's meant as an experiment, for me to share more regularly what I'm paying attention to (Thanks, Richard Bartlett, for this great framing) and what is going on in cto.coffee land but also generally on my end.

Leadership as an Individual Contributor

Or: How to lead if you're not a manager. In the time of empowered (and hopefully self-organizing) teams it feels like a given, that not only people in management positions should be the ones taking on leadership. Heck, some teams and organizations even require their teams and senior developers to 'be leaders' without any kind of formal authority. At the same time, it feels very difficult to nail down what leading means for people who are not enabled by an organization's authority as managers usually are.

On the Structure of One on Ones

Over the course of those last two years, I found a structure for having 1on1 meetings that helps me a lot to get the most of these meetings, and which also helped to make 1on1s a deeply ingrained part of vaamo's tech team culture.

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Latest Podcast Episodes →

Episode 17 - On Belonging with Abadesi Osunsade

In this episode I talked to Abadesi Osunsade, the CEO and founder of hustlecrew, and also the VP of global community and belonging at Brandwatch. We talk about all kinds of aspects of belonging in the workplace.

Episode 16 - On Humanizing the Workplace with Vivian Acquah

A conversation with Vivian Acquah, an independent workplace wellness advocate from Amsterdam. Vivian's mission is to make the world a better place for all and future generations. She tackles that by humanizing the workplace.

Episode 15 - About Coffee with Jessica Greene

In this episode, I spoke with Jessica Greene and we talk about a subject dear to my heart and what keeps our podcast going. Coffee. It's time there's an episode that lives up to the name, and Jessica helped do just that! We talked about how Jessica fell in love with coffee and became a barista, the history of coffee, the roasting process, brewing and so much more. Jessica is a Software Developer at Ecosia and a Co-Organiser at PyLadies Berlin. So of course, we also talk a bit about tech and community building.

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