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Make your employees proud of their work — Jérôme Nadaud (SensioLabs)

by Alban Dumouilla

SensioLabs offers solutions for developers and companies to solve Symfony framework and PHP issues arised in their specific applications. They are the creators of the Symfony PHP framework.

Background

Can you tell us a bit who you were before joining SensioLabs?

I don’t have a tech background. I studied biology in Toulouse and lived in Spain for about 25 years before moving to France to work as I knew there weren’t a lot of options for work if I stayed in Spain.

I got my first computer when I was 6 or so, and started playing around with code by myself. I first learnt C/C++ and ended up stepping on the very first version of PHP. I later became a consultant on Oracle technologies and got a strong background in databases.

I got called in 2013 by PrestaShop where I became R&D director of Prestashop and CTO of one of their products (PrestaShop Cloud) — note: the hosted version of the service.

How did you join the SensioLabs adventure?

There was an offer for the CTO spot ! I know Fabien (note: SensioLabs’ founder) from before but he didn’t get personally involved with my recruitment, which is a good thing. So I went through the regular interview process and got the job.

I was managing the ‘services’ team of 33 people. We worked on new projects on Symfony for different customers.

We often get asked how much we work on Symfony: basically, when the developers have no client to work for, they work on the framework. But most of the work is done by the open source community!

Core community members that work at SensioLabs work on Symfony on their spare time because they love it, not because we ask them to.

Has your work changed when you were still CTO?

Sure, my management scope changed from 15 to 25 people when I was hired by SensioLabs. When you start managing developers, project managers, architects… You can become the psychologist of 35 people!

The human side of the job is the most important one and the most challenging.

Why did you switch to the COO position?

I was CTO for 2 years. The executive team of the company decided to reorganize the team and I became Deputy COO.

We needed somebody who could stay operationally functional while being able to manage a strategy for the company.

Did you go through any crises? Can you describe one of them?

We had a lot of crises, like any company!

One of the most memorable ones was when we put 3 developers to work on a client’s project in their office with very complimentary skills but very different personalities. It was quite hard to manage them, and I had to meet with them several times to make them understand that the customer’s satisfaction should be placed above their differences.

People

What are you looking for when hiring?

A lot of things! The tech skills are challenged by the current CTO and the team. We’re not only testing PHP, but also devops and full-stack skills.

I mostly check the human fit, if the candidate matches with the company and the team in general. I don’t want any hotheads or stubborn people as they can have a bad impact on the team.

I then ask questions that will tell me if the candidate is passionate about the project. We’re in a competitive world when it comes to developers and if you hire someone that doesn’t believe in your project, they won’t explore new stuff on the side and won’t grow in their job.

In the end it’s really a matter of personal feeling. You want your employees to be proud to work for your company, and cooptation will always be cheaper than a hiring firm. So make them proud, and make them bring their friends !

Any hiring tips? Something that works often?

If your startup has 1 or 2 developers, you need a real head hunter in order to grow faster. If the candidate is a great fit, you shouldn’t lose him or her for a matter of salary. Put the right price for what you need.

Cooptation is by far the best thing you can use to hire the right people. You’ll see pretty fast if your employees are proud of their work or not.

CTO Life

What’s your hardest challenge, as a CTO?

Making sure people stay in the company. We’re facing a lot of pressure from the executive team and the consulting world is pretty intense. Other companies searching for developers can also offer insane salaries, so it get really competitive.

I try to stay as close as possible from the team to make sure they feel like they belong here, than they can trust their team.

Something you would change if you could go back in time ?

I should have delegated more to the right people. If something goes wrong, instead of jumping in to fix it, it’s better to motivate the right people so that they take care of it and feel empowered.

Future

What’s SensioLabs going to be in 3 years?

We’ll have between 100 and 150 developers and a dozen architects. It’s quite a challenge because of the current talent shortage. We’re about 30 developers now and need to find 120 great developers somehow!

We want to be recognized as the experts of Symfony and PHP, the people you go to for any needs you might have regarding the framework.

We’ve actually partnered with “Pole Emploi”, the french employment entity, to train people that want to switch careers. We teach coding to some people while placing them on some of our partner’s projects, so they actually work with the customer while receiving a training!