# Leading Engineering Teams with Empathy  ## Episode metadata - Episode title: Leading Engineering Teams with Empathy - Show: The Laravel Podcast - Owner / Host: Taylor Otwell, Matt Stauffer - Guests: [Andre Valentin](https://share.snipd.com/person/cde638ae-5de2-4a6e-b91a-769c3b0b1f74) - Episode publish date: 2025-06-23 - Episode AI description: André Valentin, Director of Engineering at Laravel, shares his fascinating journey from customer support to engineering leadership. He discusses the importance of empathy and strong relationships in team dynamics, along with the challenges of managing remote teams. André emphasizes effective communication and the significance of hiring well to enhance team success. He also dives into Laravel’s balance between open source and commercial work, and shares insights on flexible methodologies that boost collaboration. A must-listen for aspiring engineering leaders! - Mentioned books: [Radical Candor](https://share.snipd.com/book/325c4105-fa18-415e-bd5c-a941c132cd71) by [Kim Scott](https://share.snipd.com/person/4bf40deb-ba04-4e38-9552-5437896a3048) - Duration: 44:11 - Episode URL: [Open in Snipd](https://share.snipd.com/episode/d4e3deec-ab7c-410e-af0e-5b6d47f76f40) - Show URL: [Open in Snipd](https://share.snipd.com/show/81204004-98e1-4681-a102-35615c0157cf) - Export date: 2026-02-17T23:34:52 ## Snips ### [André's Unconventional Career Path](https://share.snipd.com/snip/98014afe-50db-4b62-9bd1-3da8d8ccfe1c) 🎧 01:18 - 05:40 (04:22) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/c348776a-9e5c-4c4d-b371-9cdbb5e9e0c9" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - André Valentin started his career in customer support and transitioned into engineering without formal education. - A front-end developer introduced him to Laravel, which sparked his deep involvement with the framework. #### 💬 Quote > I kind of started out doing customer support, actually. That's how I got into, like, that was my first job... my front end developer on the project, he said, oh, if I'd like seen this thing, Laravel. > — André Valentin André Valentin on his first encounter with Laravel and career start #### 📚 Transcript **Matt Stauffer:** yeah **André Valentin:** i think this is a it's a great question because everybody has such a fun answer. Yeah. I think for me personally, the Jess and Tim one is my all-time favorite. I remember when I had my first one-on with Jess, she basically told me the story and I was like, how is this real life? I've never heard about anything like that before, but that was so much fun. Yeah. So my story is not quite as intense, I would say, but, but I think it's, it's also somewhat interesting, but yeah, let's, let's go back a little bit. I mean, my entry to PHP and Laravel, I think, I feel like most people say this, I don't know why, but it must've been a popular release, but around like 4.1, 4.2, thereabouts, that's sort of when I entered the Laravel space. And the reason why I did that was because I was working on a small sort of startup at the time. And yeah, I was home rolling like my own Laravel framework, not my own PHP framework, because I thought, you know, there's nothing out there that kind of suits my needs. Of course, you got to build your own. There's no other way around it. So I was doing that and actually thought that was quite fun, but it was slow. And, you know, you hit every single pain point that you could possibly hit. So one day, actually, my front end developer on the project, it was basically just the two of us. He said, oh, if I'd like seen this thing, Laravel. And, you know, I hadn't. So he sent me some links to Reddit and it looked really, really cool. And I think sort of like everyone else, most people, I think they go to the documentation first and it was just so well thought through, like well laid out. It was clear. It was beautiful. So yeah, that was sort of like the very early days of me and Laravel, I would say. And it sort of stuck actually, even though my professional career and background is a little bit zigzag. Yeah. I kind of started out doing customer support, actually. That's how I got into, like, that was my first job. It was like customer support at a sort of telecom company, the biggest one in Denmark. And yeah, since then, I tried to get into code, but without doing any sort of traditional schooling. So I'm self-taught. And, you know, people don't necessarily want to pay you to code if they don't know that you can do it. So it's like, you know, you get in somewhere and you try to, oh, can I build this internal tool, which I can recommend anyone who wants to try to get into code. I think that's a great way. And yeah, I kind of worked my way up, honestly. And day I was fortunate enough, and this is a little bit of a wild story. I was fortunate enough to interview at a company called TradeShift. I joined TradeShift as a integration engineer, which is sort of like a hybrid support, sort of a dev, but like you're working, connecting sort of business systems. So like, you know, EDI files, if that, you know, says anything to you, which is like, you