
Ep. 017: Bringing It Back to the ‘Why’ of Your Business | w/ Special Guest Sebastian Kline of Nelnet Community Engagement
From Open Source CXO: The Tech Leader's Podcast by Open Source CXO
May 29, 2024 · 37 min · Season 1 · Episode 17
About this episode
Sebastian Kline discusses the importance of understanding the 'why' in business while navigating engineering leadership and team integration.
Join Sebastian Kline, Vice President of Engineering at Nelnet, on this week's episode of Open Source CXO, hosted by Robert Kehoe and Don Blackburn. Explore the dynamic landscape of engineering leadership as Sebastian shares insights from his journey from Aware3 to Nelnet, beginning from a small startup to integration with a larger corporation. Sebastian breaks down the evolution of his team from developing mobile apps for nonprofits to overseeing significant technical debts and scaling operations. He highlights the strategic acquisition by Nelnet and the subsequent challenges and opportunities in merging teams. More specifically the need for maintaining consistent quality communication across global and local developers all while being diligent in focusing on the “why” of the business. Tune in to gain valuable perspectives on navigating the complexities of integrating startups into larger corporate structures, managing international teams, and the ongoing efforts to maintain a customer-focused, agile engineering culture. ————— Open Source CXO is proudly presented by Active Logic - https://activelogic.com/ Check us out online: https://oscxo.com/ Check us out on LinkedIn…
People in this episode
Hosts: Robert Kehoe, Don Blackburn
Guest: Sebastian Kline
Topics covered
- engineering leadership
- startup integration
- team management
- communication strategies
- customer-focused culture
Keywords
- engineering leadership
- startup integration
- team management
- communication
- agile culture
Sponsors
Active Logic
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Nelnet, Aware3
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