Growing Engineering Organizations

Tullio Siragusa (00:10):

Hi everyone. Welcome back to Tech Leaders Unplugged Them, your host, Tullio Serosa. Good to be here today. Back from a little holiday break. Joining me today is Rob Molchon, who is the CTO at Vestwell. Excuse me. Pleasure to have you with me this morning, Rob. Good to have you on the show.

Rob Molchon (00:33):

Thank you. It was great to meet you. And I'm big fan of podcasts. I'm happy to be here. It's funny 'cause usually people mess up my name, not the company name, but you did. You got one right there. It was good.

Tullio Siragusa (00:42):

<Laugh>. Yes. So we'll, we'll get it right, hopefully by the end of the show, right, <laugh>? Yeah. So let's talk about today a growing engineering organizations. Where we're going tofocus on is having a blueprint for what's really important. So I'm looking forward to this conversation because it's really critical to have a very good, strong engineering culture and having a good foundation for success. But before we get into the topic, let's get to know you a little bit. Tell us how you got here. Tell us about Swell and we'll dig right in.

Rob Molchon (01:19):

Yeah, sure will do. It was absolutely not what I thought I'd be doing when I grew up. When I went to college, I went to college for originally to become a lawyer. And then I thought I was going togo into clinical psychology. I'd always been a programmer since a little kid when I got my Apple two E in the early eighties. And then while at school, found out I had to do all my term papers on this big Unix system and learned a lot about that. And then when I graduated in the early nineties, the only thing I could do was for, for job. The first thing I found was actually a tech support job for the US' first dial up internet access. It was a call company called Software Tool and Die. And my job was the person to sit there and answer your emails or answer your calls on how to set up gofer and whatnot.

Rob Molchon (02:10):

And I kind of didn't know what I was doing, but I learned very quickly and I had a great opportunity to partner with the experts there. And then throughout my career, I just kind of find myself, I guess I've been really blessed to be in the right space at the right time. I moved to New York. I joined a startup that was a alternative music bulletin board system as sort of the head technical person, again, probably underqualified that went into new media that went into ad tech space. And I got, went from an infrastructure point of view to a software point of view. And I remember I was working for a company called uncast that did advertising. And I was very frustrated with the way that our requirements and all that stuff worked. And I stumbled across Agile and Scrum in particular. And I was part of the transformation for that, that company wound up to become the VP of that company and so on and so forth.

Rob Molchon (03:03):

So for the last 20 years, I made that switch from a being a programmer to engineering manager or engineering management for better, for worse. And I've had been blessed to be in a lot of different companies that have grown, grown from being like 15, 20 people to over a hundred coming in maybe when there's 50 people and growing that to be multi-state, multi-regional, et cetera. And I've just seen a lot of things that I think fit and I'd like to share that with, with different aspects of where you are as a company. That's kind of it. Yeah. And go ahead.

Tullio Siragusa (03:40):

I'm looking forward to it because there's different audience members here might be at different stages of their growth, so I'm sure they'll appreciate learning. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about swell. What's the company about?

Rob Molchon (03:55):

Swell is a, so we are dedicated to closing the savings gap here in the us. So we started with the small business five, or excuse me, 4 0 1 Ks. So in the US most people really aren't prepared for retirement. It's just something that, you know, we used to have this pension system where you just get a guaranteed income for life. Then we start having 4 0 1 Ks. And if you're lucky enough to be at a company that offers that, there's a great benefit. But there's tons and tons of small businesses that just aren't served by that market, primarily because the technology involved is old, super complicated and expensive. So the players, so the legacy players don't find it profitable to serve 4 0 1 K plans for your pizza parlor, for your dentist office for p you know, 50 to a hundred participants in that savings plan.