know, business, electronic business documents, invoices and stuff like that. Pretty dry. But anyways, it was a job and it was the first one that would pay me to code. So I was not too unhappy about that. **Matt Stauffer:** Yeah. **André Valentin:** My manager at the time and the person who actually hired me was ferry who is now the head of support right yeah **Matt Stauffer:** who is now the head of support at laravel so yeah **André Valentin:** small world but obviously you know we if you know good people you kind of try to tend to take them with you yeah but anyways yeah so he hired me and gave me a shot and he's actually like the first one who i would say really believed in me and kind of gave me a shot at also managing a team because Spade Shift was a hyper growth company. You know, we came in as an engineer, did Laravel again, built all our internal tooling for support and stuff like that. And eventually, you know, we grew and grew and grew. And it was like, okay, we need more people that do what you do. Can you please hire them? And I'm like, oh yeah, I know this guy who I used to do the startup with. So then I hired that guy from before. I mentioned before the front-end engineer. And we became a small team after a while. And after some more years, we ended up being not so small of a team. And I had a team in Romania and some people in Denmark and worked a lot in the US and flew to China for work every few weeks as well. So it was a wild time. It was a hyper growth is no joke in any company, especially back in those days. I don't know if it's quite the same anymore, but yeah, **Matt Stauffer:** it was **André Valentin:** wild. And yeah, so that is sort of how I got into management that somebody gave me like said, okay, you seem to be doing this well. Can you please make sure other people also do it well? Yeah. You know, and I was like, yeah, yeah, sure. --- ### [Landing Laravel Head of Engineering](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9413ddad-f967-483f-872a-6b124347fd09) 🎧 06:19 - 12:21 (06:01) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/df31738a-8964-4eb9-a084-d32ff851e3d6" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - André experienced major layoffs at his company before COVID, which influenced his career move. - He applied to be Laravel's Head of Engineering after seeing Taylor Otwell's tweet, encouraged by his wife. #### 💬 Quote > Taylor Otwell tweeted ... Does anybody want to be head of engineering for Laravel? And I was like, that's a funny coincidence... my wife is like, oh so did you apply to this job? > — André Valentin André Valentin on responding to the Laravel Head of Engineering job opening #### 📚 Transcript **André Valentin:** COVID. So they really looked like the bad guys. Yeah, essentially, we laid a bunch of people off. I was still left, but with fewer people and motivation wasn't really there. Plus, I'd been there for over five years at that point in time. So kind of while I was on vacation with my now wife, actually, I received a recruiter call from a smaller company called WorkSome in Denmark. And they were looking for a VP of engineering for a Laravel shop. And I was like, holy moly, that is a dream opportunity. I guess what a time, because, you know, we were just going through all of these layoffs and restructurings. And, you know, the morale was kind of down for everyone, even the ones who didn't get laid off. So, you know, I was like, oh, this sounds like kind of a dream opportunity, you know, big step up career-wise, at least on paper, which is important to note, I think. But yeah, definitely, you know, something fun and new to try. And, you know, we went through the interviews and I ended up joining, you know, I was VP of engineering of two people, three people, I think, in the beginning. So, you know, the titling is always funny, I think. You know, that's another story for a different day but the titling is always funny but we did grow and you know the idea was that i would scale the team and take my experience from trade shift scale it up to work some doing that for quite a long time as well until we were about 100 plus people which was around the time where i had my first daughter and so that's a big change in your life as i'm sure you know so that led me to reflect on kind of what i wanted and you know should i try something new and yeah there were there were lots of reasons to be honest there are always lots of reasons to make changes yeah and then i tried to then i joined unity and kind of got referred by an old colleague and worked on a very strange project where we did sort of like international sort of compliance, sort of intellectual property stuff between the US and China. You know, you can't export all code from the US to China if it has cryptography and all these kind of things. Very hairy, very technical, but it turned out Unity also kind of hit the SERP bubble. And my literal first week at the job, they like a thousand people or something like that. But I don't know how they didn't lay me off because I had just joined. Like, why wouldn't you get rid of me? But