Ep 006: Simone Robutti - Choosing Ethical and Values-Based Work

Simone Robutti shares the wild and interesting journey of transforming his career from data engineering to a path aligned with his personal values. He's also juggling multiple work areas fantastically... from consultant to a fermentation studio to organizational design/process improvement.

Simone discusses the pivotal roles and motivations that shaped his journey, including teaching political praxis and addressing workers' rights in the gig economy. He's truly a model of aligning professional pursuits with one’s core beliefs.

Simone's links:
Consultancy one-pager: https://bit.ly/robutticc
Tech Workers Coalition: https://techworkerscoalition.org/
Personal Website: https://robutti.me/
QU Fermentation Studio: https://www.qufermentationstudio.com/
Reversing.works: https://reversing.works/

Transcript

Life After Tech

Debbie 0:00

Welcome to the your Life After Tech podcast . This is episode number six . I'm Debbie Levitt . Don't forget to check out our lifeaftertechinfo multiverse , including our book , Discord , community coaching and more , Because you might be done with tech , tech might be done with you , or you're thinking about adding non-tech work to your tech career . Today's guest is Simone Robuti , S-I-M-O-N-E-R-O-B-U-T-T-I , and you can find him at robutiime . Oh , sorry , I said that in Italian R-O-B-U-T-T-I , dot , M-E , Plus lots of other links in our episode description . Simone is quite the storyteller . It's easy to fall in love with him , but sometimes a little hard to follow exactly where he's going with everything . But follow him down the path of so many interesting stories about different jobs he's done and what he's doing now , especially now that he's gotten out of tech . Let's get to know Simone .

Simone 1:18

Hello everybody , I'm Simone and today I'm going to talk to you about life after tech . And I think I should start from my studies , or better , maybe even before . Like at four years old , I was put in front of a computer by my father to play video games and I kind of never left . So when it was time to pick a university course , it was quite obvious that I would have gone for computer science I'm from Italy , so there is called informatica . It would have gone for computer science I'm from Italy , so there it's called Informatica . It's slightly different than computer science , but you can think of something between computer science and software engineering .

Simone 1:55

And I studied in Milan for six years almost seven , because I wasn't very good at studying , especially the first few years . Then I started working in a small consultancy as a data engineer , slash machine learning engineer my master thesis was also in those topics and I worked as a Scala Spark developer for around a year and a half , first as a consultant in a bank . That was the most hellish and you know a hellish circus with , you know , endless amounts of consultants , endless budget and the idea of how to make use of them , and a lot of you know managers on cocaine and projects that didn't make any sense , and here are keys and internal strife and so on and so forth and data leaks .

Simone 2:51

That's what a soap opera wow yeah , yeah , I have a lot of characters that would you know fill a book from from that time . Then , luckily , after I finished my first project there that now would be illegal , illegal just , or better , illicit under GDPR , but whatever , I was moved to a small spin-off startup of my consultancy company . I stayed there a few months and then I moved to Germany because I was tired of this stuff so very hectic work , culture , stressful and , if you know , most of the money coming from banks or insurances and stuff like this . So I moved to Germany when I was 26 , that was seven , almost not yet seven years ago and I kept working as a data engineer with a bit of machine learning in between , first in a startup doing crowd analytics on telco data . So we were checking how people were working around the city based on the connection between their phone and the cell phone tower . Then I moved to another startup where I stayed for four years working again as a lot engineer .

Simone 4:13

This was , in self , like self-driving cars . It was before COVID and there was still belief that this would work . Now self-driving cars are kind of like is that they are not happening , and especially after COVID , here in Germany all the car makers were like no more money , let's close the faucet . And so , eventually the startup started going down and last year I did not much , let's say , because they were pivoting to food delivery robots without any previous knowledge of the topic . And yeah , and it was a doomed market because it just doesn't make sense economically . Like they smash one robot , you lose , you know , 10,000 , 20,000 euros of equipment and , yeah , it's cheaper to exploit riders , and riders are actually the reason . The first , um , no , it's not true . So after that I was like I was like this , I'm doing nothing here , I'm earning money , it's nice , it's comfy , it's cozy . I held up for like one year , two years of this life , and then I was like even the one hour , two hours of uh work I do every day , like effective hours , were like a torture . Not because you know it was a bad life . I , I was living a very privileged and comfy life , but it was so meaningless and performative . I was like , okay , I saved the money , I saved enough money . Eventually I need to jump the ship . And , uh , because also the company was going down .