Rob Molchon (04:45):

So we came out with an offering our, our C E o recognized it in his last company, what a pain it was to offer this benefit to its employees. And we created our own technology system to make that easier. Since then, we've gone on to incorporate more savings vehicles. There's a few states that are mandating I r a participation for small businesses. So we power that to make that easy and affordable for the both the sponsors. Those are people offering the plan and the participants, the people who are saving money. And you know, at this point we're sa helping over 300,000 savers save more than $30 billion. And it's just the start, right? There's more things coming in terms of other vehicles for tax advantage savings. We already offer five 20 nines, which is for college I tuition. And there's other things along the way.

Tullio Siragusa (05:37):

Very cool. Well, anytime you're disrupting an old industry with some new ideas, you require innovation, right? Yes. So let's go, right? Let's dig right into it. Let's get unplugged. So in, you know, back to the topic I think we can agree that cultivating a strong engineering culture is the foundation for success. Yeah. But what are some of those key elements that make this foundation for success in your opinion?

Rob Molchon (06:09):

Yeah, there, there, there, there's a quite a few that you eventually will have to pay attention to, whether it's, I think it starts with hiring and talent acquisition, right? Training your people on how to do interviews to do them effectively. There is architectural standards. What is the way you want things to work from your platform point of view? There are agile or best practices, team practices. What, what have, what have you. Ultimately there's career management. There's audit readiness. If you're in a industry like we are, that's very controlled from an audit perspective. You have security, you have you have succession planning, you have metrics that you need to capture. You have Jira hygiene if you're using Jira or whatever, C I C D. There's a ton of things that you have to do onboarding for new employees, but you don't have to do it all at once.

Rob Molchon (07:01):

And so my goal here is really to talk through when those different activities are most effective or most required for your organization, depending on where you are, really from a size perspective is what I found most most influential. But also sometimes you have to layer in both your personal goals and the company goals for how you want the engineering culture to be as well as the industry that you're in, right? I would, you know, if, if I, even if I didn't like audits, but I think audits were like, not really worth the time. I can't get away from it in my current job. Like we are very, very, very, for good reason under audit from different state agencies from you know, a SOC two compliance perspective, all that stuff, because we're dealing with people's money and you want to make sure that we are not messing it up. So I totally understand that. But if I were in a different company, maybe I wouldn't spend as much time and, and effort and money and people on audit readiness. So,

Tullio Siragusa (08:02):

Okay. So let's, let's talk about this a little bit. You mentioned one, hiring the right talent, retaining the right talent. You talked about agile development you know, which is adopting to change and delivering results, but also empowering I mean, the idea of agile is to be self-empowered. And then of course you also talked about a little bit about succession plan. So it's creating opportunities for people, something to look forward to. Yep. And, and then finally, you know, having, I would guess inclusive and diverse of teams as well, right? Yes. Depending on what's going on in the organization. But you also mentioned knowing what the needs are in the company you're in, right? Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. So you have to adapt to the environment. In a highly regulated environment such as your, your company, there's a lot of compliance requirements which creates a different kind of pressure, a different kind of a, of a structure within the organization. So how do you balance that, right? You know, delivering results, being compliant, but also creating an environment that is friendly, fun, perhaps even exciting, and <laugh> and opportunistic. How have you found this sort of secret sauce for that balance?

Rob Molchon (09:25):

Well, I think it, it starts with if you're the engineering leader or like the c t o, like myself or maybe a VP of engineering or maybe not even head of all of engineering or maybe you're head of qa, you need to understand what the values of the company are from a success perspective. Hmm. And that's something that will probably change quite radically right now with the economic climate. So it used to be grow at all costs for companies like mine where we're about 300 people now. And so we're not like a startup startup, but we're sort of in that mid-range. And now there's going tobe a lot more emphasis on margin. There's going tobe a lot more emphasis on controlling costs for us in particular, but just in general across the board, because money's no longer free to borrow. It's harder out there when you're in the you know, pre i p O world because lenders are very much more conservative. So that's one thing you need to really understand what it, what your company values. And that's going tobe hard because they'll say, Hey, we want you to go fast and save money and have no bugs and have no security. And it's like they just want everything. But you have to really have them force rank, sort of what is most important for the company at this moment right now. And understand that. I will say that when you're small, go ahead.