they thought my project was important. So instead what they did was they took away all the headcount i was supposed to hire and just left me there so i was there as a kind of senior manager at the company with like one person on my team and i was supposed to i think hire 10 or 12 or something to do this mode like many millions of dollar project yeah anyways that didn't really turn out i stayed for about a year you know gave it a shot also like you know some good people there but you know did the learnings i took the learnings i could yeah and one day and i went back today to look at what day this actually was because i thought it was interesting but it was the 22nd of january 2024 taylor otwell tweeted sorry this is a very long story he tweeted and said hey we are doing something ambitious this year and coming years. Does anybody want to be head of engineering for Laravel? And I was like, that's a funny coincidence. But also, how am I ever going to get that job? from other people who have uh who've been on this podcast and yeah it's a funny one because you know i came home that day from work because i think i saw it at work the tweet and i was talking to my wife who kind of knows what laravel is but like maybe not deeply but she knows i've worked with it for for years and kind of like you know what it is brought in broad strokes and my wife was saying you know we're talking about the tweet and stuff i was like oh that's so interesting you know what a dream job and she's like oh so so did you apply and i was like oh no there's like you know basically no shot and like do they need someone like me who's kind of taking a little bit more of the corporate route and stuff like that because i knew also the team was kind of small yeah and i was like yes i don't i don't think that it makes any sense really even though the job description sounded perfect yeah and she's like you are an idiot please go and apply to this job right now this you know what you're you know you just gotta like what do you have to lose basically and my wife is quite right she often is quite right so basically i sat down and and wrote like an application sent it over. And I don't it took that many hours. And then I had an email back from Taylor Otwell saying, hey, you know, love your resume. Are you up for talking? I'm like, holy moly. First of all, that was really fast. I mean, he must have been waiting for my application, I can only imagine. But at the same time, yeah, I don't know. It felt a little bit surreal because, you know, I've also been to Laracons before. I've done the whole, you know, the whole thing. And, you know, you can't help but faint by a little bit. So, yeah, I was obviously accepted. And, you know, the day after we were on a Google meet and, yeah, chatted for, I don't know, half an hour maybe about just kind of what I'd done and, you know, my view on leadership and hiring and, you know, these kinds of things and kind of also what their plans were, because that's the only thing I didn't really know. I had no idea like, you know, about Excel or any of these things, but I was kind of let in on that. And, know, that, you know, kind of struck a chord with me because I've definitely done that before, you know, I've done the whole, we get investment, we hire a bunch of people, we, you know, got to execute on this like big vision. That was right up my alley. So all of a sudden I went from, oh, I don't know if they can use someone like me to, yeah, I'm definitely the right person for this. Done **Matt Stauffer:** before. Yeah. **André Valentin:** Yeah, I've done that before. And then some, plus all of the compliance aspects and stuff like that that they wanted someone to own as well. I had kind of done that in most companies i've worked at honestly beforehand so i thought to myself you know after the call i think i sent him an email first and was like i thought it went really well you know i can see that laracon eu is coming up in i think it was like two or three weeks from that time. --- ### [Prioritize Team Listening Early](https://share.snipd.com/snip/bee853a7-cb62-4861-b665-846e7104fb2b) 🎧 15:38 - 16:18 (00:40) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/074dbdb3-2c31-4894-af17-9510e29c71a4" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - When joining a new team, schedule one-on-one meetings to understand individual goals and concerns. - Use early days for listening and learning to build strong relationships and identify team needs. #### 💬 Quote > I scheduled one-on with everyone... I was really trying to, that was not my first week, but sort of like week two, maybe, I think that's when we started talking to everyone. > — André Valentin André Valentin on his initial approach as Director of Engineering at Laravel #### 📚 Transcript **André Valentin:** a lot of empathy for people, really listening, trying to level with people, like kind of, you know, I scheduled one-on with everyone. I was really trying to, that was not my first week, but sort of like week two, maybe, I think that's when we started talking to everyone, you know, being