S7 Ep1: BT: This is why Keith, Head of Technical Design, stayed at BT for 21 years | DevLab Podcast

In this week's episode of The DevLab Podcast, we sat down with Keith Martin, Head of Technology Design at BT.

Tune in as he discusses the skills he gained from his military background and how they have helped him in his career. 

He emphasizes the significance of leadership, adaptability, resilience, and meticulousness. He's enthusiastic about the dynamic world of connectivity and cloud technology, underscoring the importance of constant learning. Keith's team prioritizes customized solutions for clients and a culture that sparks innovation. He recounts standout projects like the London 2012 Olympics and the team's response to COVID-19. 

Keith stresses that leadership and career development require an empathetic approach and empowering others. Balancing innovation and customer commitments is critical. He takes pride in his team's accomplishments, especially the Going for Growth initiative. Keith concludes with advice for those starting in tech and points out job opportunities at BT.

If you’d like to join the team at BT, then create a profile on the hackajob platform, where they’re currently hiring for a variety of roles or log in to your profile here.

Chapters

00:00 Skills from Military Background

03:32 Exciting Trends in Connectivity and Cloud Technology

05:08 Delivering Solutions Tailored to Customer Needs

07:57 Memorable Projects: London 2012 Olympics and COVID-19 Response

12:45 Evolution of Leadership and Career Development

15:23 Fostering a Culture of Innovation

22:46 Proud Achievements of the Team

28:23 Advice for Starting a Technical Career

32:32 Recruitment Opportunities at BT

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Transcript

Phil (00:01.242)

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the DevLab podcast. As you just heard there from our introduction, we're joined by Keith Martin, who's head of technical design at BT. So Keith, welcome to the podcast.

keith martin (00:12.395)

Thank you.

Phil (00:14.862)

So, in today's episode, Keith is going to be telling us a little bit about his journey into tech, as well as giving us some insights into the work that's going on at BT at the moment. So, Keith, let's start with you telling us a little bit about yourself, your journey into the world of technology, and how you ended up in your current role at BT, please.

keith martin (00:33.419)

Yeah, thanks, Phil. So my journey into tech started really when I was 15 years old. And I walked in the Army Careers office in Middlesbrough wanting to be a truck driver. And when I got into the Army Careers office, I told them I wanted to be a truck driver. They put me through a number of tests and they said, no, you're not going to be a truck driver. You're going to join the Roll Signals. And that's where I stayed for the next.

12 years, really getting into voice communications, satellite communications, and using those technologies on the move, which was really quite interesting. I joined BT about 20 years ago, so you can do the maths on how old I am. So yeah, joined BT 20 years ago, have had a fantastic 20 years here in BT. I've been part of of the Olympics where I saw BT use lots and lots of technology on the 2012 Olympics. And here I am now finding myself leading a team of 11, 1200 designers servicing our customers globally.

Phil (00:02.606)

Okay, cool. You've had a really interesting journey into tech, often coming in via the army pathway, not the traditional pathway. What skills from your military background have helped you most in your career at BT?

keith martin (00:17.242)

So I think I would break that down into four different areas. Leadership, the amount of skills that I gained in the Army from a leadership perspective was absolutely fantastic. And whilst I've had to adapt the leadership style a little bit over the last few years, having that base foundation of being able to lead teams, absolutely fantastic. Adaptability, you know, there's...

There's nothing better than being in the army sometimes and you really do never know what tomorrow's going to bring. And yeah, I could go on for hours about those stories and it's the same in BT.

every day is potentially a different journey depending on what's happened the night before on our customers' networks. Resiliency is another one. Facing adversity, bouncing back stronger. Didn't always get it right in the army. Don't always get it right in BT. It's that ability to bounce back and not let the failures really, really take you down.

And I think the final one is attention to detail. It's so, so important that you're looking at the minutia because the minutia could be the difference between our customers being able to access their money, flights, benefits or not. So it's really important that I drive that mentality into the team about attention to detail.

