The full transcript

Oleg

Hi, Janosch! Welcome to our Devico Breakfast Bar! We invite people in the industry to come to talk to us about their organization and industry in general. Could you please introduce yourself and tell us about your professional journey?

Janosch

Yes, for sure. Hello, Oleg. It's a pleasure to have this interview with you. My name is Janosch Greber. Actually, I work in Switzerland for a long time already. And so my professional background is actually I'm working in the cybersecurity company as a VP of Engineering. So I'm working here since 2010. I joined here as an intern after my school degree. So I did my master's diploma here, and then I stayed in the company as a tester, so QA testing of the backend components. And then I was promoted to the Lead QA years later. And then years later, I was promoted to the VP of Engineering because actually I touched so many things and I knew so many things. So it was a great position for me to continue at the actual position.

Oleg

Very interesting. You said that you're working in cybersecurity company. Tell us about the project you're currently working on and problems it solves.

Janosch

Yeah, sure. So it's encrypted communication tool. Like you can take a mix of Skype, Telegram, WhatsApp, you mix all this, and you have our product. We focused mostly on the on-premise installations. Like, we can customize our products for the customers. We don't keep any data on the backend, so it's end-to-end encryption but without any possibility to have this data on the backend. So it's just the transition data. And then, where we actually are strong is in the on-premise data centers, because we have also the cloud product, but people for the cloud product, they have so many other things.

But for the on-premise installations, we actually can help companies to have their own solution and they have full control of their own solution in their premises, let's say. And this is where we actually work, try to work in this field.

Oleg

Okay. That's very relevant these days, I would say. What are you truly passionate about in your work as the VP of Engineering and your previous experience as a QA team lead?

Janosch

So well, if I start by QA team lead, it was good to start from the normal, like an ordinary tester, and to become a lead. Meaning that you have a team now, so you have more responsibilities and you need to know how to handle it. Because previously it was some other guy that was sending all this, and you just had your tasks, and you were doing this without any further thoughts.But now when you're a team lead, even you have more meetings because you need to be aware of what's going on in the company. You want to speak to other districts in the company, like development, also the lead developers, lead marketing, so on, so on. So you need more time for this, but you also need the time for technical job. And you need to also manage people. So it's like more responsibility and much more, let's say, interesting, but also difficult. Actually now, for the VP of Engineering, it's even more difficult because you also take care not only about QA leads now.

So I have a QA lead that works with me, but I have also a development lead. I have also a sales department. So all the company's departments are connected to me. And this is even more complicated because you participate to all the meetings and you don't have much time for other things.But what is also cool – you also meet all the people that work for you, for example, all the developers you need to choose. So I am participating almost in all the meetings for hiring process. Even if I don't, for example, I'm not strong in the iOS development, but I need to know basics, right?Since I was a tester, so I know how people test it. So I know where people had problems in the past, how did we solve them. So I have some like big experience in those kind of knowledge. So I can go and ask people who are trying to be hired by us. I can ask them precise questions and see if they know the answer or not. So this is a good part of being in the same company for years.

Oleg

Definitely. Looking ahead, are there any emergent trends or technologies in your field that you believe will have significant impact on business in the near future?

Janosch

Actually, what is happening now, as you can see, the AI tools are emerging. Last year we thought about this, but not as much as now. We have a lot of new companies that pop up from nowhere that are more like advanced in terms of AI because we don't have any AI right now. So this is the field we want to progress, but we need to keep in mind that we cannot just take the online tool and expose all our data there. So we need some AI solutions that can be also done on the edge device. So it means it stays on your phone and it doesn't go to the internet for everything. And this is a difficult part to achieve.

Also, since we work in the encryption field, there are quantum computers that will come soon, and we need to think about how to protect it from the, you know, like we use the standard algorithms that we use as of today, but tomorrow it will be something else. So we need to be quantum resistant, let's say. And this is two fields where we actually need to progress. I'm not talking about all the other stuff, like new features here and there to make your life easier for the users. So this is a constantly evolving in our company, but major fields that appear like these from the last year. So we need to be also aware about it and we need to know what happens. So we need to also go and participate in some conferences to see where the world is going on not to stay behind all those other competitors.

Oleg

Yeah, actually, I have a friend, it's not a friend, I would say, a guy who invested in AI, back in 2016. He was actively investing in that area, developing tools, and he sold and exited successfully in a few projects, in a few years after that in 2018-2019. But nowadays it became like a hype, I would say. So definitely AI started back in even probably 2012-2011. Actively, actively started, I mean.

Janosch

Yeah.

Oleg

How do you perceive as the biggest challenge or obstacles that you're currently face as the VP of Engineering? Actually not how, what do you perceive as the biggest challenge or obstacles that you currently face as the VP of Engineering?