Simone 5:53

So , um , the chance was these requests from a friend to start a cooperative in italy to do consultancy to other cooperatives . So it was politically motivated to some degree . It was closer to what I wanted to do . And because in the meanwhile , in this startup but also in my political activity in an organization called Tech Workers Coalition that is concerned with unionizing tech workers , I was getting interested more and more in the topic of organizations , how to build organizations , how to make to take decisions , facilitation and so on and so forth and so in .

Simone 6:33

In this consultancy for other cooperatives , the you know the package , the idea , the , the business proposition was like we give you , we help you with the software , but we help you also with the process , with the governance . We teach you how to build this stuff without reproducing the bad patterns of startups or corporate environments . So democratic decision making and more sustainable work , pace and stuff like that . Then the cooperative after some months of working on it , we understood we weren't aligned on a few things . So before signing and forming the cooperative , we understood we weren't aligned on a few things . So before signing and forming the cooperative , we were like it's better not to do it , and I was talking about riders .

Simone 7:11

So the next real job I had after this short attempt to start a cooperative was in a research that was doing research on social harm of AI and recommender systems and social media in general , but also doing research on food delivery platforms and how the workers , like the riders , are surveilled through their app , and we did .

Simone 7:44

I wasn't actually directly involved in that it was done before I actually joined the organization but I was hired to kind of continue that . But then , you know , things changed . So in this research group I was supposed to be a data engineer working on this stuff , but then I was like and this was like democratically run , no bosses , no managers . It was around 12 to 15 people , let's say over a course of two years , and I was like guys , none of you ever had a real job like half of them were researchers , the other half were hackers . I was like I don't want to work like this . It's so fucking messy and uh , and I'm like I quit the tech industry to to quit with the . I don't want to to do stuff like this . So for nine months I focused almost entirely on building up the organization and structuring their processes and making it .

Debbie 8:38

When was this ? This was three years ago , okay so about three years ago , okay , so about three years ago you were done with the bullshit from tech and you started shifting out .

Simone 8:52

Shifting out . I was fully out because this job was against tech . Even though I was a programmer . It was politically very openly against the tech sector Interesting . For example , some of the research we did was proving that TikTok was supporting Russian propaganda on war . Or we proved that Microsoft Copilot at the time it was called Bing Chat was giving misleading information on elections in Germany and Switzerland , or like effects of like recommender systems of Amazon , facebook , whatever so this was . It wasn't in collaboration with these companies , it was openly adversarial to these companies , and we did a lot of meaningful research , very impactful in that space . The group was called Tracking Exposed when I joined . Then we changed name to AI Forensics Look it up if you want to see interesting things on how the tech sector works and I stayed there for two years because , all in all , it was a very nice experience .

Simone 10:02

After I cleaned up the mess , let's say , people were very happy about what we were doing . It had meaning . It was a change of pace because I was like like one of the things that matters to me , that touches me the most after leaving tech and changing job is like that . Now people are like kind of grateful or at least impressed , but not impressed that's maybe a big word but like they have a positive uh reaction when I say what I'm doing . That is something that if you are doing self-driving cars , maybe they say it's cool , but for but they are hardly grateful . So , um and so when I was doing this kind of research , there were people like when I , like after introducing myself , saying what I do , they were like thank you for the work you're doing and you know , it's not like being a firefighter where you're kind of here by default , but it's a step towards that .

Simone 11:02

And I stayed there for two years and after we finished this project on Microsoft Copilot that I led , even though I have no background for research , but I'm just good at organizing stuff so they put me in charge of the project . The project was successful to a degree and I was like I don't want to do research , like I'm not shaped in the form of a researcher , it's not my thing , because the uncertainty of the outcome or like especially in this case , where you're adversarial against these companies that might change their software overnight and you're like I spent six months analyzing something that doesn't exist anymore and we don't probably share anything and we go . So I was like I , I , it's fine , I don't want to do it again and so I quit , but in good terms , like we , we had a very emotional separation . They bought me in Adidas tracksuit with the logo of the of the group because I , for tech workers coalition , the organization I talked about before , uh , in italy we use trucks , so it says the kind of uniform to go speak in public as if , as a meme , like to to promote the other tech workers , where adidas tracksuits , whatever like it's , it's a it's between an inner joke and the static performance .