Phil (02:01.294)

Fantastic. We've spoken to a few service leaders recently and I think that is a common trend. Certainly the adaptability, the resilience and the attention to detail is something that comes up time and time again. So mean, anyone out there listening that is hiring at the moment, I think certainly there are a lot of programs out there that promote hiring service leaders, helping people transition once they've come out of the various different services. So I think it's certainly a hot topic at the moment and something that a lot of companies should be looking at.

And for anyone out there listening who is considering a move into technology or any different industry, I mean, these are the sort of life skills that will stand you in good stead in any career that you kind of try to go down.

keith martin (02:40.89)

Yeah, I think it's really important just to build on that. At the moment, the team that I'm running in BT, we're absolutely hiring. We're hiring service leavers and not service leavers. And the skills that we talk about is...

in the network space, in the voice space, in the contact center space, I don't necessarily need people to have every single one of those skills. It's the will to learn, the will to adapt, the will to put the graft in to learn the skills quickly. And we've got jobs all over the UK in lots and lots of sectors, which could see people doing some really, really interesting things over the next few years.

Phil (03:32.694)

We're going to delve into some of those things as part of the next question. What sort of trends are you most excited about in the evolving landscape of connectivity and cloud technology at the moment?

keith martin (03:44.73)

Yeah, it's interesting and I've given this one a lot of thought and I could talk much about what we're seeing right now and how we've seen the evolution over the last few years. And I've kind of decided to go with a very different answer. The trend that I'm seeing is the unknown. We are...

You know, things are revolving at such a pace that what we see as normal today is it could be legacy in days. So it's one of the really, really exciting things about being in the role that I am is that the trends are evolving fantastically quickly and we're having to keep up with that. And what are we training for tomorrow? Well, I don't know.

because I can tell you what we're training for today. We're training for cloud. We're training for edge. We're training for global fabric. We're using AI to help us on that journey. What's going to be around the corner? Who knows? And that's really what keeps everybody kind of on their toes and really excited for the future.

Phil (05:08.366)

Fantastic. Look, and I think that harks back to the resiliency adaptability that we've already kind of touched on in the ever -changing landscape of technology, new tools coming out that can boost productivity and all these different things that you've kind of mentioned. Having that resilient and adaptable mindset is absolutely crucial. So, I mean, how do you ensure that your team is delivering solutions tailored to kind of customers' unique needs and business problems when you have this ever -changing landscape?

keith martin (05:11.706)

Yeah, absolutely.

keith martin (05:39.098)

Yeah, it's about developing relationships with the customer. The relationships and the customers that we have have been evolving over a long, long time. So it's very rare that we will go in and talk to somebody for the first time about their networks. And they're generally conversations that have been nurtured for a long, long time. So it's...

So when we're having the conversation, it's absolutely about understanding their requirements, you know, and trying to cut through the multiple conversations that they might have had with different vendors over the last one, two, three years. What problem are you trying to solve is one of my favorite questions. You then collaborate and, you know, I've...

And here we are now talking over technology. Collaborating face -to -face is still really, really important. Anybody who believes that we can run the world and rule the world over a Teams call or a Zoom call, just get back to the office and have that conversation with a friend, a colleague, a customer, and you'll see that it is completely different. So collaboration is really, really key. And then...

putting a stake in the ground, putting a stake in the ground to say, this is our minimal viable product that we are going to design for you. And then iteratively improving over time. I try to avoid massively the designing the complexity day one. We can get to that. It is...

It's get something in the ground that you can test, that you can use, you can see, you can feel, you can see the benefits of, you can see the enhanced speeds, you can see your applications moving at much faster pace from wherever we've now deployed them. So get it in the ground, get it working, get your users using, and then be iterative on the top of that.

Phil (07:57.838)

Yeah, definitely. I think V1 doesn't have to be perfect, does it? V1 just has to be better. And then you aim for building on top of that over time. Whereas if you spend the whole time working theoretically, without the testing, without the user feedback, without the user acceptance, then you're shooting blind. And you can spend a long time shooting for perfect and then really doesn't actually solve the problems, right?

keith martin (08:03.234)

Exactly.

keith martin (08:18.622)

Absolutely.

Exactly, get it out there, let the users test it, give you the real -time feedback and then do release two, release three, release four.

