Nik Sumeiko

The sequence matters: 1. Build with no-code 2. Find paying customers 3. Hit limitations 4. Then hire engineers Not: 1. Search for CTO 2. Spend 6 months pitching technical co-founders 3. Build something nobody wants 4. Wonder why it failed The market doesn't care about your tech stack. It cares if you solve a problem worth paying for.

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Myth busted: "Saving Developers time doesn't mean they're more productive" I hear this objection all the time, followed by: "You don't know what they do with all the time you've saved them" Yes, I do. You would too if you asked them. We asked this as a part of our research for the 2025 Atlassian State of DevEx report. Here’s how developers are reinvesting time saved by using AI: 1. Improving code quality 2. Developing new features 3. Improving culture 4. Documentation A few things jumped out: - Turns out when you reduce friction, developers spend time improving quality and shipping more features... Who would've thought? - “Improving code quality” probably wouldn’t have made this list a few years ago ... Devs are spending a lot of time improving the quality of AI-generated code, puts question marks over time savings. - Documentation... Really? No one likes doing it, AI is good at it… maybe it’s fixing AI-generated docs? This data shows if you improve Developer Experience, remove friction, and save devs time, they will invest their time back into shipping high-quality software, faster. #DevOps #DeveloperExperience #AI

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I just helped a client find their dream developer in a place their competitors would never think to look. Last month I was doing a demo for a company trying to hire Ruby developers. They'd been posting on job boards for 3 months with zero qualified candidates. I asked them a simple question: "Do you know anyone in the Ruby community?" Turns out their CTO had been active in a LinkedIn group for Ruby developers for years, but they'd never thought to tap into it for recruiting. So we helped them reach out to the group leaders. When the group leader vouched for someone's technical abilities, that recommendation carried serious weight—way more than any resume or coding test could. Three weeks later, they had 5 qualified candidates in their pipeline. Most recruiters are sitting on goldmines and don't even realize it. We've been so focused on employee referrals that we're missing these massive professional communities where people already know and trust each other's work. Let me give you the five types of communities that have generated the best results for our clients.   • LinkedIn professional groups - Find the groups specific to your roles and get to know the leaders. They know everyone's actual capabilities because they've seen people's work in action.   • Industry specific networks - We've had healthcare clients absolutely kill it with communities like NurseDash. These professionals know each other's clinical skills and work styles in ways that go way beyond what you can see on a LinkedIn profile.   • Skill based communities on platforms like Reddit - When someone refers from a machine learning community, they're vouching for proven project experience. They've seen this person's code and watched them solve real problems.   • Geographic and local networks - Members meet face to face, collaborate on regional projects, and cultural fit comes built in because they understand the local business environment.   • Alumni networks from universities and bootcamps - These connections last forever and members understand learning styles and career paths in ways that skill assessments completely miss. Relationship strength matters way more than frequency of contact. You might not have talked to someone in 6 months, but if you worked on a meaningful project together, your recommendation still carries real weight. Most companies limit themselves to employee networks and then wonder why their referral programs fail. The companies winning right now are expanding into these broader professional communities where trust and professional credibility already exist. Bottom line is this: 60% of jobs get filled through networking anyway. Why not make it intentional and tap into communities where people actually know each other's work quality? What communities have been most valuable for your sourcing?

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11 Types of Developers in the Workplace 1. 📵 Call Haters: Would rather write a novel than hop on a 5-minute call. The sound of an incoming call gives them mild heart attacks. 2. ⏰ The Late Comers: Every meeting invite is just a suggestion. “Sorry I’m late” is basically their catchphrase. 3. 🕵️‍♂️ Picture/Video Hiders: No one knows what they look like. They could be a bot, a cat, or Batman, we may never know. 4. 📞 Call Lovers: "Are you available for a quick call?" they ask... seven times a day. The sworn enemies of Call Haters. 5. 🤐 The Silent Ones: Present in every meeting spiritually. You won’t hear a peep unless someone says, “Hey, what do you think?” 6. 🔥 The Overzealous: They want to be in every project, touch every codebase, fix every bug, sometimes even the ones that aren’t broken. 7. 🙃 The Issue Pusher: “It’s definitely a frontend issue.” Next day: “Yeah, backend for sure.” They’ve never seen an issue they wouldn’t blame on someone else. 8. 🧍 The “I Will Never Do Such a Thing”: Ask for help? Never. They’ll debug for 48 hours straight or just resign quietly. 9. 🎩 The Illusionist: Master of the “I’m occupied” act. 14 open tabs, 6 Slack windows, and still only changing the button color to blue. 10. 🌙 The Night Coders: Silent all day, then flood the repo at 2 a.m. You wake up to 47 commits and a message saying, “Hey, can you review this ASAP?” 11. 🎉 The Standup Entertainer: Turns every standup into a TED Talk. “So yesterday I had this wild idea while jogging...” You’ll never know what they actually worked on. Which one are you? 😂 Feel free to add more in the comments!

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Code creates software engineers. Customers create CTOs. That sums up everything. A CTO who doesn’t focus on delivering customer value will fail. And when they fail, their entire team fails with them. The CTO’s most important job is keeping the team locked on the customer. Because it’s easy for engineers to get lost in the code. Clean architecture. Elegant solutions. Clever optimizations. Those things matter—but they’re not the point. The point is the customer. A CTO who forgets that leads a team that builds the wrong things beautifully. A CTO who remembers it leads a team that knows why their work matters, not just how to ship it. Great code is table stakes. Customer focus is what creates impact. And it’s the CTO’s job to make that the standard for everyone. Read my book, Product Driven, to learn more about how to keep customers first in engineering.

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