Simone 12:25

But so I have endless Alistar assets and they bought me a green one with the logo of AI forensics as a gift that nobody gave me , a parting gift when I was working tech . You know , maybe they need to buy , you know you have to buy croissants and bring them to the office . They don't even buy them for you . But you know , a custom gift is not a thing . You see , also , they printed in France . They printed me a paper with a bunch of memes from when I was there or like photos of me and this kind of stuff .

Simone 13:00

So it was a very nice experience , but I was like guys , guys , if you start doing something else , fine , but if we stick to research and we're a research group , I'm like I'm done with this . So , um , we're still in touch and we're in good terms and after that kind of started the phase where I'm in now , where I am working several different jobs um , somehow all related but also not the main one being organizational consultant for cooperatives , political collectives , associations , ngos and whatever I feel is aligned with my values , plus a music school , because I'm like it's like it's a berlin music school . I'm like that's full of cool kids , I'm like I want to be a cool kid too , and it seems like a nice environment anyway . So I'm also starting working with them . But , um , yeah , so that's I had these kind of like democratic small organizations to work better , to take decision making done in a different way , processes done in a different way , because even if some of them studied organizational sciences or management and so on , often that's tailored to big corporate or startups that have different values , different needs , needs , and it just doesn't work .

Simone 14:26

So I try to , you know , specialize somehow in , uh , in this . It's not even a niche , because there are a lot of these organizations but they just don't think they can afford and they or they deserve to have a consultant for this kind of stuff , but somehow economically , economically and you know I make it work . So I have packages that kind of change , how they work positively , and that's my main thing .

Debbie 14:57

You said you have a lot of things .

Simone 15:00

Yes , that's the main one , at least in terms of narrative . Then in terms of time , I'm not sure I should track the hours , but the other thing I do is I work with the fermentation studio of my partner that gives classes about , let's say , from beginner to advanced fermentation , let's say , from beginner to advanced fermentation , and we also organize community events here in Berlin and the studio is called True Fermentation , q-u Fermentation , and and there I'm a community and program manager , that is a fancy way to say I publish stuff on social media to promote events . I write the copy and they wash the jars before the classes because they have to be clean and sanitized .

Debbie 15:49

A quick question on fermentation , since we've ended up in an interesting world here . When I think of fermentation , I feel like that could be anything from alcohol to tofu , to something else . What are you fermenting ?

Simone 16:05

So in the studio we do mostly koji base Stuff , koji is the mold that is at the base of miso , sake , soy sauce and so on . So our main , you know , best selling class is on miso how to make miso . But we do a bunch of everything . We also do more basic stuff sometimes , like kombucha or kimchi , but the bulk is a bit more advanced . So miso . But my partner is also working in a restaurant so she also does fermented tofu . She does like 20 products for the restaurant different types of misooyu garum and whatever that sometimes enter the program .

Personal Qualities and Decision-Making

Debbie 16:53

Yeah , yeah , just in case you're into ancient rome yeah , it's not the same thing .

Simone 16:59

It has the same name , but it's not like letting the fish rot in the sun like the romans did . It's kind of the same process on a chemical level , but it's not the same , so you can make . Garum is like anything that through enzymatic fermentation like you leave , for example , I don't know bread , or we made one with parmesan you leave it at 60 degrees for several weeks and it produces this very flavorful liquid that you can use as a condiment .

Debbie 17:31

So I we've got organizational design . We have helping your partner with a fermentation studio . What else is on the list ?

Simone 17:41

so the third one this happens a few times a year . I teach political praxis , mostly in a school in Italy called the squad aola Capitale Sociale , where basically it's a primer on how to build a political organization from you know , grassroots political organization . So I give them a bit of everything , from how to build the strategy , how to facilitate meetings , how to like the software stack you might want to use , because otherwise they end up with WhatsApp chats and Google Drive files . So I teach them a bit of this , a bit of everything . But sometimes I do just workshops , like one time one-off workshops , like the course is like five weeks , but sometimes I do like two hours , three hours workshops in different spaces .