like, okay, what do you want? Like, you know, and there are so many changes coming. I mean, I can tell you that change is coming that I don't think you are prepared for. And like, how can we make this better for you? Like, how can I help you achieve your goals? So the beginning days were really important. I mean, lots of listening, lots of learning, but also kind of seeing, okay, what kind of potential do we have in the current group? What do we need to hire for? You know, all of these things. --- ### [Flexible Processes with Unified Visibility](https://share.snipd.com/snip/ee729f09-a860-4059-b6aa-0a44fd260889) 🎧 23:18 - 27:18 (03:59) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/b8bc2f19-4fde-4616-9ac5-c2e3111b1fcb" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Laravel uses a hybrid approach combining Shape Up methodology with flexible team workflows. - Teams choose how to work day-to-day as long as they ensure clear communication and information flow. #### 💬 Quote > We're doing kind of a hybrid shape-up and trying to tell teams... how you connect that to how you work on a day-to completely up to you. > — André Valentin André Valentin on project management and communication methods at Laravel #### 📚 Transcript **Matt Stauffer:** Or is that very much kind of like each team brings their own kind of style to it? That's **André Valentin:** a really good question, because it's something that we have spent quite a bit of time talking about internally. So I guess that means I am a little bit involved in that as well. We tried to figure out actually, because we went from being like one team, everybody's kind of doing their own thing. So, okay, now we like, you know, we set down some product teams. There are some people on those teams, like how should they actually work? And in the beginning, because we were building a brand new thing for Cloud and Nightwatch, they were just like, you know, they were running at a million miles an hour, sprinting, sprinting. And like, well, I say sprinting, but I don't mean agile sprinting. Yeah, they were running very fast and kind of like really getting things done without much process. Let's put it like that. The process was we meet once in a while, like once a week maybe, and we talk about kind of we're doing. Do we have any bloggers? So it was, you know, it was really magical, to be honest. It still is. But, you know, that time was special. And on the core services team, which is, you know, Forge, Envoyer, and Vapor, We were trying some different things. We relatively early on decided to use Linear as a tool. I might be one of the only people in the world that like Jira. You **Matt Stauffer:** might be. **André Valentin:** Yeah, I might be. I quite like Jira. And I don't know what that says about me. But people don't usually say nice things when they hear that. Yeah. So I asked people, what tool would you like to work with? Because I knew I was not going to, like, I knew if I like just went in there and press purchase on the Atlassian Jira license, then people would be like, who is this guy? And how do we get rid of him? So yeah, I was trying to be a little bit more diplomatic, which led to Linear being the tool of choice. And it's honestly been quite good. I still miss some of the flexibility that Jira gives you. It's a very mature product that can do basically anything you want, which is part of the problem, I think. But yeah, so they were trying a little bit more and adding some process around how they were working because they were not building a brand new project. They were kind of figuring out, okay, we have this new team. How do we actually structure and work with that? So they were kind of the testing ground for a lot of these things. But then after cloud launched, you know, it became apparent that we needed process and that we needed to like figure out how to actually work more coherently across the company and create some sort of unity, even though we have people in Australia and some people in US and some people in Europe and all over the place. And we decided together with, I have to give Calvin from the cloud team a lot of credit here, because he led, let's say, the discovery. I think he took input from other people, but then he led the discovery and came up with a suggestion saying, shouldn't we all just try basically shape up? I don't know if that's a niche way of working, but it's a little bit less well-known than Scrum and Kanban and other ways. And we adapted it to our own, let's say, unique structure as well, which I think is fine. I am a big fan of that. So we are doing kind of a hybrid shape-up and trying to tell teams, this is the general idea that we want you to report in when reporting progress and all these kind of things here like the like you put your projects here here's where you should put the progress but then kind of how you connect that to how you work on a day-to completely up to you **Matt Stauffer:** okay because **André Valentin:** you know in australia or like the apac team i should not say australia but the apac team like they are doing things a little bit