Janosch

Well, it's a hard position because you should have a good team to work with. Obviously, as a VP of Engineering, I'm not participating too much in development since we have brilliant heads that are more powerful, but you need to understand where to find them and what technology you need to use in your product. So sometimes, for example, if you take the AI engineers that we don't have at the moment, but tomorrow we will probably need to hire one or two. So you need to find them, and this is the challenge because they don't want to go to the small companies – because we are a small company. So you need to attract, be attractive to them. So we offer a lot of flexibility here, I mean a lot of stuff that maybe it's more convenient for them to work in our company than in other companies. But you still need to explain to them and you need to find the right guys for the interview, which is a complex task.

Since we work in Switzerland, we don't have a lot of guys coming from the local universities. Since we have one or two good universities. And the population of Switzerland is quite small. And we have Google in Zurich, which employs like 5, 000 engineers. So, it's a big challenge for us.But still, there are other countries where we can find brilliant people. But it's a very difficult task as well. And also while you work as a VP of Engineering, you need to follow every engineer, you need to know if he's good enough for your product. Sometimes you hire somebody, he's brilliant at the beginning, but then it starts to be difficult to challenge him because maybe he doesn't want to progress, or he doesn't want to do something else.

So you need to find a right balance between what as a company we want to do and what every single engineer wants to do as well. He has his own personality and he wants to progress. So I'm talking also about a bit of HR stuff because HR needs to follow it, right? But as a technical side, my job is also to be sure that all the guys in our company are happy with what they do and they don't have any conflicts in terms of code reviews – they don't like how other people react to their code or practices they use. So we need to align everybody on the same page, and this is quite challenging but interesting as well.

Oleg

Okay. You have partially answered my next question, but maybe you can add something about the scarcity of skilled professionals in the IT sector in general, and probably particularly in Switzerland.

Janosch

Well, let me maybe develop more. So in Switzerland, we have a good university, which is EPFL. So it's in Lausanne, it's a federal institute, let's say, which have a nice reputation as well. People, when they graduate from there, they look at the biggest companies in Switzerland, which is Google in Zurich or some other technology companies that we have. Basically what they look for is... Well, somebody looks for the salary, but most of them will for a nice challenges. But our company have also a nice challenges because it's a constantly evolving product, right? So today we work on, let's say, video calls, encryption, a conference call and encryption, which is quite difficult to do. But tomorrow, what we will work on is something else.

From time to time we change the scope because like AI comes in, so we need to change a bit, or we have some clients that want this and that, so we constantly support those clients and we listen to them. And obviously, we might not drop what we do now, but we might shift a bit the release and we might do something else.So it's interesting for the people who want to progress technologically. But also, since we are a small company, we always tell that you will do some bug fixes, you will do this and that. It will not always be like interesting. Sometimes you do need to do some cleanup or code maintenance. So you know, depending on the people, they will probably choose or not choose our company.

And now, since we don't have a lot of choice in Switzerland, we start to look abroad and sometimes it's even more challenging because you need to find the right time. And we don't have enough resources like HR – it's not really existing in our company – so ourselves we try to do the interviews and everything and scan the CVs. So it's quite challenging, I would say. And we hire, but sometimes people leave after 2-3 months, and we don't even know why. They just say, 'Okay, I signed for another company.' I'm asking, 'Why didn't you even tell us?' – 'Oh, it's too late. It's too late.' Yeah, it's happened.

Oleg

Yeah, yeah, that's true. What role do you think IT outsourcing play in solving these challenges?

Janosch

Well, you know, the good part is... well, it depends what IT outsourcing company. So we had several in the past, and we work with you obviously for several years already. But it's actually, it removes this task of going and finding the resource, right? So we just ask one person like you, 'Please, we need these and these skills.' And you will find tomorrow or in one week. You will be responsible for spending your time in finding the right resource, right? And then you come to us and you give it to us. And if we like it, we just take it, and that's it. And if tomorrow this resource will need to leave, you will know it and you will tell us. So until now, I'm really surprised that we never had any problems in terms of people that want to leave the company, because I don't know how you do actually to retain them. Because we don't have enough time and enough resources to speak to them on a daily basis, on a weekly basis. So we have some other tasks to do. And that's why IT outsourcing company is very nice because all those procedures, HR procedures, – you are handing them, not us. And it's very cool.

Oleg

Those were benefits of outsourcing. What are the drawbacks of outsourcing?

Janosch

Well, the drawbacks of outsourcing is, let's say, it's not people who work for you. It's not your people. They still belong to outsourcing company.

If you want to hire them - you cannot. You just loan, I mean, like it's a loan, right? They don't belong to you basically. But other than that, I don't see any drawbacks because, actually, we work with some guys since five years. And we feel that they are working for us, not for the IT outsourcing, company. And even we don't need to do any paperwork. They just work for us. That's it. But, I mean, officially they work for you, but other than that, I don't see any problems. Actually, with your company, it's like seamless work. I don't see that they belong to you, but we have some other IT outsourcing companies that we need to have weekly calls, we need to explain how things are going. And sometimes It's too much of unnecessary work to explain how things are going. And I don't want to explain – I just want to work, and that's it.

