A Day in the Life of our Head of Delivery

The 10Clouds’ Delivery Team has been around since our company’s inception and has been led by our Co-Founder, Michał Kłujszo until now. Michał is stepping into a more strategic role, which is why we’re looking for a new Head of Delivery – a seasoned manager who will take it to new heights!

With that in mind, I asked Michał to tell us about his vision for the team’s future, and the opportunities that lie ahead.

Welcome Michał.

What’s brought about this development in the 10Clouds’ delivery team?

It’s something that was in the making for a while now. 10Clouds is almost 15 years old and it’s amazing to see how it's grown and evolved over the years. We’re now at a point in our journey where we have well-established processes, roles and functions – and it's a good time for me to focus more on our strategic direction. In a nutshell, that’s why I’m looking for a great successor.

What would you like to say to anyone who is considering applying for this role?

It’s a truly great opportunity to develop and own one of the most important areas of 10Clouds’ business. You’ll develop and manage a top-notch Delivery team that will thrive in effectively delivering projects and value for our customers.

You’ll also be the driving force for creating our domain specialisms, setting the direction for our delivery functions and promoting 10Clouds as a thought leader in our focus areas.

Long-term, we’re also considering venture building, so there will be further opportunities tied to this!

Tell us a little more about what the Delivery Team looks like at present.

Sure. Our team consists of 120 people and is divided into three core teams: Engineering (88 people), Design (22 people) and Product Team (10 people). We also have a Resourcing Team. This structure has been working well for us and is proving to be very scalable.

Engineering is further led by Engineering Managers who are responsible for team development, improvement of competencies, and technical leadership in specific areas such as Web, Mobile or DevOps. Aside from being mentors and people managers, they also work on projects – which I know is not the case in many software houses.

It’s also worth mentioning 10C.Labs which is our internal initiative with the purpose of organizing work for people not currently involved in external projects. It has been responsible for creating a number of great solutions, including our own 10Clouds NFT marketplace, the Virtual Branches product to support our solutions for the Banking sector, and working on pro-bono initiatives for Tech To The Rescue, of which we’re the founding members.

Finally, we have an internal Tech Hub which is a spot for gathering everything technical going on in the Engineering team, and a team of Tech Leaders with specialisms in given areas.

What are some of the current challenges and opportunities when it comes to Delivery?

We have three key areas of focus at the moment:

1. Supporting the growth of our blockchain practice area

We know that the market hasn’t been easy for DeFi over the past few months, but there continue to be many opportunities for blockchain-based products. There is extensive work currently being done on improving adoption of existing blockchains, there are new use cases like asset tokenization, rising usage of stablecoin, the continued interest in NFTs, the burgeoning world of Layer 2 blockchains – and numerous other applications of the technology. We’re looking to build our internal expertise in these areas and pave the way for future growth.

2. Constantly improving efficiency in our Managed Projects

We’re consistently improving the effectiveness and efficiency of our work on Managed Projects. It’s an ongoing process, as we cover a range of project types, from backend to mobile; and a variety of clients, from startups to enterprises. 10Clouds has created its own Agile Project Delivery Handbook, which is all about devising a product approach that will best fit the market, as well as setting up delivery work in a transparent and efficient way.

3. Making sure the team is engaged, and aligned around our vision

Last, but definitely not least, we need to keep the team engaged in a competitive recruitment market – particularly when it comes to senior developers. This is about ensuring that we allocate the right people to the right projects, we provide opportunities for learning (such engaging opportunities in roles like tech-leads, pre-sales or lead developers), and look after the team’s broader wellbeing. We want to make sure everyone is aligned with our vision, and knows what we need to do to get there.

What is your vision for the Delivery function? What would you like the team to look like in a year’s time?

It’s a case of evolution rather than revolution. In a year’s time, I’d love to see a team with in-built domain knowledge and a Head of Delivery with a vision for future specialisms.

At the moment, we want to make the most of our focus on FinTech and blockchain, and to drive domain expertise in these fields – but there are likely to be new future focus areas.

There will also be a shift towards consulting both in the Pre-sales and Design Teams, so our Head of Delivery will need to continue driving these efforts and building internal expertise.

What kind of qualities and experience are you looking for in 10Clouds’ new Head of Delivery?

I’m essentially looking for someone with more delivery expertise than we have at present. Ideally, it would be an experienced Head who has worked in a similar role within a larger organization – either a technology focused professional services company or a large digital product company.