{"id":24062,"date":"2022-03-23T05:53:07","date_gmt":"2022-03-23T09:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/devopsnews.online\/?p=24062"},"modified":"2022-03-23T05:53:07","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T09:53:07","slug":"leaders-in-tech-saul-zarrate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devopsnews.online\/leaders-in-tech-saul-zarrate\/","title":{"rendered":"Leaders in Tech: Saul Zarrate"},"content":{"rendered":"
Welcome to our Leaders in Tech editorial series. Speaking to leaders in the industry to capture their stories, career highs and lows, their trials and successes, their current company and their role, most recent projects, advice to others, and the individuals who they most look up to in the industry.<\/strong><\/p>\n This week, we talked to Saul Zarrate, Head of Delivery at Altamira, to find out more about why he joined the tech industry, what his role entails, what are the challenges he faces as a tech leader, and his advice to aspiring engineers and developers.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Could you introduce yourself and your current role?<\/strong><\/p>\n My name is Saul Zarrate – I am the Head of Delivery for an American start-up called Altamira.<\/p>\n Can you tell me about your journey and how you got where you are now?<\/strong><\/p>\n Having studied Computer Science and Systems Engineering, I spent most of my early life coding (mainly caffeinating while battling Java and Oracle). While doing that, I became aware that my strongest fortitude lay in leading IT teams, managing clients and customers, and explaining IT to non-IT people. This mix naturally led me to become an IT manager.<\/p>\n What inspired you to get involved in the IT industry?<\/strong><\/p>\n Honestly? It was a great accident. My older brother studied Computer Science as well, so we had a PC in our house, which I would play games on (for many hours!). However, an element that is a better answer for this is that I liked abstracting information, structuring data, and solving problems; in other words, I was a math geek! This blend put me in IT.<\/p>\n Having said all this, once I got to understand IT at University and then at work, I became super passionate about the ability to make things easier for people via the power of automation (which technology provides). Elon Musk talks about how IT can be seen as magic, i.e. if you were going to describe it to someone from a century ago, they would think that you are a sorcerer \u2013 that\u2019s the magic of IT!<\/p>\n Why did you decide to specialize in DevOps and Agile? What do you like about it?<\/strong><\/p>\n It was first introduced to me in 2010; as many I was initially skeptical since it sounded like a hippie fashionable concept. The fancy names and the purism injected into these ways of working didn\u2019t help either. I realized, however, that the difference was not so much on the tooling, the processes, or even the practices, but the approach itself. These ideologies are very team-oriented, and are all about simplicity and user-centricity – all this resonated and still resonates with me after more than 10 years of learning and practicing.<\/p>\n Do you have a favorite part of your job?<\/strong><\/p>\n Not just one, but I often think about the adrenaline rush that comes from transforming seemingly impossible challenges into a deliverable that provides value to a user\/customer. Team collaboration is a formidable tool to change something unthinkable into something tangible.<\/p>\n According to you, what makes a leader in the industry?<\/strong><\/p>\n In my opinion, the answer to this question is a combination of several simple answers. Savvy IT leaders don’t have just one or even a handful of skills; they have a combination of many. I will miss some, but here are a few that come to mind:<\/p>\n I am sure I am missing a few, but the point is that just ticking one or a few, doesn\u2019t make you a good leader. The compounded combination of many little things like these is what savvy IT leaders share.<\/p>\n What are some of the challenges you faced during your career?<\/strong><\/p>\n What are you the proudest of in your career so far?<\/strong><\/p>\n A handful of particular achievements come to mind, however, what I am proud of most is that I have hit a paradoxical sweet spot of understanding that nothing in my career matters too much yet everything I do in my career matters a lot. It is about doing your best every second yet accepting that work (and life) has many disappointments and being OK with them. With this approach, I have been able to deliver very challenging (sometimes impossible-looking) pieces of work in a calm and driving manner.<\/p>\n Furthermore, I am quite proud to have built relationships with people that have had a positive impact on their lives.<\/p>\n Here are some more specific accomplishments:<\/p>\n What have you learned from your experience so far?<\/strong><\/p>\n If you are looking for one as I suspect, that almost always<\/em>, there is a way to resolve what seems unresolvable \u2013 all you need is patience, problem-solving, collaboration with as many points of view as possible, decisiveness, and some coffee\/tea.<\/p>\n Do you have any advice for aspiring engineers?<\/strong><\/p>\n The T-shaped Engineer is an interesting idea that I believe is not well understood by many.<\/p>\n Many engineers tend to get obsessed with knowing all the features of one or a few programming languages (which change so rapidly anyway!), however when you understand that it is about being able to abstract a business problem, structure it and then find a solution using technology, even if it means learning a new IT solution, that\u2019s the gospel to follow! In other words, abstraction, problem-solving, a structured brain and adaptability are the winning formula instead of being a coding guru.<\/p>\n Collaboration and doing things for the team’s success are the icing on the cake. You do that and you will be a formidable and desirable engineer that every team wants to have!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Welcome to our Leaders in Tech editorial series. Speaking to leaders in the industry to capture their stories, career highs and lows, their trials and successes, their current company and their role, most recent projects, advice to others, and the individuals who they most look up to in the industry. This week, we talked to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123458,"featured_media":24063,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3480,3506,2],"tags":[67,85,3462,3663],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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