Phil (08:32.91)

Are there any particular projects that stand out as being particularly memorable, perhaps they had a really wide ranging impact on your particular part of them?

keith martin (08:45.338)

I think there's probably two that, and one of them wasn't really a project. So I'll go with the first one. It is, and I was really, really proud to be part of it. It is what BT did for London 2012, the Olympics. It was a massive, massive project. And what people saw from July 2012,

for the next four weeks as we did the Olympics. And both breeds, of course, was fantastic. But that was a culmination of two, three, 10 years work, both in the bid stage, then in the actual infrastructure delivery. So really, really proud of that one. I really enjoyed my time. I spent a lot of time building out the hockey stadium.

getting under cabinets, laying cables and configuring them. It was almost back to my army days, which was great fun. So that one was really, really good, really positive. A few years ago now, you know, time does fly. But one closer to home, and I think closer to the present day, was the reaction that my team brought to COVID -20.

COVID, sorry, not COVID 2012, to COVID. What we saw there is, you know, everybody was instructed, right, work from home. And that means millions of millions of people who were in the office then needed the ability to work from home. And that infrastructure just wasn't there. A lot of people turned to BT, a lot of customers turned to BT to say help. And we did.

A lot of organizations needed additional infrastructure putting in and they almost needed it done overnight. We did that. We did that. There was the hospitals that needed configuring. We did that. We put additional forms in. We put the infrastructure in. So I think that that's probably the one that if I look back in recent years,

keith martin (11:10.874)

We had a team of about a thousand people who worked 24 -7 to uplift infrastructure, deploy new hardware, be that physically or software, in order to keep the world turning, keep the world operating, keep all of the government organizations, financial industry.

working so that people could get access to and still be working for those organisations.

Phil (11:47.182)

Fantastic. Look, and I think there's two projects, you know, probably encapsulate the range of projects that, you know, people could expect to potentially work on it. You've got the very proactive, very positive, you know, London Olympics, which was, yeah, a fantastic opportunity for people to be involved in something so spectacular, so positive. And then you've got the other side, which is almost that crisis management. OK, we really need to react to this. We need to make sure that, you know, like you say, the lights stay on.

keith martin (11:57.592)

Hmm.

Phil (12:16.066)

that businesses can keep delivering in. So it's that reactive to it, reacting to a negative to then, you know, be part of the team that helps to fix the problem for the long run. So I think, again, anyone listening in that's thinking about that next career move at PC, I think those two projects really highlight the impact you can have in very, very different, very disparate ways. So thank you very much for sharing. How has your perspective on leadership and career development evolved?

over your funding as a complete.

keith martin (12:47.802)

Yeah, I touched on this earlier. From my time in the military, it is about giving, the vast majority of the time, it's about giving orders. You go on an exercise, you have to give orders. And you need to come from a level of authority to give those orders. You've got to have the right rank. You've got to be respected in that rank.

And people have got to trust you, right, because they're going to put their life on the line on the back of those orders. So authority, I think, is a key word there. And my time in BT, it's not about authority. You don't need the same level of authority you had in the army. It's about empowering people. And it's a...

bit of a well -known phrase now, but it's getting the decision -making made as close to where the problem is, the detail is. So it's about empowering people and empowering leadership. There's lots of books that I've read and one of them talks about the captain of a ship never giving an order. I don't want to give an order. And I try very hard.

not to make decisions. And that's not because I'm sitting on the fence. It's because I want to listen to the decisions that my team are making. And then if I go, hmm, maybe that then I'm sitting on the fence. And I think you might want to have a look at it. If I give you the thumbs up, then you're doing exactly. So yeah, it's about empowering people. It's about trusting people. And if they get it wrong, which they will.

Just like I have, it is about providing that supporting infrastructure around them to help them learn from that mistake, celebrate it and get it better next time.

Phil (14:54.574)

Yeah, fantastic. Very well said. We all, you know, we put a lot of effort into hiring the right people and sometimes you've got to kind of get out of their way and let them do what they do and bring their expertise to the table. And as you say, I feel like they're empowered and able to build things and build on their own career achievements themselves with that support network that you've kind of touched on. So yeah, makes a lot of sense. And I suppose how do you foster a culture of innovation within the team?

keith martin (15:23.738)

So, if I go back 20 years, the team of technical people that I was part of was very one -dimensional. We were male, we were in our 30s, and we were white, and we were based in the UK. Fact, that is a true fact of the team that I joined. So...