Tullio Siragusa (10:39):

Just the question there, you that's talks to adapt adaptability. So I'm curious, you know, because we tend to like stability as human beings, right? So that's a change. Now you had a particular goal, now you're changing a little bit. So I'm curious if you can talk a little bit about how you help the organization adapt to these kinds of changes as well as you go into you know, best practices there.

Rob Molchon (11:07):

You know, what, what is the saying? What got you here won't get you there? It's, it's, it's hard 'cause we are generally change adverse, even though we all, I mean, the whole point of agile is change is always coming and you have to adapt, et cetera. But in general, there's a lot of who move my cheese out there for people. And so like, wait a minute, I thought we were here to save money and, and now all of a sudden you're saying you want us to be more innovative, right? So those changes will happen throughout the life cycle of a company not just based on their growth, but just on the economics and what's going out in the marketplace. Could also be a lot of companies shift their priorities, shift their products, and you need to be able to communicate that well. And I think the first thing is you repeat it, repeat it, repeat it, repeat it.

Rob Molchon (11:50):

It doesn't matter how often you can't oversay it, and you should say it in as many different ways as possible because people really need to understand it. Company values are a great thing. We have a few company values here. Two important ones are act like an owner and one is find the better way. Now it's important. Those, those, those values were in place before I came in as C T O. But it was very important for me to understand that because that has consequences, right? That what that's basically saying is we prize individual that individuality and we prize sort of team first. You're in control of your own destiny. Go. What we don't prize at the current time is a lot of coordination, a lot of making sure we're all going on the same timeframe using this exact same processes because we are trusting our smaller squads in the development world and our smaller business teams to go out and solve the problems.

Rob Molchon (12:47):

That's the point of where we are. And that's what's gotten us here to make us go very quickly. But as I mentioned now, we are about thir 300 people strong. You know, I think we were closer to one 70 when I joined. And we have, you know, 13 different squads. We have shared services on the development side. So now coordination's a little more important because we've gotten to the point where a lot of product offerings can't be done simply by one squad pushing out what they want. They have to coordinate with another team on an architectural level or on a product offering level, right? Maybe it's a front end team that services the savers, the people saving money that you need to coordinate when you are really about payroll, ingestion whatever the case may be, coordination's becoming more important. And it has been over the last, I'd say, three or four months, and I can see it going that way. So I've got to start talking about that. Got to start talking about that As of value, yes, we still value acting like an owner, but we need to understand that we rely on each other. And then transparency on what we're delivering or not delivering or what we're prioritizing or not prioritizing. Is it increasingly important because we have an audience, right? So, Rob, does that make sense?

Tullio Siragusa (14:01):

I'm curious how you balance that, right? Because we, we often collaboration and coordination gets confused with the need of consensus. Yeah. and, and a lot of organizations struggle with this idea of of the difference between these three things. Yeah. And so, you know, in, in one aspect, act like an owner requires a lot of autonomy at the same time do things better, especially when you're moving faster, it does require coordination because you need to work together. So there's not about, it's not about codependency, is it is interdependency. So how, how have you striked that balance and help the organization to realize, hey, it's not about consensus. You know, you still have to move forward, but we still, we need to coordinate things in such a way that, that we're proactive. What's worked for you in helping teams realize that it's not, you know, analysis paralysis, mindset, <laugh> still move forward, but coordinate if you could share that. 'cause That I think a lot of organizations struggle with this aspect. So I'm curious to see what Oh, yeah. You have to say about it.

