AI Development Isn’t an Easy Button—with Aleksander Hakestad (Apart Tech)

What if writing code isn’t actually the most important part of engineering?

In this episode of Futureproof, Prakash Chandran sits down with Aleksander Hakestad, CTO and co-founder at Apart Tech, to explore what it really takes to build software in an AI-native world without losing quality, craft, or control. Aleksander explains why the best leaders stay hands-on so they can evaluate quality, why depth of expertise beats climbing the career ladder, and why communication becomes the true bottleneck in modern engineering—especially across cultures and teams. Together, they unpack a pragmatic model for AI-assisted development where agents touch everything, humans own the architecture, and teams learn fast by setting clear standards, building tight feedback loops, and committing fully to a new way of working.

Topics covered include:

• AI-assisted development is still engineering: Why prompting is only the start—and disciplined iteration is what makes it reliable.
• Hands-on leadership and quality control: Why leaders must stay close enough to the craft to evaluate output and set the bar.
• Communication as the real bottleneck: How visual systems reduce misalignment across teams, languages, and cultures.
• From big teams to small, leveraged teams: How agentic workflows can create outsized throughput with a small core team.
• Depth over titles: Why mastering a domain matters more than career climb—and why expertise is more valuable than ever.

Episode ID: 18740056-ai-development-isn-t-an-easy-button-with-aleksander-hakestad-apart-tech

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Transcript

Owning The Outcome In An AI World

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Really attack the problem as an engineer? Like, I'm going to do assist AI assisted development. What are the actual engineering steps I have to go through to make that work the way I want it to work? And how do I evaluate? Uh, okay, I did this prompt, but the AI agent did this. How can I alter that? Or what kind of framing can I give it to make it behave the way I want it to behave? And it's super hard work, it takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of dedication. But really attack it as an engineer that is focused on the problem. I want to build my software with AI agents, but it's still going to be my software.

Early Curiosity And The Builder’s Path

SPEAKER_00 1:00

I'm Prakash Chundran, the CEO of Xano. Today I'm joined by Alexander Hakistad, the CTO and co-founder of Apart Tech, a company focused on building software for operational excellence. Alexander is one of the most forward-thinking technology leaders I know. He was an early believer in platforms like Xano back when it wasn't obvious that we'd scale to enterprise grade. As head of technology at Heimstaden, he led one of Europe's largest real estate companies through a major digital transformation, delivering software 10x faster and saving millions by rethinking how applications were built. Now at Apart Tech, Alexander is continuing that mission, building AI native systems that help companies automate operations and move faster. He was experimenting with AI coding agents long before it was mainstream, and his perspective on how engineering teams should be built in 2025 and beyond is beyond one of the most progressive that I've seen. Today we'll explore how he thinks about software development in the age of AI, from agents to team design to evaluating new technology bets and what leaders can learn from his approach to building for the future. Alexander, I'm so happy to have you here because not only do I consider you uh an impressive colleague that I've been and had the luxury to work with, but you're also a friend. So I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Thank you very much for an intro. Jeez. Yeah. Like that's uh it's not good for a Norwegian to hear that kind of praise. How about we just uh instead of doing this, how about we just play some Doom or something and then uh That's right.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

I I would absolutely love that. Um that's great. Um, but yeah, you know, you were the one that kind of like built that illustrious and impressive career. I'm just kind of reporting on the news. Um, but yeah, you know, I mean I think I I read a little bit about your background, um, but I think it might be worthwhile for the audience to hear just a little bit about how you got your start in technology, kind of your experience leading up to Heinstadt, and and just kind of like your unique approach to building software and technology even before the age of AI.

