Searching for Mana with Lloyd Wahed

The future of software development | Nicholas Mills, CircleCI

Episode Summary

Nick Mills, CircleCI GM EMEA, joins Lloyd to discuss the future of tech and software engineering. The company, which is a software delivery platform automating development workflows and IT operations, has just reached a $1.7 billion valuation, after the recent $100 million Series F. And Nick has a unique perspective on the subject. Since 2008, he joined the tech giants like Microsoft or Facebook (pre-IPO stage), and later worked at Stripe closely with their founders Patrick and John. Since then, he's become an early-stage investor, non-exec director and board advisor in Fintech companies and the mini-CEO for CircleCI EMEA region. Lloyd and Nick discuss how Nick joined tech from a law degree, the VC and investment landscape in Europe, and differences between leading at large tech organisations versus early-stage startups. Plus, Nick tells us how software can be a catalyst for innovation and how investing can affect social impact with high leverage. Episode Highlights: 01:32: How can we optimise software development? 06:59: Global expansion with regionalisation and localisation 12:47: Trends in software engineering 18:52: Early-career and joining the tech industry 25:36: DIfference between launching and scaling a fintech in the US vs Europe 30:34: Lessons from working with Facebook engineers 34:39: Working at early-stage startups and large organisation 42:34: Nick’s Mana 51:44: CircleCI’s growth plans and the future of software development hiring

Episode Notes

Nick Mills, CircleCI GM EMEA, joins Lloyd to discuss the future of tech and software engineering. The company, which is a software delivery platform automating development workflows and IT operations, has just reached a $1.7 billion valuation, after the recent $100 million Series F.

And Nick has a unique perspective on the subject. Since 2008, he joined the tech giants like Microsoft or Facebook (pre-IPO stage), and later worked at Stripe closely with their founders Patrick and John. Since then, he's become an early-stage investor, non-exec director and board advisor in Fintech companies and the mini-CEO for CircleCI EMEA region.

Lloyd and Nick discuss how Nick joined tech from a law degree, the VC and investment landscape in Europe, and differences between leading at large tech organisations versus early-stage startups. Plus, Nick tells us how software can be a catalyst for innovation and how investing can affect social impact with high leverage.

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Books:

Accelerate

Outliers

Bounce

Episode Highlights:

01:32: How can we optimise software development?

06:59: Global expansion with regionalisation and localisation

12:47: Trends in software engineering

18:52: Early-career and joining the tech industry

25:36: DIfference between launching and scaling a fintech in the US vs Europe

30:34: Lessons from working with Facebook engineers

34:39: Working at early-stage startups and large organisation

42:34: Nick’s Mana

51:44: CircleCI’s growth plans and the future of software development hiring