Grow Your Tech Career Successfully: Tips From a Software Developer to Managing Director of SAP Labs
foreign welcome back to another episode of talk Tech with Tiff in this episode I sat down with Yad who is the managing director of sap Labs us and also to the global head of sap Innovation Center Network in this conversation we really dive into what he is where him and his team are working on at sap some future Technologies and career advice that he has all right let's get started [Music] welcome to talk Tech with Tiff the Silicon Valley Edition in this episode I sat down with Yad Oren to talk about his career journey and also to the latest Innovations they're working on at sap Labs alright let's get into it [Music] well before we jump into your career Journey uh tell me a little bit about yourself and your background yeah of course so I have two roles in sap I've been with the company for 18 years now believe it or not uh one of the roles is managing a global Innovation unit it's called sap Innovation Center Network okay where we are building the next big project recipe we are looking in very Advanced Technologies many of them you can hear right here on the show floor uh like chechi PT blockchain Quantum computings and many others interesting stuff and based on those technology we find very interesting business problems that weren't Soviet and we try to build new solution and coin debate with our customers to really shape the next generation of enterprise software this is one world and the other role I'm also the managing director of sap labs in the US where you know we have around 5000 developers here in the US and I try to really make the best out of the region for the employees and sap you know how we are working with universities what kind of talent we can bring in this region for the product all the way to day-to-day operation to make sure everyone is a great place to work wow those are two big hats to fill I must say yeah it's a fun job complaining but now on the personal side when we were speaking uh a few days ago virtually you mentioned to me which which I gotta get into before we get into everything sap you you were in a rock band or you are in a rock band yeah well I'm a frustrated frustrated musician right so yeah I didn't um choose that I was finding myself going into technology yeah I went to busy College actually I went to a music College yeah believe it or not and yeah I've always seen the condensed we were almost famous right so it was really cool times uh I also went to engineering school right and and indeed a couple of degrees there but yeah I always had a dream to become a musician and today it's still a hobby I'm doing with my family right so this is something I'm very happy and to be honest it's also helped me quite a lot during the career you will be surprised how many artists and creative people we have here in the tech industry and I believe it's really helpful to be Innovative as well so you're right I have this background yeah very proud of it I love that you highlighted that it's so important to have interests outside of technology and all that has to offer because through those interests you can really think of problems in a different way or Solutions in a different way and just bring a lot of creativity to the table right that's really interesting okay can we look up your band or is it well maybe some other time yeah because honestly it was a really heavy Rock right so now wow but you could check my name if you find something you know that it's funny because when I I tell you a very short story right when I met my wife so I was a musician right and back then if you Googled my name right so you can find some cool rock clips and images as time progressed and I release more computer science publication and geeky blogs you know I become like in the page number three and four in Google so my wife tell me what's happened to you when I met you used to be cool now everything is running so yeah so you can find it but you need to be an archaeologist to do this to do it all right all right well going back to your career at sap you you mentioned you've been with the company for over 18 years uh first off that is incredible and as I was looking through your your LinkedIn and reading different um uh blog posts and articles I know you have held within sap various different titles I know from product manager software developer and then continuing to grow and when I see that and I think with many people who are watching this see that one question that comes to mind is how were you able or what advice would you give to finding success in each role because a lot of times they are pretty different or are they yeah it's a great question it really depends what would you like to achieve if you would like to specialize in a certain domain that you would like to be the best developer for immersive Technologies right or the best Architects for blockchain based solution then you should really focus on that and grow your skills to be the best in the industry if you would like to become more like a general manager type right you need to start running the gamut with few roles and really diverse your skill sets uh and this is the reason why you're right I did I think almost any possible role in r d from development to product management to research I even did some roles which are outside of the development units like I was in corporate strategy and and this really helped you to have diverse skill set that can grow you into this kind of more managerial position but it really depends on what you would like to achieve and then if you would like to go to the more general manager role definitely try different things so you can come well suited for them when you are starting out in your career you mentioned that trying these different or wearing these different hats is super important to becoming a general manager did you know when you were starting out your career that that was the path you wanted to go down or was it more so at the time a mix of that with curiosity of different roles I actually knew it because I always wanted to do this I have a desire for like a big operations right and derive large-scale input yeah so also I have to say I was a developer I was in R D and and I was a nice developer one of the best developer right I was one of the guys that actually for the more geeky audience you know break the build right before the weekend and then you get the phone call you stuck all over so I I think that becoming more of the generalist right and doing many things was also kind of um I wouldn't say the last the only option that I have but definitely something that I thought I can Excel more than becoming the best technology expert you know out there in one domain or others so yeah I definitely wanted to do this and I have I think um really strong tendency to do things in a large scale yeah I like that do things in a large scale for individuals who are watching you know even myself when I was once again going back to your current role managing director head of global Innovation Networks what is some advice you would give to others who maybe are starting out in their career Journey maybe don't have as much direction as to where they want to go what is some advice you could give to them I think we need to have a healthy curiosity right I think while you are let's say younger in your