Weaveworks

Principal Engineer

Riot Games

Principal Engineer (via Weaveworks)

Dream11

eSynergy Solutions

Chief Technology Officer-as-a-Service | CTOaaS (via Kawala)

Toyota Connected Europe

Engineering Lead (via Kawala)

Banked

VP of Engineering (Interim via Kawala)

Open Banking

Head of Engineering (via Kawala)

Expedia Group

Lead DevOps Engineer | Engineering Lead

DevOps Engineer

Sporting Solutions

Head of DevOps

WIN Technologies

Operations Engineer

👋🏼 I'm David Dolph (David A. Symons).

Driven by a sincere passion for people, problem-solving and technology, my work spans a multitude of industries: from global conglomerates (Expedia, Toyota, Riot Games) to early-stage, start-up and scale-up companies (Open Banking, Banked, Dream11).

🛗 Pitch: I help you self-actualise your software and technology objectives by building culture, creating kaizen (continuous improvement) via happy teams that accelerate software delivery that is safe, secure and in the cloud.
  
    🚀 I love helping companies (especially seed, pre-seed, Series A-C) start, build and scale
    💻 ..and working with Developers/Engineers, Containers, Cloud and Kaizen 💹
    💬 Ask me about DevOps, CI/CD, Shifting ⬅️, GitOps, Containers, Kubernetes and Cloud (AWS+GCP)
    🇦🇺 Made in Australia

Since when has a non-technical CTO been acceptable?

Here's how stupid this ideology is:

- Non-financial Chief Financial Officer
- Non-executive Chief Executive Officer
- Non-marketing Chief Marketing Officer
- Non-flying airline pilot
- Non-cooking chef

Technology for years has attracted benchwarmers like moths to a flame.

They see engineering as "IT", like some sort of bolt-on. A bunch of monkeys and nerds who are there like cattle to herd. Just some extra 'thing' that drives a business, and that anyone can throw their hat in, without realising that ALL modern companies are only successful if they understand they are (albeit partially) a technology company. 

This is rarely (never) applied to any other pillar in business.

How can anyone have the audacity, ego and lack of humility to think that being a non-technical CTO is going to scale in a world where AI will soon be in every moment of our waking life?

David Dolph

Helping companies Start, Build and Scale | ☁️ Cloud and Kaizen 📈

Since when has being tardy been acceptable?

3 days, 3 meetings, all no shows (and no, it's not my new moustache).

All 3 meetings were rescheduled to THEIR desired time (how nice of me).

All 3 meetings, no shows.

All 3 meetings, no sincere apology or believable excuse (one of them said it took 28 minutes to get their camera working).

All 3 meetings, when I assertively articulated how precious time is, none of them responded well, if at all! (I even cancelled a morning with family to accommodate one call).

I understand more than anyone - life happens. But, you take ownership and accountability. You don't ignore, deflect or gaslight.

Great leadership is respecting people's time as much as your own.

Poor leadership is thinking that you're doing them a favour.

No one is coming to save you.

There's no health, wealth, money, success fairy who's going to wave their magical wand and give what you wanted.

Relying on luck is like gambling, blaming others is for losers, no one's going to change your life but you.

The sooner you understand that there's no one to blame but yourself, life gets real - real fast.

#ThursdayMorningMotivation

Why are job interview questions like the video game Doom?

"Marine, we need you to head to the depths of the compound to rescue a scientist that is being held hostage by Satan and his manyfold minions. Here's your pistol and eight rounds of ammunition. Good luck."

This is what modern day interview questions feel like.

"You're in a dark room. There's no lights or light switch. There's a keyboard with only the keys illuminated. Tell me how you'd build a space portal using only 4 letters, and 1 number. Go."

They're stupid. They're reflective of the IQ of the hiring company, and only provide a single-pane, narrow-view of confirmation bias to the interviewer where only an agreement is a pass, but nuance is rejected.

We also misconstrue the dynamics of job interviews: casting the interviewer as the authority and the interviewee as the underling. However, in top-tier companies it is the other way round.

In short: the blind leading the blind.

"I hire people brighter than me and then I get out of their way."

Laurence and I worked together at Toyota Connected.

One of the best teams I've ever worked with - great team, great work and great people!

Laurence made that possible. He didn't accept the status quo and that drove our team to always do better.

➡️ The perfect asset for any company wanting to hire a strong, technical data lead.

Also, ask him anything about tennis! 🎾


Hi everyone - I am looking for a new role and would appreciate your support. Thank you in advance for any connections, advice, or opportunities you can offer. #OpenToWork

View the open to work details of Laurence

Looking for Director of Technology and Head of Technology roles

"I like a crisp document and a messy meeting."
~ Jeff Bezos

The Matthew Principle of Self-Improvement:

There are two types of people; those who don’t know how to improve their lives, and those who don’t know when to stop.

📈 

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