Oleg

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally understand. I hear this drawback very often, but the question is - does the client need this person to work for him directly or no? Because that's the question. At the end of the day, if a person works directly, as you correctly mentioned, then, you might face HR issues when he comes to you and say, 'I'm leaving.' And he doesn't explain anything. He's just leaving in 2-3 months, and he belongs to you. And what benefits do you have here? So it's a question. Sometimes companies need engineers to work for them directly because of a number of reasons, whatever. But sometimes they don't.

Janosch

My company, the company we work in, is a bit different because now we work fully remotely. But it wasn't always like this. So if you take 4 years ago, before the Covid came, we were going to the office. And if you take the outsource guys, they are not even in Switzerland, they are somewhere else. So this is the only drawback. So it's not about me that I want to see the person, but some people – they want communication, they want to be socialized among the team. And we need to bring them from, I don't know, from where to Switzerland for one week to do like sightseeing, like stay together to see each other personally. And this is not always possible, especially now. Okay. So that's why some people leave the company because they cannot just stay at home and work as an outsourcing guy without seeing the whole team. This is the problem.

Oleg

Okay. Okay. Got it. But definitely COVID change rules significantly.

Janosch

Yeah. Yeah. True. But for me, personally, I can work from home, but I have the office nearby so I can go there. The problem is that nobody's there. Everybody's working from home now. So this is the problem.

Oleg

Okay. Got it. How do you measure the success of collaboration with IT outsourcing vendor?

Janosch

Well, actually, first of all, when you want to hire somebody, from... well, you look for the IT company and you start collaborating with them, so they will give you the best resources they have, like for the PoC project. This is what we experienced in the past. And then when you start the real project, they will give you other people. And what I saw in the past – sometimes you need a lot of time to make them onboarded, but even then you see that their skills are not enough. So you start to actually change them sometimes. You say, 'Okay, this person is not enough for me. Let's look for another one.' So the time you find a good person, it will take a lot of time probably, but sometimes it works out from the very beginning, which is good.

And how do you measure it? Well, you just measure the overall success of the company. If for example, I'm talking about the QA department, so if I see that there is a lot of bugs in the product and I am catching them and not the QA team, then there is a problem. So maybe they can miss one or two, but if constantly we will have bugs here and there, so that means that they don't work efficiently. So we need to change something. And this is how we measure. And if you talk about the development, it's the same. So we, the developers delivered the code or the product with a lot of bugs without being able to test on their own, that means that the developer is not good.

So we need to change his attitude, right? So it's always, it's quite difficult. But you see, we are a small company, so we see immediately who is working good, who is not working, who is lazy, who is not lazy. So for me, it's not a problem. It's quite easy to do. And we don't need to control them. So we just give a task. And you don't call every two minutes, how, what he's doing. We just have daily calls. And we can even allow people to probably have a rest in the afternoon and then come back in the evening to do the rest of the job. We don't measure by hour – we measure by what he did. And you can see it's really fast.

Oleg

Thanks. And finally, what advice would you give to other companies considering IT outsourcing?

Janosch

Well, for the small companies that want to hire fast, they need to go through outsourcing because it's the fastest way you have a good people in short term. And you avoid having HR and you avoid having those interviews. So for me, at the beginning, it was a question – should we go outsourcing? Why we did outsourcing? Because we started to restructure our company and we said, 'Okay, we don't want to hire anymore in Switzerland because of the cost. And then where do you go? I don't know where to go. So let's go to those Eastern Europe countries, or let's go to America, or let's go to India, and let's go to IT outsourcing because this is where you can hire the best resources in short term.' But you need to also be aware that you will probably not always find the best IT outsourcing companies because they want to sell you in mass. They just don't want to sell you one or two person. They want to sell you the team or the whole department.

And this is where you need to know which IT companies will work also for you. Because if you take a really big IT outsourcing company, they don't want to sell you one engineer, they are not interesting in selling one. For example, with you, what we had this, we started by one engineer, then we added more, and then more, and now we have a full team, not only QA, but also some developers. This is where I like. And we also interviewed a lot of IT outsourcing companies. I also visited some of them. And this is important when you visit it because you don't know where they are. So you just visit the company, you speak to the CEO, you speak to the developers, you maybe do a small PoC on-site, and then you'll see what is going on. And this is how actually I do. Because I came quite fast to see you, I think, in the past. Yeah.

Oleg

Amazing. Amazing. Thank you, Janosch, for this video podcast, video interview. It was definitely valuable information for our potential clients, for existing clients, for people who are interested in outsourcing and your industry in general. Thanks for your time and looking forward to working with you on long-term basis.

Janosch

Hopefully for a long time. Yeah. Thank you very much, Oleg. Thank you.

Oleg

Thank you, Jan.

Janosch

Thank you. Bye-bye.