early stage of your career definitely try many things it's perfectly okay to fail and don't like like one role in another you know I tried many things and some of the roles I mean you know help me to go to a different stage in my career but definitely it's not something I wanted to continue to be this kind of domain expert uh so you need to experiments you don't need to feel dead if you are not um first of all if you're not fit the mold right just like I am I mean you don't see too many I think Tech and Tech executive with a ponytail and a beard and a funny accent right with my background so you need to be very authentic as well but also you need to experience anything there is no you know I felt so many times right and I try my things and eventually you get into some sort of maturity certain time of your life certain time of your career that you know and then it's like you get into the orbits and things flowing from there yeah I love that and it's it really hits home for me personally because when I was starting out in my career as a developer I thought the only way to succeed would be if I was a specialist I thought oh I have to really focus in on one technology and go really deep into that and of course that is an amazing career path for some people but I quickly realized that I was leaning more to towards being a generalist you know I liked wearing different hats I liked trying different roles out and different things like that so it's really interesting to hear your your perspective and your journey through wearing many different hats as well yeah and especially if you start managing what we call a p l profit and loss Revenue then you better get some other roles and skill set you can also learn other things it's very important to learn I also have an MBA right which was very helpful but I I truly believe in true I'm a True Believer in trying many roles and bring some diversity to table um so definitely yeah I mean there are many career paths but yeah yeah but I like the general manager one yeah yeah I hear you on that going back to sap Labs us so I was on uh one of the the pages for it and the projects that you are working on are really fascinating to me so I was wondering if you could dive into one or a few projects that you're working on that you can share about oh wow it's now now you you hear all your kids crying you know Daddy Daddy who is your favorite one but definitely you know we have many of them I can share with you maybe two examples so we do a lot of work in sap you know sap is one of the leading companies um for for um Enterprise Innovation Enterprise technology right and we have the leading solution in the market for analytics and databases so we do a lot of projects about the future analytics right and this is where we really are um obsessed with how customer will consume you know reporting and insight and how will they drive their business so we work on one project called continuous intelligence which is a self-learning machine it's like using really Advanced AI also chpt to find anomalies to find you know bottlenecks in the organization without the need really to train the system or to learn about it so we're not yet in the you know in The Terminator era when you have General Ai and the Machine are um all um autonomous but definitely we're getting a lot and we have many reference customers already talking about this it's a project called continuous intelligence where the system learned by itself from your data and understands what kind of new anomalies what kind of new insight you might want to see without even you you need to ask for it or train the model so kind of self running system this is around the future of business um decision the last example I will give you we also like a lot to see the future we see the future Maurice collaborative between Enterprises like we call it we saw some example in the business in the keynote about the business Network so the future of business collaboration is very important for us and this is where we look into how hundreds and thousands of companies can collaborate within themselves so we use blockchain where they can share identity without need to do long term long onboarding authorization authorization process or how we can streamline any compliance of document sending and do self-motorization how you can authorize your own legal document without the need of Auditors this use blockchain technology and really help to streamline anything that help to collaborate between companies without the burden of a lot of legal work a lot of authorization and any cool stuff it's incredible I feel like we could take those two examples you just said and have a another completely separate conversation around them because I just find them both super fascinating and I'm going to put my questions for that on on ice or else I'm going to keep you here forever but kind of on that note at an individual level at a personal level learning technology and I think a lot of the viewers can relate to this learning technology how quickly technology is is uh growing it's so fast it's hard it feels like it's impossible to keep up with it at sap how do you ensure uh you're you're always so ahead of the curve so Innovative how how do you ensure sap is always staying ahead yeah it's a great question we have two things that we are doing and we encourage our our team the first one is the constant learning and upskilling we heard also a great example in the keynote how we're now using AI for having more personalized development plan for employees but we are lucky that we have very curious and ambitious employees and they bring bottom down as well many initiatives they look for but this is why also as we mentioned earlier it's very important to be curious and keep this desire to learn otherwise you might be caught in something that's becoming obsolete or something that is less Innovative so curiosity in constant Learning and Development come from the employees but we also have a lot of Learning and Development program and AI is a big factor how to even increase the reach of what we're doing the second thing we learn a lot from our customers and this is a great opportunity where we are here in Sapphire we do a lot of co-innovation you know our custom grave over sap is over half a million customers right and we are lucky that they come to us first to share their problems to share sometimes their data together and learn about what we can do in anonymized fashion and we learn new things um about the word right it's something that we learn so much from our customer that we are lucky and this is where honestly the outside in is very important channel for us to learn to that is such a good point too to to learn right from your customers what their Pro they're facing their challenges they are facing as well as external tools like AI you mentioned as well but it seems throughout our entire conversation the theme has been stay curious and continue to learn which I think is super important and have a hobby right and have a hobby yes exactly going back to you mentioned blockchain you mentioned AI these are you know even cloud computing these are all really trending Technologies and uh that have been around now for a while but are continuing to get buzzwords or buzzed or spoken about where do you see and you touched on this a bit already but where do you see these Technologies