Simone 18:34

Yeah that's the third one and the fourth one is still in research . So when Tracking Exposed became AI Forensics and they changed name , the rider stuff was kind of pushed away and now it's a group called the Reversing Works . This is kind of the same people that were there before , but it's continuing that kind of research , let's say . And so we investigate food delivery platforms . Mostly . I cannot reveal too much information on the ongoing investigations because it's an investigation , of course , so I cannot make names . But we're also doing platforms that are used for data labeling , for AI and checking how the workers on these platforms that do , you know when they give they're used by stuff like Google or OpenAI to say this prompt was offensive or like write three lines of this and that .

Simone 19:40

And there are humans behind , mostly in the third world , doing this kind of work . But there are also some in Europe and we kind of check what . But there are also some in Europe and we kind of check what these platforms are doing to them . But mostly this is focused on riders and so the kind of information and data rights that are violated by companies where , like the workers' rights and data rights violated by companies , you know , like stuff like Foodora , deliveroo , glovo , liferando and all these companies that I'm talking about . So in that I'm doing mostly project management , because on the technical side it's not my expertise Like we have a super hacker guy from Italy doing all the heavy lifting there . I just try to keep the pieces together .

Debbie 20:30

Well , I'm going to take you in a new direction now . I want to ask you about these things that you're doing now . How do these new areas of work match your core personal qualities , like who you are at your core ?

Simone 20:49

like who you are at your core . I think at some point I became this person that is responsible and organized and structured and accountable and it keeps growing , meaning that before I was that person in my relationship . Then I became that in the political environment . Then eventually in the startup job I was slowly taking that role , mostly shielding my team from work , but also somehow I was perceived as a figure of not of authority in the sense of commanding authority , a figure of not of authority in the sense of like commanding authority but like reliable in uh , doing my role as , and people were looking up to me and coming to me for advice and whatever , and this kept growing . So at some point somebody called me an organizational daddy and I like I don't use it because obviously it's inappropriate and vaguely sexualized , but that's kind of the relationship I tend to build with people and it's not paternalistic . You know I don't say it in a paternalistic sense , I try to avoid that at all costs . But eventually , when there is trust and there is , you know , understanding of my abilities and that you know they have the experience that I can make their life better and easier , they kind of start relating to me in that way . So I would say that's the main element and it keeps working . Like I rarely take on too much work and I'm like , guys , I have to cancel . I try not to make it happen and usually it's a sign that I'm doing something wrong . It happens very rarely . So , yeah , that's the hinge . I am kind of the hinge of a lot of these things happening and I hold people accountable . So I'm the one going to them like so this was supposed to happen , what's what's the problem , what's the issue ? And they untangle their provinces . So they I okay .

Simone 23:00

Another element of this is like I always see myself as subservient in the , in enabling people to do what they want to do . I'm like I have my ideas and my opinions , but I'm like I don't want to turn this into work , or like I you know my projects are mine and I work on them kind of alone . When I'm in an organization , I'm like you put the ideas and I , let's say , I make the execution happen . This is in a political setting . In a work setting . You put the ideas and I , let's say , I make the execution happen . This is in a political setting .

Simone 23:34

In a work setting , I try not to put too much my opinions on the table , and this builds a lot of trust , because some I don't . I don't actually have a stake in one option rather than another , and so people always perceive me as neutral , and I can do that what I think is the interest of the organization . But yeah , that's another role I tend to take a lot . I'm like okay , let's try to bring your idea out and make it happen , rather than be like I think the right way is this one . And somehow this sometimes sounds very badly , because people then need to deal with the consequences of executing their ideas and they're like Simone , but how did it happen ? Why did it end up this way ? Bro , you are the one that wanted this to happen . Now it happened , and so I mean I also push back when I see something completely unreasonable .

Debbie 24:28

But yeah , I enable people , let's say , All right , let's say that for sure , thinking about when you were leaving tech and distancing yourself from all of the tech work you had done . Is there any mistake or regret or something you wish you did it differently ?