Whilst that's okay, then, I don't think it's okay now. And one of the ways that we're trying to really drive innovation is to bring together a more diverse population to listen to what they have to say, to put the problem statement on the table and then invite people to...

give their views. And sometimes they need a bit of a bit of a nudge. I was in India a couple of weeks ago and and the people managers it was quite a heavily balanced male to female ratio and the female people manager had to be had to be gauded into the conversation. Once she was there, her confidence grew and she really, really contributed. So building cross -functional

and diverse teams is really how we go about developing our own fostering innovation in the team. Everybody has a goal in our team and they've generally got four or five goals that they strive to deliver. Being part of a learning culture and really demonstrating how you are learning. I talked earlier about what's...

What does the future bring? And we just don't know. It's getting out there and being inquisitive and looking at what our key technology partners are saying about the future. Getting on AI and seeing AI as a real help to us, not a threat, is really, really important. And the other...

keith martin (17:49.658)

one, I think the final one around how do we foster innovation, talked to early on about a more diverse team and that's not only in where people are based and their backgrounds, it is about their age as well. We've got within the team, just in the UK, we've got 50, what I would call early careers. So they're in the first

two or three years of being in BT. It's such an uplifting thing to see given, you know, there's a lot of people who've been in BT for, you know, like myself, 20 years. Having those two groups together is really good most of the time. And how you do really foster that and how you do make it really good is you get one to mentor the other.

And it's not always the 50 -year -old guy mentoring the 25 -year -old male female. It is, you do a little bit of peer -to -peer mentoring as well. Builds relationships. It helps each other understand each other more. And it really does when you're then in a meeting talking about a customer.

it gives everybody confidence to know that they have a voice and not going to be closed down because I'm 22, 23 or not going to be closed down because I'm in India, not where the rest of the team are. So yeah, that's kind of some of the techniques that we've used over the last few years and getting better, still some work to do. But...

And I have a dream of another bringing that 50 up to 100, if I'm brutally honest. I want to see more youngsters coming into the team from diverse backgrounds, diverse cultures who put that mix together. I think it's a great set of ingredients to foster innovation even more than what we're doing right now.

Phil (20:04.462)

Yeah, it definitely sounds like creating a collaborative, supportive environment is something that you've put a lot of thought in. And I'm sure you obviously know yourself, other leaders within the business and everyone within the business. You know, it sounds like you're really keen for everyone to have a voice and contribute regardless what stage they are in their career or as you say, what background they come from. How do you balance the kind of the fostering of innovation with delivering on customer commitments? Is there a, is there a tension there or are those things that kind of go hand in hand?

keith martin (20:34.97)

Yeah, there is sometimes a tension, but ultimately the customer will win. I'm non -negotiable on, if we've committed to do something for a customer, then we must do it. We then, once they're delivered, we can deliver some time to innovation. So we use CI a lot, continuous improvement.

We baseline how good we are at delivering something and then CI it as much as we can to take time out. And if we do, as a team, take, you know, we've taken a day here, a day there off the end -to -end process, what I will do with the team is I will almost do a profit share. But if you've taken two days off the end -to -end timing to deliver a solution,

then I'll take a day and we'll bank that and then I'll give the team a day that they can then use for innovation within the team because it's almost self -fulfilling there. The more you do that, the more you're going to get, the more you get. So that's kind of how I like to keep the team motivated and keep it so I'm not banking all of the benefits. We do a profit share.

They have some and I'll have some so we can again take on more work which makes us more profitable. Yeah.

Phil (22:14.638)

as you say, has that big focus on innovation, on collaboration and on learning and development as well. So over time, you then feel the benefits of that. People become more skilled. They've got more knowledge. They can bring more to the team and more to the table. So yeah, all definitely seems to fit together very nicely. Staying focused on the team just for a second. You might have already answered this with the pandemic, but...

keith martin (22:19.162)

Yeah, yeah.

keith martin (22:32.216)

Hmm.