Rob Molchon (15:11):

I've certainly struggled in it, in my career. I've certainly made missteps along the way trying to navigate this transition. 'cause I see this transition often. So I, I know a lot of the bad ways to do as well as the good. I think the first one is, you, you had to come to a realization. You're going from a position where you kind of let every garden grow on the vi individual squads. Maybe they use different statuses in their scrum or whatever, and maybe they have different pacing or what have you. You have to start getting to a little bit more consensus. You don't need to have one size fits all for everyone. And in fact, you, you never will probably be able to achieve that unless you're a giant, giant, giant company. But you need to tell them why you need the coordination. And for us, the first thing is visibility.

Rob Molchon (15:55):

So if you want to handle bugs differently in your workflow, that's okay. But we need to understand what your bug to production defect ratio is so that we can look across the entire organization and say, okay, are we spending enough on our quality efforts? Are there certain areas of the architecture that are that are in, in flames and we need to spend more attention to that? Are that they're always produce defects when we release them. So that's the first thing. Tell them why. The second thing is, I would never go with a top down, and I've done this before, just like, okay, this is what it's going tobe everyone two weeks scrums no more Kanban, blah, blah, blah. Because people rebel. You have smart people. Hopefully you've hired smarter people than you. And if they don't know the why, they're just going topick it apart.

Rob Molchon (16:39):

Because like you said, we don't like change. And change for no reason, just feels like bureaucracy and lack of trust, right? And that's, that's something that can certainly filter down. You hear that we need to ship faster, and then people on the engineering side take that as a, a knock against them when it's not necessarily the culprit, right? And that's, I think that that's part of my job also is kind of explaining the nuances of software development and why adding another person won't necessarily make things go faster and all those things to the non-tech executive. But in terms of making that transition, I think getting consensus is a better, or at least some partial consensus, even if you feel like you're leading a horse to water is better than just dictating something. The other thing that can be your friend, and I saw a, a, a previous C T O when I was a, in a GLAD science brought this in, and he brought in really well was a, a framework.

Rob Molchon (17:40):

So he, he brought in safe, scaled agile and that might not be for everyone, but what it really did was got consensus on the value and how to do things. And he did it brilliantly by getting the senior executive leadership to buy in before he even brought it down to the technical folks. So sometimes you, if you're in technology, you want to lead with agile and lead with technology, but that might be counter to the company culture. And you got to be careful because then it'll just be dismissed as this little engineering thing. You kind of got to get full company buy-in for these transformations. Does that make sense?

Tullio Siragusa (18:15):

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So let's just quickly recap a little bit before we move on to the next topic. We talked a little bit about having a good foundation for success, making sure there's alignment around the company's values. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> adapting to the environment based on what's going on, the microeconomics as well as where the company's heading, making sure that there's a good agile foundation. Teams can work independently, but also work collaboratively, coordinate activities where necessary gain consensus were necessary. Now, what's interesting about all this is you eventually get a well oil machine, right? It sounds like you've got that in place and then, and then everybody's humming along, but somewhere along the line is a few folks that are thinking about what's next, <laugh>. So then, so that link in the chain it's not a weak link. It's a link. It's a link that's like you know, I'm thinking about what's next. Yeah. So how do you balance succession planning and creating opportunities for growth in a fast changing environment like that where you're relying on those teams to work well? Yeah. And then there's those folks who like, I need, I want a next opportunity. What's next for me? How do you, how do you infuse that into the conversation?

Rob Molchon (19:31):

I think that, well there's, there's a few things in there and they're, they're good questions. I think the career growth is an important one, right? I think it's long acknowledged that for technologists you need to support the dual, at least a dual track career growth, where you can go up through people management or you can go up through technical leadership architecture in some cases. And you need to be able to support people trying those paths. And then going back, if it doesn't work, you might have people think, I want to try to be a manager. And maybe they think of it wrongly as the only way to get ahead in your company, but regardless, they think they can do it. And then they might find that they're very, very unsatisfied with it and want to go back. And you need to allow for that without penalty.

