Dave has 20 years experience building software and leading technology teams across multiple industries, with a particular focus on bringing world class software engineering to organisations undergoing digital transformations, with a special focus on tech and product collaboration, along with building cloud and Agile capabilities and mindsets, and sustainable technology platforms and products.
Dave Bolton, CTO @ Domain
The Sydney tech scene is very healthy. We’re lucky to have several world class universities, a healthy startup and tech ecosystem, and an amazing city and surrounds which attracts people from all over the globe.
The biggest change has been the startup funding that has flowed into the tech scene during the last decade. Having been around before the startup “scene”, the difference is palpable, where good ideas no longer have to rely on bootstrapping but can attract serious resources if required.
There are many people who understand technology well enough to build things, but not enough people who truly have the mix of capabilities needed across technology, people and business to be super effective. Many specialists, not enough people with breadth. I just think this happens because people are specialising too much and too early, which industry tends to encourage in the desperation for skills in narrow areas. There is no patience for spending time on things outside core capabilities - for instance, really investing in people skills or learning how the business finances work, as just two examples.
The technology industry has done a bad job of developing leaders. Startups in particular really struggle to build leaders that can be successful past a certain scale. Sending people to conferences or having them read books on leadership is not enough (and even then I’m surprised by how many technologists are not investing in themselves by reading!) We desperately need existing leaders to be growing and developing new leaders, which means being very intentional about how we look to coach and nurture emerging leaders through all the hard things that happen while building a leadership career.
This depends on many factors, but generally JavaScript, front end, and native mobile skills seem to be evergreen in demand. Increasingly data science and machine learning capabilities are very bankable.
Everyone in tech will need a working understanding of machine learning. We’re not always going to understand how the machine comes up with the answers, but we need to understand how we put the machine in a position to give us those answers, if that makes sense.
It’s very exciting to think about the tremendous impact that quality data can have both for a business, but also the customer. Generally I believe that data will make customer experiences much better, though I understand why people are underwhelmed and even worried about data currently -- it just seems to be used in cynical ways at the moment. As companies get better at focusing on customers, data will be used to make our lives better, not just for more profitable ads.
I’m going to pick something unusual: Condesa Electronics - a “tech” company that builds beautiful handcrafted DJ mixers in Adelaide. I’ve just received one after four months of semi-patiently waiting, and is an amazing piece of craftsmanship.
For people levelling up their career to where their peer group are no longer other technologists, but other functions, I can highly recommend Patty Azzarello’s Rise - I’ve bought more copies of Patty’s book for people than any other book in the last half dozen years. It’s got a lot of practical advice, not specifically about a technology career but a business leader’s career.
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Despite being in business for over two decades, Phocas’ product launch cadence is still very much like a hot new startup. Engineers get to learn something new every day while exploring new tech stacks while working to fix a lot of ‘world’s first’ problems and assessing the latest technology available to improve existing products and create new ones.
Whether you’re looking to switch roles, advance in your career, or just looking for a change of pace - this article is for you.
You don’t need to look further than the news to know that there’s a lot of pressure on employees in tech… Burnout, the great resignation, tech valuations… It’s a lot. And showing your team some love can make a big difference at times like these.