How do you go from technologist to leader?

An interview with Shawn Edwards, CTO of Bloomberg.

The Enterprisers Project (TEP): You planned a career as an engineer but wound up in a leadership role. What new skills did you need?

Edwards: Core leadership kinds of skills, such as giving feedback. Mentoring-when you first start off you're being mentored, but that comes around to you as you grow. Public speaking that's always a fun one to have to learn. Learning to deal with different personalities and how to motivate people.

It didn't happen automatically. It took a lot of thought and I read a lot. I also interacted with people who I thought were good at it and learned from them.

TEP: Your team is divided between New York and London. How do you make that work?

Edwards: We try not to split teams with specific responsibilities. A team can be in London, but it's the whole team that owns a particular product or infrastructure. They are responsible for those deliverables and for communicating with other people.

One such group I work with is the developers for our professional mobile application. They're in London, and they interact with various parts of R&D and the CTO office. We have been using a lot of teleconference technology to make them closer. We also do fly back and forth send people there and they come here. You still need face time, nothing beats that.

TEP: As that example shows, a lot of the technology your team creates is customer-facing. How do you work with external customers?

Edwards: Whoever the customer is, we do a lot of iterations. One way we break down the divide between technology and business is that we've eliminated specs. We donít hand things over the wall. Instead, we get together in small teams and have a lot of white boards. Itís an agile approach, and there's rapid iteration from concept to wireframes to prototype to sending things to customers to get their response to early versions. Obsessive focus on customers is at the core of Bloomberg culture and that's the way we build products.

Same goes for internal customers, except that they may be part of our development team. For example, we might have the infrastructure team building tools or infrastructure for the application team.

TEP: What are some important lessons you've learned?

Edwards: Pay close attention to team dynamics and don't let the team's agenda get away from you. When people are new to team leader roles, that's something they're often hesitant to do. You have to set the agenda and the tone, and the culture. You have an incredibly active role to play, and that's something that often dawns on people later in their careers.

TEP: Any special advice you'd pass along to technologists who find themselves in a leadership role?

Edwards: A big part of my focus now is eliminating bureaucracy and making sure I empower people to perform meaningful work. People are inspired by having something meaningful to do, first and foremost. A second thing that goes hand in hand with that is feeling they can make a difference. For a leader, it's about creating an environment to make that happen.

Another important aspect is building an environment where they can share their ideas, both within the organization and outside it. That's a big push I've been doing, encouraging people to publish and speak at conferences, and internally we've been doing tech talks. The motivation that creates is just incredible. People want to feel proud about their work, not just about helping customers but also about their place in the tech community, both internally and externally.

We're big participants in the open source community. We're on standards committees, we are often keynote speakers and we share a lot. That's been a really big motivator. It's part of why we have such low attrition rates and it also helps us hire people. We're a growth company and we have a tremendous appetite for people with talent and skills. Even before people come in the door, they know us because we've presented at a conference or participated in a panel. Then when they see what we're doing, we usually close the deal.