Pat Kua
patkua.bsky.social
Pat Kua
@patkua.bsky.social
1K followers 110 following 75 posts
Former CTO/Chief Scientist @N26, @ThoughtWorks alum. Runs http://levelup.patkua.com and http://techlead.academy He/him
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To balance out my earlier whinge, has anyone caught the German entry for #ESCopen.spotify.com/track/4kbkYb... Ein total Ohrwurm 😅 (catchy song). And first for a while sung jn German #Baller
Baller
Abor & Tynna · Bittersüß · Song · 2025
open.spotify.com
Hey @karlstoney.com Nice hearing from you 👋 And it’s super scary to think others would just simply answer. It’s really irresponsible but likely common place 😢
It’s shocking!
I think people misinterpret that. Weirdly I was able exchange emails with Zoll recently with a package 😅 But you’re right about many agencies in general
Although I'm not security expert, it's a perfect set up for phishing of personal information and I refuse to take part. If it can't be done on their website, then I'm not interacting with them
One of the strangest experiences living in Germany is the love of #Datenschutz (data privacy). Companies call you with your contact details and still have to "verify" you, even though they called you!
It does mean some odd hours, but I do end up in my own bed 😊
Posting this after running a workshop to midnight last night. I don't normally run training so late, but one of the wonders of modern tech (and post-pandemic remote working) is that I can support leaders and managers in other parts of the world 🥳
The view from the venue ain’t too bad either
Excited to deliver the opening talk for day two of #CTOCraft London where I’ll be talking about CTO archetypes
That’s true too. Ownership is too often interpreted as a zero sum game, or when people perceive invisible boundaries. Words are hard! 😅
Not to mention, “being” a leader doesn’t magically grant someone leadership skills, which explains a lot of ineffective/bad leaders
It’s one of the reasons I like to focus on leadership as a verb, rather than a noun. “Demonstrating leadership” can be done by everyone regardless of their title, role or position. Not always easy, but doable
Tbh I'm not fond of the term "leader" bc it implies the existence of "followers".

I prefer thinking about it in terms of agency and ownership, or autonomy and giving a shit.

I've often jokingly said I owe my career to a lifelong overdeveloped sense of ownership.
The longer I am in this industry, the more I realise that there is leadership in title or name and then actual get shit done leadership.

If you see a failing test or a codebase that needs linting and you fix it, that's leadership.
That’s pretty much most environments. Training is important, but skill needs to be developed through practice and reflection. I’ve seen so many leaders who have had training but it doesn’t seem like it…
This happens all the time 🤷 Many don’t realise management skills are very different skills so don’t realise they need to invest in learning them
Many people want to know how to build highly effective teams and are unaware of the research Google did 10 years 😅 ago about the characteristics of highly effective teams. Here's my take on Project Aristotle and how leaders can use it to build highly effective teams.

www.patkua.com/blog/project...
I'm excited to speak at CTO Craft Con: London, 10th-11th March!

I'll be giving a new talk, "The CTO Spectrum" to talk about some of the archetypes I've come across in my career, and even support today as a CTO Coach.
Actually no comments on catering (it was pretty impressive I have to say) but definitely the HVAC. The room was noticeably stuffy after a couple of hours
I'm sure some of the feedback when into the "Try Next Time" which was also relatively sparse (and some themes like the room ventilation was not something I had much control over unfortunately!)