Choosing Depth Over The Career Ladder

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Absolutely. Well, I got started pretty early. Uh I got started around uh I think I was seven when I first uh got like a really, really old uh computer, uh IBM 286. And uh yeah, so uh that kind of opened my whole world up. Thought it was one of the most fascinating things I've ever been ever seen. And then I also uh managed to acquire for some reason I got my hands on a Commodore, uh, which kind of opened my world to programming. Uh, because we could back then you could sort of send. I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna sound like I'm freaking 60 years old, but uh but uh back then you could send programs through this magazine uh and other people could pull like request your program in them in the magazine and you sort of uh sent for programs back and forth and I managed like it was simple stuff back then, it was like drawing circles and stuff, and you know, small little games here and there, but you know, it kind of got me hooked on the bug for sure. Um and then I was a part of building a uh gaming website when I was in my teen year teenage years or early teens, uh which we also sold, so that kind of uh you know uh made me think like, well, what is this actually? Like, is this something that we can do as as people? It's just like work with the internet, it's it's awesome. And then after that, it was more or less you know, it it's hard kind of thinking back on your career and when and what you've done as anything other than kind of a comedy or errors, if you get what I mean. Because you're just doing uh yeah, you're just moving from place to place, trying to do the best you can do, and trying to be the best you can be. Um, and you have passion, you have drive, you want to learn everything about everything, and that kind of just leads to leads to your career being what it is. I would say the the most pivotal part of my career was however I was the IT director of a bank in the Nordic ser called uh Santander, uh which is like a global bank. But that made me realize you know the the career trajectory upwards is not as important to me as the depth uh of knowledge. So, you know, uh it's one of the biggest learnings I've ever gotten is you know being at the sort of the top of the career and then realizing this is not what you want at all. Uh this is actually the opposite of what you want, and then you start digging yourself down again into the career ladder uh where you actually belong and where you can work with technology and build stuff. So that's kind of the the short story of it all.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Is yeah, I mean that's a really unique insight. I don't actually think you've we've talked about this before, you know, like the you climbing the corporate ladder, and people can go look you up on LinkedIn and they can kind of see the career path. Um, but reaching a certain level, you know, a career run where you're I'm sure being paid a lot of money, you're very well respected, but having then the insight that you don't get to have that depth of knowledge and the tactical hands-on piece that made you fall in love with the technology to begin with. And I'm wondering like, when you realize that within that organization, what did that mean for you? And you know, what did you do kind of in that moment?

SPEAKER_01 6:45

So basically, it was like pulling the handbrake on uh on a speeding trail, like speeding train or speeding subway. Uh, because um, you know, in that kind of line of work, you're constantly moving around, you're constantly traveling, you're constantly visiting teams, constantly meeting people. You know, it's it's super hectic being uh being in that type of position, and there's always more to do than what you can get around to doing. And so, you know, I think it came to me like on a on a business trip somewhere where I just sat down and sort of looked out the window and kind of you know, is this what you really want? You know, uh I haven't touched a computer in how many days? I haven't actually done something in in how many days. I miss it really much uh a lot. I miss it a lot. It's kind of it's just one of those epiphanies that you have suddenly that's things aren't going the way you want them to go. And when you're at that point, you start when you've had that realization, you do a little bit of introspection and you figure out like what actually matters to you. What do you like doing? What's your what where does your where did your original passion come from? And for me, it's always been sitting in front of the computer and building stuff, so it's as easy and that's easy as that. Um I think we as human beings, we spend way too much work time at work. So you better make it worthwhile when you're there, right? So do what you love.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

I think that there is a really interesting theme that I know will kind of unfold in this conversation around like your self-reflection as a technology leader and how kind of counter uh you have operated in terms of like the archetype that you normally see with normal CTOs and head of technologies, et cetera. You know, the context in which I met you was obviously was Xano, yeah, and you were tinkering around uh and experimenting with it. And I actually didn't realize like how high up at Heimstadin you were, because frankly, you just struck me as just like an engineer there that was just building. Yeah. And um, which I think is awesome. And I think that this just goes to like especially like especially in today's world, the need to like have your hands or like roll up your sleeve and have your hands in the technology because that's the only way you're gonna understand, you know, kind of where the puck is moving.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Um but and I I also think like for from a from a management perspective, if you're actually managing people, I really moved away from you know, when I was going up the corporate ladder, what you were taught was sort of as a leader and as a manager, you're supposed to be, you know, uh giving people their uh be uh giving the tools to people for them to be their best, uh, showing direction, showing, you know, managing their priorities and so on and so on. Um, but I also, you know, I think people forgot something along the way, and that is like one of the most important roles as a leader is also to evaluate quality. And how can you actually evaluate quality if you're you are the furthest away from the field of expertise? And so I've kind of also made it a point for myself to always stay uh curious, to always learn, never sort of never rely on best uh you know things I've learned before. Throw away things that you thought were good before, you know, all of those stuff. I'm I'm very aware of that uh all the time, pretty much.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Yeah, that's a really unique insight. And yeah, I want to I want to talk about how that kind of has manifested currently, but just going back to Heimstaden in this context when I met you, what was interesting is you were already thinking in this like counter way, like you kind of were optimizing for speed and doing things differently then. Maybe talk a little bit about your responsibilities at Heimstaden, what you were tasked with, and why you kind of took this kind of novel approach.

