How Australia hires, builds and leads tech teams in the age of AI.
Building Tech Teams is a podcast on how Australia hires, builds, and leads tech teams in the age of AI. Host James MacDonald sits down with the founders, CTOs, VPs of Engineering and People Leaders building Australia’s best tech teams, from startups to enterprise, on what actually works. How they hire, how they build and lead their teams, and the calls that made or broke them. It is built for the leaders making the hire and the tech professionals making the move.
Building Tech Teams is a Day One® show. Day One is the podcast network for founders, investors and operators, and the team that helped build Blackbird Ventures’ Wild Hearts. Sister shows include First Cheque, Oversubscribed and Pick My Brain.
Most people teams wait until someone with an HR background is in the room before they build a culture function. Ella Brennecke didn't have one, and Everlab's culture is stronger for it.
11 episodes
Most people teams wait until someone with an HR background is in the room before they build a culture function. Ella Brennecke didn't have one, and Everlab's culture is stronger for it.
Jack Rudenko hasn’t written a line of code in nine months, and in that time his team shipped six or seven products used by millions. He walks James MacDonald through the AI-native engineering practice behind it, the project AI made possible, and why he treats every API key as already compromised.
James MacDonald pulls the sharpest compensation thinking from his first eight guests into one state of play for AI-era pay: the structural gap with the US, the productivity gains nobody measures, and the raise nobody asked for.
Most companies treat compensation as a math problem. FNDN founder Matt McFarlane says that's backwards — and it's why so many pay conversations go sideways even when the number itself is fair.
Most technical interviews still ask a candidate to write a function on a whiteboard. nib’s AI Architect Adam Witanowski says that question is already obsolete — and what should replace it says everything about how AI is changing who gets hired.
The junior engineer used to be the safe first hire. Airtree’s Talent Lead Cloë Stanbridge says AI just made that job disappear — and that’s only the start of what’s rewriting tech hiring.
Group Head of Data, Analytics & AI at NGM Group, Patrick McQuaid on building practical AI capability inside a regulated bank — why chasing every new model is the wrong game, hiring for attitude over experience, and the human skills AI can't replace.
Every great team she's seen shares one trait: they're comfortable with discomfort. Claudia Barriga-Larriviere on self-awareness as a muscle, why AI can make people faster without making them more productive, and why you have to build a good team before you augment it.
The business wants AI, and it wants it yesterday. But once the proof of concept works and the partner goes home, someone inside the company has to keep the thing running.
The business wants AI now — and the people who have to secure it are told to move faster on shrinking budgets. Okta's Kevin Akermanis on what breaks when enterprises rush AI into production, and why guardrails are just suggestions.
The first hire used to be an engineer. Michael Batko thinks that's now backwards — and that's just the start of how AI is rewiring the way you build a tech team.
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