Simone 24:48

Not really Meaning that . I mean , I'm not a person that has regrets in general and I you live better without , so I don't really think I don't really frame the past in this way . That said , I think there are things I understood afterward , but they wouldn't have really changed my course of action , because I saved money for a lot of time to be able to pursue this path . And , yes , I could have argued like I could have left one year before and saved less money , but that's I don't know . Like I don't really regret it . I'm like it's I just have more money and more tranquility to keep doing this , like what I'm doing right now . It's kind of getting sustainable , but , yeah , it's still a long way before it's anywhere close the salary I was getting in tech . So I don't regret saving money and actually , but let's say , okay , one point that was really complicated and I think it's very useful for people that want to leave tech was to set it couldn't .

Simone 25:56

Like I was in a comfy position . I was in a very privileged position , so I always had the dilemma of like I always had the choice of entrenching myself in this privilege and then spend it , for example , in political activity , because I had a lot of time and a lot of money that I could spend or donate and and that's always on the table . But I was like at some point point I need a point of closure where I just leave , because if it's not coming from the outside , I need to be the person doing that and giving a privilege , especially when you know there is covet , global collapse , economical collapse and whatever , and also the tech industry is on a trajectory where the kind of privilege on average from tech workers is only going to get worse because there are endless layoffs , a lot of dynamics and for sure , in 10 years the job I had , like cozy and well paid , will be a total rarity compared to now . So at some point I just had to do it and like , uh , it was . There was no rational argument to do it , to do that in that moment , but so this was also up until now . It's . It was up until recently .

Simone 27:16

It was , um , let's say always a point like should I go back ? Like when is reasonable to you know ? Put your values or desires in front of like stability , because what I'm doing is destabilizing . I mean it's I still have again for the given , for the bridge I talked about before . It's not like I'm taking big risks , you know I'm not . I'm not like at san francis , like giving away all my wealth and being naked in nature . It's not .

Debbie 27:52

It's nowhere risky , okay , yes , san francisco , for the ones watching on youtube yeah , sorry for those listening , I'm wearing a san Francisco shirt , so when he said St Francis , I just wanted to make the visual connection there . Yeah sorry , go ahead .

Simone 28:07

San Francisco is totally not that place . But so it's not that kind of change and I would advise people not to frame it in that way , like there's no reason to take risk and it's just going to make it harder . But that said , in the long term , when I think of my next 10 , 20 years and I think about how the world is going , I'm like it's not the safest option leaving the tech industry . But I had to sit with this feeling for a long time until a few weeks ago that I think it's my . I got my point of closure where at the in summer I wasn't having too much work because a lot of my clients were italian at the time and italians don't work in summer , and so I was like no money is coming in . Maybe I made a terrible decision . This thing is not working out . Let's apply to some uh tech positions just to , just because just let's see what's up , what can

Leaving Tech and Finding Closure

Simone 29:08

happen .

Simone 29:08

And I did the first interview with the company here in Berlin that and I was like they asked me how much would you like to get to be paid ? I was like between 90 and 100 K . That for Berlin is like euros , quite good money , euros , yes , um , it's , let's say , four times the average salary in germany , something like that . So , and it's like , yeah , almost double what I was earning . No , it's not double , it's one third higher than what I was earning when I left . And it was good money . But it was the first interview and so it's not certain that they would have offered it to me . But the interviewer was like okay , she noted it down , no problem . And after I feel like when she was talking , she was talking about you know , she explained me how the teams are structured and the hierarchy and who I would respond to . And they were like four or five people between me , possibly more , four or five people between me and the ceo and and the office .

Simone 30:10

I don't think I don't want to go back into that . I , I really don't want to . And uh , and some , and I , after the first interview , I was like I'm gonna cancel the interview process , i'm'm giving up on this salary . I had my point of closure no , no , going back . And luckily then jobs started coming in again nice , you know , mid September . So everything is fine . But that moment I really had to make you know it was a moment of closure , because I had to give up every Lee , it wasn't an offer yet , but in my mind was like if they actually give me this money and it's a real offer , I don't know if I have the strength to uh say no . So I had to do it before and it was emotionally very , um , very involved .

Simone 30:59

For , you know , my average relation to work , that is like I'm Italian work is not important . I know this is the wrong podcast to say this , but , like you know , life is somewhere else .

Debbie 31:10

I had it in my book and the Italians made me take it out .