Communication Is The Hard Part

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Sure. Uh so we were tasked with building a property management software, a software to manage thereabouts 150,000 apartments uh across 10 countries. And my my job was basically to architect that and and and see it through. You know, what do we need to actually build that, and uh how do we build the architecture around it, and and and so on and so on. And what yeah, yeah, I think I mentioned also what what team do we need to put in place, and we had a few stabs at it where again this conventional wisdom comes in, and you you recruit the best of the best, you put the best of the best plan in works, you rely on the current best practices. And in the beginning, we were just not seeing the results that we wanted to see. Um, it was just not moving fast enough, it was costing too much. Yeah, I don't think the team culture or team spirit was that good uh in in that period of time. And I've also talked about like building software in a multicultural, multi-in-international environment is extremely hard. Because you have not only do you need to understand the very detailed technical requirements of of a such platform, but you have to communicate it across multiple different country cultures and languages, and you know people listening to this and viewing this, they probably notice right away that I'm Norwegian, just due to my accent and the words that I choose when when I speak English. So I have my Norwegian way of talk of speaking English, uh, Polish people have a Polish way of speaking English, so the the opportunity for miscommunication is just extreme. Uh so I think one thing kind of led to an another, and we the the initial thought was that you know there's there's gotta be some something else. There's if we are following the book, uh, if we are doing everything by the book, and this is the result, then there's something wrong with the book, not not with the approach. Uh so we threw away the book and we started exploring alternatives. We came across uh no-code and local as an alternative, and then we experimented for quite a while, probably the better better part of half a year, um, before we decided to kind of let's let's push this button, let's make a real go for it. And let yeah, let's not do it sort of halfway, let's really like really do it uh the way it's supposed to be done.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

So I want to talk a little bit about throwing away the book and reevaluating how things are done because I think that's more relevant today than ever. Um, but just at the time, did you have a framework or a hypothesis around things that you clearly you know where you were following all of the best practices, you had a large engineering team. Um, what are some of the things that you optimized for back then that other leaders could potentially learn from?