different than anywhere else they sit on tuple most days and and work together and everything goes, like say, it's quite synchronous actually. And other teams are very asynchronous and report on status and projects in a different way. But we knew that from a high-level leadership perspective, we wanted the same level of visibility into all of the projects. So we're trying to architect that in a way and set that up in linear. And that's sort of the approach we've gone with. I'm a very strong believer in teams should be able to choose the way they want to work as long as it doesn't mess up, let's say, the information flow. And I think we've landed on a pretty good spot. Definitely always means improvement, but yeah. --- ### [Lead with Trust and Empathy](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2bb89c08-3663-4852-a8f5-abd8421c93d3) 🎧 29:03 - 32:02 (02:59) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/4d436497-1b7c-464e-8b6c-55f4430c36b7" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Build trust with your team by being transparent and supportive, even when they seek opportunities elsewhere. - Embrace servant leadership with empathy to unblock and assist your team effectively. #### 💬 Quote > My number one goal coming in anywhere is really just building trust... I've had people say, I trust you. I'm looking for another job. To me, that's the ultimate level of trust. > — André Valentin André Valentin discussing his leadership philosophy #### 📚 Transcript **Matt Stauffer:** So I imagine that in some ways you're just like, look, I'm better at this than I was yesterday. But I also imagine there's probably some explicit ways that you notice your experience of management at Laravel being different because you've been managing since 2017. You're almost up on a decade of being an engineering manager. Are there ways in which your experience of doing it today are notably different, whether it's because of the culture of the company or because things you've said, you know what, I used to do that. And I just, I realized that's not actually how I want to run a company. Yeah. **André Valentin:** Let's try to keep this one brief, I guess. As I said in the beginning, I read a lot of books and that's like sort of how I figured I'd learn about management. And it's true. You can actually pick up a lot of great things. There a lot of tips. But, you know, if you read like 300 pages, I don't know if you get 300 pages worth of, you know, material out of that. There are maybe like three to five maybe takeaways per book or something like that that are like actually super, super valuable. And some of them also kind of, you know, you learn them over time. And I think management is a skill that you learn by doing it, but you do have to kind of have some people, people skills inherently available to you, I think. And you have to want to do it. I think that's another thing. Like there are lots of people in management that I think are doing it for the wrong reasons. Like they are seeing it as the only career path up where I'm like a very big fan of the IC track actually going quite parallel with the M track. Those abbreviations make sense to people. And my point is that you need to kind of make up your own style a little bit. And that comes by kind of years of experience, as you were saying. I try to be, and I hope that comes across, I don't know, but I try to be fairly down to earth. Like I'm not like very corporate or anything like that. I think people can like have real conversations with me. I, my, my number one goal coming in anywhere is really just building trust. I think that if you don't have trust, you don't get anything done. And building trust with your peers is super important. Building trust with your team is even more important, but like, yeah, the people that you manage should trust you 100%. I mean, I've had famously had like people, you know, tell me before they were like looking for a new job or even while they were interviewing at other companies and they were still working for me, they were like, I trust you. I'm just going to tell you, like I'm looking for something else right now. And to me, that's like the ultimate level of trust is like you know i'm not just gonna turn around and like punish you for that or whatever i'm actually you know here to help you like how can i actually help you get that job or like you know is there some way that we can resolve this or like why are you leaving how can we do better in the future all these kind of things so yeah like you know servant leadership is is also a topic in itself. I'm here to help people. I'm here to help you. Sometimes I'm helping the company. Sometimes I'm helping individuals on the team. But I'm really here to act as the great unblocker. And that's a learned skill, I think, to see it that way. --- ### [Recommended Leadership Reading and Resources](https://share.snipd.com/snip/51a78038-4c36-41c4-8e4c-af8e8119c3b7) 🎧 33:48 - 36:40 (02:51) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/2ffb735b-9ede-4805-9f16-75dbbfbd900a" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Read