Fearless Organizations on Dr. Raphael A. Bauer, MBA | Fractional & Interim CTO | PE/VC Tech Strategy & Due Diligence | Berlin | London | Austin, Texas

Intro As Interim CTO I closely collaborate with non-technical folks.

Introduction 20% time projects have always been a celebrated concept in the tech world.

Why Staging Systems Are a Lie In software development, staging systems have long been seen as a crucial step in the deployment pipeline.

Lido: A Lightweight Alternative to DDD When it comes to structuring an application, Domain-Driven Design (DDD) is often hailed as the gold standard.

Introduction Since around 2015, microservices have been sold as the revolutionary way to make businesses more agile and responsive.

To test-first or not to test, that is the question.

Intro If you’re working with software that runs on mobile devices - otherwise known as “apps” - you’ve probably come across the term “PWA”.

Introduction I am a very average person.

Introduction I was born in Bavaria and raised with Bavarian and Austrian accents mainly.

Intro I am often asked what a good Interim CTO does.

Introduction Writing and selling your own book is not complicated.

Intro I recently book a flight with Lufthansa.

Table Of Contents Free Speech and Political Correctness Political Correctness in Business Coinbase Basecamp Google Changes Course Elon Musk and AI Conclusion Free Speech and Political Correctness The USA is the land of free speech.

I don’t sign NDAs (Non Disclosure Agreements).

SOCIAL MEDIA KILLED SEO.

Intro The question of whether your company should be organized like a family or a professional sports team is not a new one.

Intro Will AI replace software engineering and programming?

An Excellent Book Written by a Compensation Consultant As part of my Interim CTO assignments I frequently developed and put in place career ladders for my clients.

Speed: Key Factor for Successful Interim Management There is a significant difference between a Permanent Manager and an Interim CTO.

Health, Work and Sports Many of my assignments as Interim CTO are very very demanding and stressful.

Problem Your team is not performing well.

Contrary to popular belief - the answer to everything is NOT 42 - it’s PostgreSQL.

Three States Design for three states when creating user interfaces: Regular State Blank State (First visit - or no data) Error State (Opsi!

Dismiss your reports based on 1:1s that repeatedly don’t make you feel comfortable.

My Journey in Technology I began my coding journey in the 90s and landed my first paid jobs during the dot.com bubble in Germany.

Bridging the Gap In 2021, I served as the Interim CTO for Mister Spex.

A Texas Trip In November 2023, I was delighted to spend several days with two awesome folks, Martin and Yamine, in Texas.

Ships and Speed A long time ago, I read about shipping and the concepts of full prudent speed and breakneck speed.

Intro In my Interim CTO career I’ve often seen software systems that were quickly developed and delivered to clients with great fanfare.

Intro In the first part we investigated whether PostgreSQL could be used as storage for time series data.

Intro Dokku is awesome.

Intro As Interim CTO I deal with management topics.

Intro Ever had the challenge of a CEO coming to one of you teams and requesting them to implement a super-urgent feature?

Musk and Twitter Musk is a salesman.

Intro Authentication and authorization is the bread and butter business of IT systems and web apps.

Intro Somewhen in 2022 I decided to switch from normal hot showers to cold showers.

Introduction GPT models are remarkable and can do a lot of things.

Introduction When working as Interim CTO the topic of SEO frequently comes up.

Testing JavaScript Functions with AI: A GPT-4 Application As a developer, you probably know the importance of testing.

TL;DR Consider using two basic metrics for your tech teams: “Cycle Time” and “Team Happiness”.

Establishing Leadership in Growing Organizations In mature tech organizations, each of your teams would have a team lead.

A Recurring Theme Sometimes you read books that are so good that you re-read them multiple times.

When Software Slowly - then Suddenly - Gets Outdated In my time as consultant I’ve seen many companies and software systems.

Intro I just met a friend and we came to the topic of procastination.

Intro OKRs can be used to manage the team of a report jointly with the report, or manage one report (personal OKRs).

My One-on-One Template Over the years I’ve developed a pretty cool way to run one-on-ones.

Introduction Some engineering departments rock.

TL;DR Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) are a lightweight tool to document your decisions.

Two Characteristics of Great Managers Many companies have large matrices to grade managers based on an extensive set of criteria.

Two Ways to Praise Praise is important.