Strategic Execution Requires Commitment

SPEAKER_01 14:29

It's it's gonna sound a little bit uh weird maybe, but I think and it's also a little bit of a hard metric to optimize for, but I think communication and understanding is of the utmost importance of any in any engineering work. I usually say that engineering, the hardest part of engineering is to understand the problem that you're fixing and really understand it. What I saw in these uh tools at a very early stage is that the communication barrier, uh even from sort of business person to technologist, but also across countries, across multiple cultures, those barriers started to be torn down and people started communicating in a completely different way, which I thought was just I I've pretty much never ever seen anything like that in my career. So I I I knew that there was something special there, and then from that point it's it's it was a job of connecting the dot between the old and the new. So what do we bring with us into the from the old world into the new world? And what do we leave by the wayside sort of little what do we leave on the grave graveyard? And that we we were we were very meticulous about that, so we went sort of okay, do we do code reviews, do we do uh these and these uh you know checks on these and these processes? How do we do testing? How do we do you know all of these things we we were pretty meticulous about and then we landed on uh on an approach that's uh I think worked pretty well. Yeah, we were early, for sure, and we've we felt some of that. But I think yeah, I'd much rather be early than uh than late for some on on any type of topic like this.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Yeah, and I think that it's just worth noting in this journey where you're kind of like counter to a lot of the traditional way of doing things, it's not always easy for your team to just follow your lead. No. Um you're introducing new tools, new processes, maybe uh, you know, kind of skipping over processes that people are used to. Talk a little bit about that change, and because I want to do I want to roll it up into what you're doing today with Arizona.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Sure, sure, sure. So I think I've met two people uh in my time that has has given me a lot of guidance on what I refer to as strategic execution. And that's uh one guy is called Juan Calvera, he was uh uh IT director in in uh in something there, and um the other one is Rudin, who is who I'm actually you know still in still working with in a part. And the thing about you know making a change like this is that you can't go halfway into it because the second you don't you know display anything other than utter belief in what you're doing, is the second the the strategy starts showing holes and starts uh you know showing weakness. And and I think for people to actually join your journey and and believe in you, uh you gotta leave in what you're doing yourself, and and you can't believe sort of halfway. You you gotta jump into it with both both legs. And there will also be detractors on that journey, for sure. Even if you believe how however hard you want to believe in what you're doing, there will be detractors on on the way for whatever reasons. And you gotta you gotta honestly give people a shot to join the bandwagon. Uh some people are quick, some people are more meticulous and slow to join the bandwagon. You gotta give people an opportunity to succeed on your new journey. But you also gotta realize that you're a business and uh like this is the way you're moving on. And at some point in time, you gotta you gotta set your put your foot down and say, This is you know, this is happening, you know. Uh you either join or you're you can find something else to do. So but this is what I think a lot of business leaders actually fail on is the strategic execution part, where where you have to move from words to actually painfully executing what you're talking about. But in the end, I think even the detractors, they they respect you more for actually going for it instead of sort of landing on a halfway, nobody's happy about anything. You know, I would much rather some people be mad at me and you know we're doing something special, or uh then everyone's being kind of happy with you, you know. So yeah. But it but it's hard, you know. A lot of people will come at you from all types of angles when you try to do uh something, something new, and especially in a corporate environment where you know doing something new is almost like the the organization itself is trying to introduce antibiotics to get rid of you, you know, because because you know everyone is sort of don't rock the boat, try not to do anything else, like it don't don't stick out. All of that stuff is uh starts hitting you if you're actually uh doing something worthwhile. And um, so I think you gotta stick with it and um be tough for a little while.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Yeah.

Agentic Workflows From Issue To PR

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Yeah, it was uh interesting just kind of witnessing you go through that kind of a hate mail that you would get from some of the engineers and uh and from the rest of the organization. Uh obviously, I think it it rolled into you know you kind of showing success and how fast you could build this new way and um you know, really rethinking and maybe making them reframe how applications were developed. You know, in your new role at a part, um you kind of bring that mentality with you, and you are starting it in a time where AI has maybe completely reframed again how software should be built. So maybe talk a little bit uh about a part, its purpose, and um also through this lens of how you build software or a new way to develop how AI plays a role there.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh so first of all, in a part we're we're building the uh best property management software in the world where we are still in build mode, so we're still building out our software. But you know, part of it is what you're building, and part of it is how you're building it. And a big part of a part that was a part of it from uh very early days, is this notion of AI assisted development, and uh combined with all everything that we learned in in terms of no code development and like w where Does one where do you leave one uh and and go with the other, and and how do you also combine them for the best of both worlds? Um, and I think we we we realize AI assisted development is actually, in my opinion, a lot harder than just regular development. Harder from an engineering standpoint, harder from an engineering standpoint, harder from a problem solving standpoint, harder just on a regular day-to-day working rhythm standpoint. Um, there's tons of challenges with it that you don't necessarily see by just going with the marketing jargon, you know, like the all of the vibe coding uh lingo and and all of that. And so I would say we spent uh maybe four to five months in RD just to get it right. Uh, but still it was something that you know we saw a kernel of something that could be amazing if we actually managed to pull it off. So that kind of gave us the drive to pursue it, even if it took us as long as it did. Uh so we're we're four or five people now on our uh permanent team. And how I view it now is sort of we've completely changed our way of viewing employees uh in general. Like it would it would not be a problem for us now to hire the best of the best and and scale that person indefinitely with uh agentic coding and our and our stack with uh which also have relies heavy on no code and and Sano of course still the the main hurdle for us was to how like agentic coding, how do you actually control the quality? How do you evaluate the quality of their output, and how can you control that through all of the steps that an agent actually does? So it came down to just nitty-gritty analysis, you know, looking at how the agents behaved in different forms, like when prompting them different, looking at the the the quality of the output, and I would say like at the end of our journey, we're where we are, we're not at the end of our journey, but where we are now. I would say the throughput of one employee. I mean one employee does the work of maybe 20, uh, 15, 20 people in in that in the past when I when I apply my previous metrics of productivity, you know. So it's it's absolutely insane uh what you can do with uh with this combination of of both, not uh losing the visual aspects of what that note code can give you, but also you know applying agentic or AI assisted development uh to the to the extent that we are. One just before uh before I leave it, we did a test uh just a couple of weeks ago where we from GitHub issue to PR to three rounds of improvements of a PR did a fully automated process from end to end. Wow. So basically the issue came in, the issue was analyzed, it figured out uh what back end APIs in SANO are being used, uh it figured out uh is the problem within that space, or is the problem within front-end code, and then it came up with an implementation plan with file names and file line or line and files and uh lines and files and all of that, and also what improvements, specific improvements that we need to do. That triggered another agent and that did the development in the background. That uh the agent delivered a pull request, that pull request was reviewed, and out of uh that review came a few suggestions, and another agent improved that suggest those suggestions, and it did that in a round of three times, and then I get it on my table at the very end. So that's uh pretty insane.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