Radical Candor to learn honest feedback and tough conversations. - Follow the Pragmatic Engineer newsletter for digestible engineering leadership insights and industry updates. #### 💬 Quote > Radical Candor... is like a skill you need as a leader... Pragmatic Engineer newsletter definitely worth paying for if you can. > — André Valentin André Valentin on books and resources for engineering managers #### 📚 Transcript **Matt Stauffer:** But if you had a couple of books that you would recommend that have been valuable for you, do you have any you'd shout out? Yeah, **André Valentin:** I can. It's actually been a while since I picked up one because I kind of, not because I don't believe them anymore, but it was a little bit of an early career thing for me, but there are definitely some good ones. I mean, radical candor. I think that's one of the all time favorites, you know, kind of being straight with people. That's hard. Sometimes it's really hard, but that is also like a skill that you, I feel like kind of need to have as a, as a leader because if you don't like take action early when there are problems or like kind of get into feedback often that can lead to problems right so i think keeping in touch with people and doing it in a real way like connecting in a real way is important and radical kind of kind of at least gives you some tools and some tips and tricks and cool stories as **Matt Stauffer:** well on that yeah **André Valentin:** go ahead on **Matt Stauffer:** the business layer i want i want you to keep answering what i just want to say on the business of laravel podcast there was probably four or five interviews in a row where every single person not having heard the previous one said radical candor and i was like this book i and i love the book each time i was like yes yes yes and now i'm like oh no this book has really shaped a lot of the **André Valentin:** ways a lot of us are leading but **Matt Stauffer:** sorry were there any other books that you wanted to share there **André Valentin:** are others i don't know if they're like so so critical as as this one i mean i i think what was the first one i ever read it was like a little yellow book i don't know that doesn't help you okay it was sort of like called something like oh now you're a manager what now like it was like almost like management for dummies and i thought there were some good nuggets in there around yeah like importance of one-to and kind of like gaining trust and all again kind of the things that we like a little bit talked about but there are some books out there that if you are aspiring to be an engineering manager or leader in any way there are some really good resources that that that recommended. I have like a Goodreads list that I haven't opened in a million years that probably has all these in them. So if anybody ever wants that list, let me know. But otherwise, I want to shout out one thing and it's kind of the Pragmatic Engineer newsletter. I don't know if people talk about that one a lot. **Matt Stauffer:** No. **André Valentin:** I think it's like a half free, half paid, freemium type thing, newsletter. It's definitely worth paying for if you can. But yeah, it's this guy who worked in like big tech and he shares both kinds of stories, but also like news about what's happening in tech and hiring, you know, everything from like, how does, you know, Meta do engineering? How does Google do on-call? Like you just learn, I know these are not like universal standards that people should follow, but you just learn a lot in a very like digestible format and he's a great writer he also has a podcast but i would more so recommend the newsletter because it like it has some great stories in there on on like kind of both from the engineering side but also the engineering leadership side um worth --- ### [Keys to Managing Remote Teams](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6753c8d2-fa6b-4f56-8757-3426c6ba9b20) 🎧 37:34 - 40:40 (03:05) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/a8d13780-28c9-40b6-86f9-0a983391aa69" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Hire people suited to remote work who can work independently and communicate asynchronously. - Use tools like Slack and video demos to maintain communication without excessive meetings. #### 💬 Quote > Hiring the right people who don't need constant supervision is ultra key... We use Slack so much every day, and share demos internally. > — André Valentin André Valentin on challenges and solutions for managing remote teams #### 📚 Transcript **Matt Stauffer:** this is things that people don't often think about that you need to be considering and managing in order to help the team be healthy. **André Valentin:** Yeah. So it's not the first time that I'm managing a remote team, I want to say. So I did that at TradeShift even in the very beginning. And I made horrible mistakes. I mean, there were some expensive learnings, let me tell you. Yeah. So hiring the right people to be managed by a remote manager is also ultra key. So finding people who can, you know, don't need like