Phil (22:41.518)

What is the thing you're most proud of that your team is as a company?

keith martin (22:46.49)

So I was going to talk about the pandemic because we did a lot. We did a lot. But I think the thing that I'm really, really most proud of, having kind of had a little bit of time to reflect, is we run an initiative within the team called Going for Growth. Now, some people will hear that and say, going for gold. And then,

link it to the Olympics, I promise you it's not. It's going for growth. And this is where we almost turn every single one of our designers into a pseudo salesperson without actually being a salesperson because we're a design team, we're a technology team. But using those facts that we're a design team, a technology team, we will see risks.

that customers do not see. And we can then do one of two things. We can stay quiet and then if one of those risks triggers, go, well, I knew that was going to happen. Or we can build on the relationships that we've got with customers and really point out some of the risks that we're seeing, be it devices end of life, be it devices that are not resilient, sites that have

gone up the criticality list from a customer perspective, but are still only running on one link or one device. There might be two links going into one device. So there's single points of failure. So going for growth is about where the team sees these problems across our customer base and then points them out to the customer with the help of the salespeople who can then commoditize what we've

what the risk that we've seen to be a commercial offering for BT and then sell those, sell that to the customer. The customer knows about it. The fact that we're moving to that stage, they're comfortable that they want to buy the additional resiliency, mitigate the risk. And that's been deployed over the last two years from really a standing start of nothing to this year.

keith martin (25:08.634)

we put about 110 million of ICV through the books of BT by identifying these risks across our customer base and turning those risks into an opportunity, turn it into a sale. And what we're then doing is we're delivering better service to our customers because they're trusting the design team and...

We're mitigating those risks. They'll have less outages. They'll have less problems. They can provide a better service to their customers. So overarching, there's a new advertising campaign going on at the minute from a BT. We really are driving that message that our customers are better on BT.

Phil (25:49.55)

Yeah. Excellent. Look, and I think it speaks to the, again, the collaborative element that you really sit sick to foster there. You end up thinking across different teams in the business efficiencies right across BT, which as you say, then delivers more and more value to the customer. Is that something that is an ongoing thing? Is, you know, will you have people working on that constantly or is that kind of a one -off once a year big review of a lot of different customers?

keith martin (26:13.946)

Now we literally live and breathe this every single day. So if a customer asks us to, they put in a change request, we'll look at that change request and we'll say, because they may have defined the solution in there. We'll talk to them about the problem, like I said, what business problem are you trying to fix? And look at the solution that they've kind of

penned in their request and go in with where applicable and only where applicable a better solution if we think there is one out there, but all in collaboration with the customer.

Phil (26:54.382)

Fantastic.

keith martin (26:54.618)

So no, this is absolutely ongoing. It's been running now for two years. Every single day, we identify opportunities, we identify risks and have those conversations. And there's a long running database of all of the opportunities that we've come up with. And, you know.

I really do hope that our customers see this as a positive because ultimately it's about the two working together and we will identify those risks and between us then fix them.

Phil (27:34.574)

Yeah, for sure. They're helping to proactively solve these problems. And I'm sure that the sales team and different teams in the business really, really appreciate that support. And like I said, that joined up thinking as well. Fantastic. So look, final question. And then obviously, floor is yours for anything we haven't had the chance to cover, anything you did want to share with anyone out there. But you kind of touched a little bit earlier when we were talking about the culture renovation on the early careers element of your team. So clearly, early careers is something that...

keith martin (27:43.834)

Hmm.

Phil (28:03.564)

you're quite passionate about, sounds like you very much enjoy working with people when they're starting out in their journey and passing on some of those learnings and that knowledge that you've picked up over your career. So, what advice would you give to someone just starting their technical career who's interested in moving into the sort of position that you're in one day?

keith martin (28:23.802)

Yeah, the first one that I would, is don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. There are going to be people like me across, I would hope, a lot of technology sectors, a lot of technology companies who really, really know that we need you more than you need us. So give it a go. You know, just give it a go. Once you're there, don't be afraid to get it wrong.