That's incredible. Yeah, I have so many follow-up questions. Yeah. Let's start with the people question.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

I remember back in the days at Heimstaden, I think you and Anders came up with the term product builder. Yep. And the product builder was maybe a non-developer type with business owner or business unit expertise, like an SME who could participate in the building. And for that time, I think enabling them to build was the right move. Sure. What it sounds like now is your full uh philosophy, because you have four to five people full-time, is to hire the most talented engineers so you can leverage them the most with AI and stay away from those product builders. Is that an accurate read?

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Yeah, more or less. I I still think you need a little bit of both because it's it's very easy to sort of when you when you hire people, it's very easy to go out there and try to hire yourself, at least when you uh like yourself as much as I do.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

You're pretty you're pretty cool guys, I understand.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

So uh it's it's it's a very sort of quick trap to fall into. And but I think any team needs a mix of different backgrounds and different uh areas to to succeed. What I do think about more now than than um than before is your ability as an expert to convey your expertise or to communicate your expertise uh to someone else or to an agent. Because I think that that is a skill for the future for sure, is to be able to you know know your field of expertise to us to that degree that you can actually communicate easily around it. Uh that that is the uh that that is for sure a skill of the future. So I think about that a lot. And to be like to be honest as well, there's small there's many drawbacks in this. It's since I since I believe like I'm passionate about technology through and through, I kind of also I worry about the youngsters coming up in the game. Like them getting the foot in the door, who's gonna take care of that when ent entry-level dot entry-level jobs are kind of almost disappearing as we speak. So you know what I've one of the side effects of this that I hope is not going to happen is us sitting here in 20 years with nobody to take over. Because I do think AI can do a lot of stuff, but I think uh human expertise is still like real, real dedicated human expertise is still going to be around for a while, uh, a long, long, long time.

A Practical Model For AI-Assisted Development

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Yeah. The second thing I want to talk about a little bit is you know the nature of AI assisted development.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

You know, if the if a part is really creating the best property management software in the world, that's one piece. That's a mission you're on to accomplish as an organization. But a lot of what we've talked about is the how you build it. And you've been really thoughtful and intentional about the systems that you've put in place. How, like, especially for other leaders that are thinking about building in this new way or want to build in this new way where it's AI assisted, how did you frame the role that AI plays in terms of your development process? Like, what do you, for example, farm off to an agent versus where you think about human in the loop or human oversight steps? Like, is there a framework that you can share that others might learn from?