the constant supervision and all this kind of stuff that remote management, or sorry, that remote work entails, like that is so important. I mean, I think it all starts with the people and the team. And if you have the right people and people that actually both used to and kind of know and like working remote, I'm not saying that does the job for you, but it gets close. I say that because like here at Laravel, I don't think I like do a whole lot different than I would normally do. I mean, I get more time to myself now because I'm remote, obviously, and sitting at home to reflect and think and also like do do work which you know that's you shouldn't say that's a manager because because you know obviously thinking and and all these things also work but i think you know what i mean yeah **Matt Stauffer:** yeah **André Valentin:** so finding the right people is important i mean you know again one really good example i have from early on in my career was like i hired some junior developers you know somewhere to sit and and run this project and but first of all i was a relatively new engineer i didn't have like all the budget sorry engineering manager i didn't have all the budget so i could like get one senior engineer or two juniors or whatever and i was like oh yeah i'll hire two juniors this makes perfect sense and oh boy was that the biggest mistake of my probably my entire career because nothing got done for months and it's not because they weren't like trying it was just like they needed so much more help than i could give them remotely and the team was then you know like caught and just like sitting on on calls all day with them trying to help them let's say get up to speed but that's just like that's not the environment that you know produces good work or efficiency for that matter but like i would say remote work see things to do, is obviously have great tools. I think tools are more important in remote work than not Slack. We use Slack so much every day. It's a great remote work enabler. communication tools are available. But yeah, share status often with each other. Share demos internally. In Lara we have like this demo channel where people can share like small you know loom videos of what they've worked on that day or that week again it doesn't have to be like get on a meeting every day because we try really not to do that we don't want to kill the productivity but we want people to be able to be proud of what they do share what they do still, you know, share updates. So is calm and everything, but kind of at their own time, their own flow, what fits that process. Yeah. So there are some things that you need to consider doing this remotely, but yeah, I think it comes down to like really good communication, really good people and leadership that also understands kind of how to, how to do remote. I think it's --- ### [Proactive Networking Pays Off](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3880bb13-be0f-4359-be90-0602030c2723) 🎧 41:35 - 42:46 (01:11) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/55402108-a561-4f9e-a9ff-b6f45b297951" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Reach out proactively on LinkedIn to show interest in working at Laravel. - Building relationships can lead to opportunities without formal job applications. #### 💬 Quote > The amount of people we have hired, not because they applied, but because we knew they wanted a job here. > — André Valentin André Valentin encouraging job seekers to connect proactively for Laravel roles #### 📚 Transcript **Matt Stauffer:** I **André Valentin:** think I want to, you know, plug hiring a little bit. So, I as I think people know, Laravel is growing and we are hiring a lot of people from all around the world for, you know, not just engineering, but all, but, you know, I guess I am mostly involved in the engineering part of this. And like, you know, if people are kind of discouraged or like how hard it is to get a job here and these kinds of things, I would say, you know, try to reach out on like, you know, connect on LinkedIn. If you have like a really burning desire to come work here and you feel like you're the perfect fit and all these kind of things like i know this is probably not the channel that most people find interesting but like i'm like a linkedin guy which i know is maybe weird but like yeah i i've like built built everything on linkedin so yeah you know find me on linkedin i'm happy to to even just chat about like what you know what does working here mean and like how how does one get a shot and even just kind of like register your interest? I mean, the amount of people we have hired, not because they applied for a job, but because we knew they wanted a job here. And we're like, oh, yeah, this person would actually be perfect. This is not insignificant. So, yeah, I would say like kind of making yourself known also to the other team leads and stuff doesn't have to be me. But yeah, that I would like to say. And again, keep an eye on level.com/careers. --- Created with [Snipd](https://www.snipd.com) | Highlight & Take Notes from Podcasts