I could write several books on some of the projects that I've been involved in that didn't quite go to plan, but the list isn't as long as it could have been because I did get it wrong sometimes. So I've learned from those mistakes, I've made the next project and the next project a lot better because we're celebrating those failures. And that kind of leads...

leads into learn continuously. If we all collectively just stop our learning and thinking, I've got a job in BT, I've got a job at another company, that's it, that's the end of my learning. It's actually the beginning of your learning. So keep learning. When you're in there, build relationships, get yourself a mentor. Day one, find out who could be a great mentor.

to help you develop your career. If you become a leader, lead with empathy. It's so, so important. You never know what's going to go on behind those closed doors. You've got no idea. So be empathetic, be open, never use the word busy. And there's no such, I don't really know why the word exists. Be resilient and take risks.

Phil (30:17.806)

you

keith martin (30:22.01)

The world is about taking risks. And if you're not afraid to get it wrong, which was the first point, and you take risks, and you take those risks together with the customer, and know when to say stop if you think you are going down the wrong path, then you can get that minimal viable product out there much, much earlier that customers can use.

and you can then continue in the learning from. Yeah, I think that would be my little top tips.

Phil (30:59.03)

I think it's almost feels like we've come full circle as well to think quite a lot of those tips refer to, you know, building that adaptability, building that resilience, being prepared to put yourself out there and get things wrong at times. Like you're not going to be more resilient if you're too scared to even take that first step.

keith martin (31:12.954)

Hmm?

Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, you can't make an omelette without cracking an egg, they will say. You know, so you've got to, you've just got to go for it sometimes. And, and as long as you put the measures around it and you're doing it in a controlled way and you're not going rogue, then yeah, just, just have a, have a go. And I think that really

Does, if I can reach anybody with this podcast who's thinking to themselves, is technology the right place for me because of AI, because of the history of what design has been historically? The answer is absolutely yes. This is a place for everybody. It's a place to learn. It's a place to foster a great culture. And it's a place to have fun because...

You know, the rumours that technical people don't have fun are just so untrue. We do. Whereas we're the funniest people that I know.

Phil (32:17.294)

Yeah, I can certainly vouch for that. I don't know, some wise words there, Keith Fisher. Look, was there anything that you wanted to kind of touch on that we haven't had the chance to cover throughout today's podcast so far?

keith martin (32:32.826)

I think if I could just do a bit of a shameless plug, there are lots of jobs being offered around the globe in the UK, in Hungary, in India and beyond to join the technical team within BT. You can find the adverts on BT .com. If you're looking down recruitment and can't get to them, then I'll find out where this...

is going to be shared and you can leave me a comment and I'll contact it and I'll come back to you with some details of how to get there. So we're really looking to recruit about 100 people over the next, maybe even up to 200 people around the globe within to the technical team. If you think it's for you, then take that risk and give it a go. It doesn't matter what level you are, we will.

We will train the early careers and develop the more seasoned technical person to be even better.

Phil (33:41.326)

Yeah, for sure. It all starts with a conversation. So I think, yeah, we can make sure in the description of this podcast, any of those links that Keith just mentioned there on nice and obvious, we can make sure that anyone who is listening in, who's been intrigued by some of the projects that have been mentioned, the culture that you've mentioned, knows exactly where to go to find those roles at BT. Because BT, again, are a company that we've worked with for a number of years now and can absolutely vouch.

keith martin (33:44.506)

as indeed.

keith martin (33:57.144)

Mm.

Phil (34:09.358)

for the kind of employee satisfaction and a lot of the very burning reasons to join a fantastic company like B &T.

keith martin (34:18.298)

Awesome, thank you.

Phil (34:20.086)

Excellent. So look, thank you so much, Keith, for joining us on today's podcast.

keith martin (34:24.538)

Thanks for your time Phil, it's been great. It's been good to look back and it's good to reflect and if this podcast has got people thinking that, you know, could BT be the place for me and could the team that I lead be a good place to start or develop my career, then it's certainly been worth the time.

Phil (34:46.766)

So yeah, absolutely great episode and great to get that insight into your journey, which as we kind of sit down to start perhaps isn't that traditional route into technology. So thank you so much for sharing.

keith martin (34:59.13)

No problem. Thanks for your time. Thanks everybody.

Phil (35:01.858)

Excellent. That was Keith Martin, Head of Technology Design at BT.