uh being used further at sap or in the world I think you know to give you an example A lot of people are really wondering where AI will go in the next few five years or ten years and I I know we can't predict the future but what's your thoughts around that no I think it's it's a it's a good question it's on top of everyone's Minds so AI will be dominant and it will be we're going to see another chapter of of game changing because it's already changing out of the thing we're doing but definitely we can reach all the way to an autonomous Enterprise right it doesn't mean you don't need the employees you just need to automate fully all the manual work you can do and you can get questions and and answers for everything you ask in a very fast way which open a new door for creativity and grow your business right so I think it's definitely going to take a Lion's Share of all the activities we're doing in the organization not today not tomorrow but it will come there and the employees will go through a risk killing where they go into what we call more cognitive tasks tasks creativity Innovation growing the business I can tell you already we see a lot in the HR in human resource how AI is automating a lot of work looking into candidate resume which is a lot of you know any position could get one thousands of CVS but those employees researching these resumes are you know they're not leaving the workplace they're just moving now to develop the talent pipeline working with universities right coming to new audience which is more kind of creative cognitive Talent work so this kind of thing will go and I think it's a very good story because in the end of the day it's all about productivity and I'm gonna say I'm not going to like you say we can spend the entire day here but you know just think about the implication when you move the talent and innovation in healthcare or Food and Drug admin kind of Supply chains right and other thing that can really help Humanity yeah it's incredible and it's it's moving so quickly which is really exciting too yeah as someone who's very impatient yet for someone who is watching this and wants to uh apply at sap because they're like I want to have a similar career path to his or I want to work on these Technologies what is some advice you would give to someone who wants to go through who wants to a apply and then maybe is going through the interview process what does what characteristics or what stands out that you see across all or most sap employees well I think the most important thing is actually not related to the technology or the job itself I will really advise anyone who comes to a CP or would like to apply to be authentic I mean we can talk all day about technology and business but honestly sap is a cool company there are really cool and nice people we're really proud in this and being authentic being curious like comments yourself to the interview it's something that will never fail you and and of course you need some sort of domain expertise in the area you apply to but you have so many roles Technical and non-technical and we really appreciate people who are ambitious right and reliable and if this kind of futures comes in the interview it's definitely in bonus I would even you know you know risk myself and say that we are would like to take candidates that of course are excellent in everything they do but at least it is important to meet people who are ambitious good people authentic reliable and and this is what I'm I'm also honestly like a lot about about our company culture i it is so true it's it's one of those things I you know this makes me think of a story for when I was interviewing quite a few years back at a company and and I got hired there and it was one of my first roles as a developer and the looking back baby he could have worded a little bit better but it always stuck with me the uh who was my manager when when I got hired he called me and he said you know we really uh appreciate you and your personality and your drive he's like your technical skills maybe aren't where they should be but those can be taught but those those skills that you're bringing with personal skills curiosity those are something that you know you can bring to the table and the tech can can be taught I think that's kind of it made me think of that from what you just shared too it's a very good point and maybe I will add one more lines regarding what you asked earlier it's important if you want to progress in your career for managerial role to work as much as possible with people you don't have to manage people but you need to know how to work with people you need to know how you flex your communication style people are very different right you know how you have different audience that's right and it's it's and and you need to know how to deal with some happy moments and also less happy moment and if you if you are a good people person definitely the chances you will be promoted fast to manage your role and officially be responsible for people developing and grow it's bigger so the people's skill is as equally important if not more for the technical skills and I think your manager was a very smart person those are a little bit harder to being to teach them than technology skills yes exactly exactly yet I always end these conversations with the same question which is what advice would you give to your younger self I guess besides besides buying Bitcoins selling in plenty okay now um I think one one thing that um so I as I said I I tried many things I failed many things one thing that I would advise the younger me is not looking into technology and doing technology for the sake of technology and coolness which is something which I'm mumbling a little bit because it's very hard to tell people who are you know just out of school and would like to build the next things in AI but sometimes we're seeing so many smart people and I think I was one of this very excited young person that just look at the technology it was so cool there was no business certification there was no problem to solve there is nothing which is relevant for the customer but you can do an amazing thing you can do an image recognition and you know hey this company offer image recognition that can identify a cat 99.999 of the times I will do another nine and then so these things are exciting they take a lot of work but sometimes the the value is notors of Technology exciting get excited but always try to find a good business problem because especially in corporate right a good business value in the end because this will help to scale the idea to take it to Market and grow it um so this is what I would say and and then maybe even more of my ideas could find themselves into the into customer hands yeah yeah I think it's so important and so true especially when you're you're uh starting out your your career in technology you just there's so much exciting things going on that you just gravitate towards that naturally but you also need to think too about the value that it's bringing and and that's really where you will find uh purpose long term exactly yeah thank you so much for taking time to connect with me it was really a pleasure um and I hope you have a wonderful rest your day here at Sapphire thank you Tiffany for for having me and yeah enjoy Safar as well thank you [Music] thank you
2023-06-04 20:30