Rob Molchon (20:14):

And, and that could be tricky. That can be tricky in saying, okay, well, you know, maybe we need to change your salary back if you want to go to back to being this position instead of, you know, this director position. But it's worth it if you, if you give people the opportunity to stretch themselves and decide that they don't like what they're doing. So I think that's, that's an important thing right there. And then, like you said, the tracks are always changing ahead of us, so as soon as we get white well-oiled, expect the tracks to change, whether that's because you acquired a new company that you need to fold in, or you were acquired or you're going public or anything like that. So those are the things that I would, I would call out as being very important.

Tullio Siragusa (20:53):

Very interesting. Interesting. Very interesting. Yeah. Giving, giving people a trial and out from the what they thought was the next thing for them. Yeah, absolutely. I can't tell you how many people I know have moved in a direction and then years later have felt like, I wish I could go back the other way, but it's too late because then people think you're qualified. So that's a very interesting, very, very empathetic thing as well. So congratulations on that. We're coming up on wrap up. We're, we're, we're coming up on time in this whole environment. Yeah. You're also dealing with different people, different views, different way of doing things. From a personal perspective, how do you balance, you know, having a good inclusive and diverse team that and in, in an, in an advantageous way in terms of how you solve problems and how you create innovation because of different ideas and different views. What has been your experience on how to foster that and leverage that in a way that benefits everyone? Yeah.

Rob Molchon (21:59):

I think that I, I remember at the early on, I didn't understand that I had the boss, you know, invisible in tattoo on my forehead. So I'd go into a technical discussion and I'd be like, well, why don't we just do it this way? And I was just asking, like, I wanted someone to say, no, it doesn't work this way because whatever. And of course everyone's just like, well, Rob wants it this way, so we should do it this way. And I didn't understand the impact of that. So you have to really understand how people view you, and you've got to give them the autonomy to make their own decisions, even if you disagree with it as long as you've pressed them for the solution, should they not work out? How are you going toback this out? But I think it's very hard.

Rob Molchon (22:40):

You know, you have a lot of different styles of communication that rub people the wrong way if they're not moderated. So I think understanding that is important. We did some training on that here at Swell, and I think it's very helpful. You know, some people want it, you know, very direct. Some people want to be built to it, what have you. And understanding that and keeping that in mind, I think is very important. And then seeking out diversity as an objective is important. And you know, we have, we have the Black Empowerment Network at my company that I'm a part of, we have we have a, a women's group, we have a L B T group, we have other groups ERGs I guess you'd call them. And it's important for, to let those folks have an agenda and work and get some goals going on.

Tullio Siragusa (23:27):

You said something very thank you. You said something very interesting that requires significant amount of emotional intelligence for a leader to, to not be a one size fits all in terms of how you deal with people.

Rob Molchon (23:42):

Yeah.

Tullio Siragusa (23:42):

And be adaptable. That's the clear message that I think has come through through our conversation today, is being adaptable, embracing change, and working collaboratively. And the other thing that stood out for me is the importance of a lot of autonomy. You're giving people a chance to figure things out on their own term, but not do it so independently where they don't think about how the interdependencies of working with others. So tough thing to balance out. Sounds like you've, you've you've, you've dialed it in. Well. So congratulations, Rob. Thank, thanks for being with me this morning. I'm looking forward to the po the blog that will come out of this, this, this podcast conversation. It should be very enlightening and we'll share that with the community in the next couple of weeks. Stay with me as we go off to air in just a second.

Tullio Siragusa (24:34):

I'm going toannounce we have a guest tomorrow. Again, his name is Gustavo Barboza. He's the VP of engineering at Load Smartt, and that's going tobe tomorrow, Friday, the 21st, the same time 9:30 AM Pacific. And we're going totalk about transparent leadership, growing teams under a culture of trust. It's a good, I think, continuation of today's conversation about the importance of transparency and how that fosters a culture of trust. Because without trust, you just have people just doing a job. So thanks for being with me again today, Rob. Thanks for joining everyone, and I'll see you back again tomorrow.

Rob Molchon (25:15):

Thank you.