Simone 31:14

Yeah , yeah , ah , okay , but yeah , anyway , the life is somewhere else . But I spent one day after this interview writing down the things I would lose if I went back into tech . It was a long list of stuff , including croissants in the morning at 11 , because now I'm a freelancer , I can go to eat a croissant if I want . If I don't have meetings and I really want to , I can go and eat a cardamomissants when you want .

Debbie 31:43

That's it . That's the . That's the name .

Simone 31:47

Yeah , that was the first item on my list and I came out of these emotional exercise hungry more , more than anything else . But there were a lot of other stuff like flex net . Like naps was not the second , but quite close , because that's another thing . But I took naps also when I was working in tech . Like work from home was a blessing and that's one of the privileges of tech . I was also taking naps in the office at some point , but that's because I'm very good at maneuvering in office . I don't know , like the fact , somehow this was registered as me working hard and so I had to take naps even though I wasn't working hard . But this is an advanced technique that you need to be very Italian to achieve . I wouldn't suggest everybody to take naps in the office in front of your boss . It takes a while to spin it as a good thing .

Debbie 32:44

Simone , your stories are endlessly wild .

Simone 32:49

In all of this . Just to finish , on my departure from tech , when I left the startup I was talking about and not working much and taking naps the manager was like Simone , it's it's clear that you really cared about this job and you were always so passionate and so , coming away , sure , like this , this manager was a good guy . It wasn't the bad manager , but uh , yeah , I was like the disconnection was quite a lot . I still I , I mean I I liked him but I didn't want to you know , to show that , bro . That's not what happened , but okay .

Debbie 33:28

Oh my gosh , and I thought Sardinians were storytellers . So , simone , I have pretty much one last question for you , and that is our listeners and watchers might be considering leaving tech or starting to add non-tech work to their universe . What advice would you give them ?

Simone 33:47

um , yeah , visualize what you want to do . That was my , my recurring thoughts . Rather than focusing on what you don't like about tech , focus on what would happen next and try to plan it and make it , you know , realistic a little by little , because a jump into the unknown might not not happen , or like focusing too much on what's not working in the present might develop coping mechanisms , like you went about it with your friends , but then you don't necessarily act on it . Some people do , some people don't .

Tech Ethics and Career Dignity

Simone 34:24

Um , then for me , the , the other thing was like political , so I didn't want to be complicit in a lot of stuff that is happening in tech and every company , even the , you know , I was in a decent company , like we weren't killing anybody , we weren't exploiting , you know , labor of anybody , with no weapons , no , whatever , no surveillance , because , yeah , we were doing algorithms for celebrating cars that are not the most evil thing the tech sector is doing these days . But a lot of companies are doing this , and you might regret it going forward and say , but a lot of companies are doing this , and you might regret it going forward and say I didn't do anything even though I could , and that's another thought that was recurrent in my change and doing something valuable with your time .

Simone 35:21

It's also a matter of dignity , like my experience in the tech sector was doing mostly useless stuff , either because it was intrinsically useless , like it shouldn't have been developed , or because it was developed in an environment that had no chance of turning these into a product somebody would use . And for me it was a matter of dignity . I felt like stupid , uh , spending offers more frustrated spending my day perform writing code that would have gone nowhere . And in startups this is very common because most startups fail . Cope with it . If you're working in a startup , there's a very high chance it's going to fail and therefore you're wasting your time . You are not mandated to participate in figuring out what's going to be the next Unicorn , like de facto after like , when you will look back , you will be like those four years I pulled all-nighters , I worked on weekends , whatever , for something that left zero marks on the world on the world . And yeah , think about it , because for me , these were all very important elements to make this decision . Not everybody feels the same but yeah , all right .

Debbie 36:32

Well , our last question is if people want to get in touch with you or follow you or , you know , reach out to you , what are the best ways to do that ?

Simone 36:49

So I have a personal website called robuttime where you can find a bunch of my stuff and some contacts . Otherwise , you can find me with the same name on Instagram or Telegram or otherwise by email if you want to be professional and not sketchy . Simone at robutime , for sure I'm gonna check it out and respond well , thank you all .

Debbie 37:12

Right . Well , with that , that wraps up our show and , uh , thank you so so much for for coming on and telling us your story thank you .

Simone 37:22

thank you for having me and good luck to all the listeners if they want to leave . Tech , we are waiting for you on the other side .