Following an unusual career path: from dev to CEO

Thoughtworks Technology Podcast

Thoughtworks

Careers, Business, 907234, Technology

4.7 • 53 Ratings

🗓️ 5 May 2022

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

From extreme programming to pairing with Ward Cunningham and the earliest days of .Net to building communities in a remote-first world, Thoughtworks’ CEO Guo Xiao has seen huge changes in the tech industry. We hear how he went from being a graduate developer to leading a company of more than 10,000 — and what he’s learned about developing software along the way.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the ThoughtWorks Technology podcast.
0:08.1	I am one of your regular host, Neil Ford, and I'm joined today by another of our regular host, Prem.
0:14.4	Hi, hi, Neil and Shao.
0:16.8	I've been a long-term thought worker as well, been a developer, and now these days I lead our Western Canada markets.
0:25.7	I play the role of tech director.
0:27.1	And today we're joined by a special guest.
0:30.6	We occasionally do a series of podcasts that we call Thought Worker Journey podcast, where we've take a thought worker who has been
0:38.9	on a sort of an interesting career trajectory before and especially during ThoughtWorks.
0:43.9	And today we have, we always say this, but we keep upping the ante.
0:48.5	Today we have perhaps one of the most interesting career tales from ThoughtWorks, which is Gojiao, who is currently the CEO of
0:57.3	ThoughtWorks, but started here as a developer. So welcome. Thank you, Neil. Thank you, Pram. It's a pleasure.
1:03.5	It's a privilege to be on the technology podcast. I have been, I think, on any technology podcast for a while. So thank you for having me here.
1:12.8	Well, we happen to know that you are a deep down, a serious technologist. So, and one of the very
1:19.2	few, I think, CEOs who started life as developers. So if you could, so we have a lot of new
1:25.1	people at ThoughtWorks who probably don't know how you got to
1:28.2	your, where you are now. So if you could give us a brief overview of your tenure at ThoughtWorks,
1:32.9	how you came to be here and what you've done since you joined. Sure, happy to do that.
1:38.8	I still think I'm a developer today, is just that I don't have anything in production anymore,
1:45.2	or thought words don't allow me to do that anymore.
1:47.1	But I joined a long time ago.
1:49.5	It was 1999.
1:51.9	I just graduated from school.
	...

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