Visual Verification And Faster Understanding

SPEAKER_01 30:47

Sure. What I can say is that there's almost nothing that an AI hasn't touched on in in some way, either by creating a plan or or doing the actual develop or um you know assisting in in in some capacity. So that that that's kind of a crazy statement to throw out there. There's like there's no line of code on our platform that hasn't in some way been touched by AI. And I think as far as where I kind of leave the work for us humans is we never lose sight of the strategic strategic architecture of our platform. Like we we never uh we never uh let anything go past us that we don't exactly what we want out of it. So if if we build a page we don't uh or uh if if if our app gets a new feature, there's not a pixel on there that we haven't had an opinion on. And because I bring it back to this notion of evaluating quality. So my most important job at the moment is evaluating quality and making sure that our product turns into what we want our product to be and not leave that off to the the AI or not not take our hands off the off the steering wheel in that uh capacity. In terms of what they can build and and what we allowed them to build, with our method, I've seen some really really crazy stuff they've been able to do. Just a half a year ago, I would never believe in myself. So I I think not don't go into it with the mindset of this is what AI can do and this is what it can't do. Go in with it with the mindset of you are in you are the boss, you are in control, you should know every part of your platform, you should know every part of your architecture. Ideally, you should be able to jump in there and start coding yourself. But don't just use the tools that are available as is and and and try your way with that, really attack the problem as an engineer. Like, I'm I'm going to do assist AI assisted development. What are the actual engineering steps I have to go through to make that work the way I want it to work? And how do I evaluate? Uh okay, I did this prompt, but the AI agent did this. How can I alter that? Or what kind of framing can I give it to make it behave the way I want it to behave? And it's super hard work, it takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of dedication, but really attack it as an engineer that is focused on the problem. I want to build my software with AI agents, but it's still going to be my software, right? That's still my my piece of technology. That would be my advice is sort of don't, you know, don't just download Claude or Code or whatever cursor and start using it as you know where where they are kind of in control of your journey. Start really attacking it as an engineer and solve the problem before you get going. You know, solve the problem for you before you get going. Feel comfortable that whatever I want them to perform, I can actually execute. I know how to work with the tools, I know how you know, I know how they think, so to speak. Yeah. Yeah. That that will be my uh my key advice is to yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:49

So two two follow-ups. One of the things you said as you were initially uh describing your setup is like, you know, we didn't we weren't able to or we didn't lose the visual component or the kind of like the no-code type. Why is that important to you?

SPEAKER_01 35:04

It's important for the communication aspect of it all, for sure. But I also think uh the verification of what's going on, being able to quickly put yourself in inside the platform without you know reading X amount of lines of code. I think this concept of sort of building with AI and then visually confirming is is is a super exciting concept. Because you know, I I I do believe people are visual thinkers. There's this old uh saying in there's this old sentence in or saying in uh English called uh I see what you're saying, and I really like that sentence because it's it speaks to the visual nature of language, right? If you write something down on a board, people are X amount uh times more able to remember it, and if you start drawing, people are actually more into it, you know. So it it's this notion of I see what you're saying or I see what you're doing that I think is is very interesting, and also just you know, I'm gonna go on a little bit of a tangent there. Um I'm a musician as well. Yeah, I I promise we'll be playing Doom soon. Uh and I I'm a musician as well, and uh I play guitar and uh a few other instruments, and there's this thing about when you're writing and when you're playing music, you try to put in some uh surprises here and there. Uh you try to, you know, instead of going with your regular chord-based, you know, uh strumming or whatever, you try to fill it with a few surprises that that people can hook on to. And I I think you need that visual component in order for people to get excited about something. It's it's very hard for me at least. Probably there are people out there that can be excited about it, but it's uh for me at least, it's very hard to get excited about something that I don't feel connected to, and I think that visual nature of it creates that connection. So in music as well, it's that that units that creates that connection or that ability to communicate one musical uh piece of work over to another human being that creates that connection. So um, yeah, I I I think about it from that point as well.

Advice For Leaders And New Developers

SPEAKER_00 37:48

Yeah, that's uh really beautifully said. I need to kind of adopt some of that top track when talking about Xano. Um I wanna I want to maybe go just again a level up because again, there's a lot of application development leaders that might be listening to this. Let's say they're given a business problem to solve. Let's say there's a mandate to leverage AI to solve this business problem. They're given a pool of resources. They can hire people, they can invest in tools. Uh, you know, there might be a mix of engineers, product managers, designers, etc. How would you recommend that they start thinking about this? Now, they've been given this mandate, they've given these resources, they can kind of mix people together. Uh, where do they begin?

SPEAKER_01 38:28

So, first of all, I would say be comfortable enough with the problem that you're solving to be able to actually communicate it to that team or whatever uh that you're bringing on board. So feel comfortable enough with it to be able to do that. And then I would say start with the organizational parts of it. So start with how you want to build it and and start by start small on your project for sure, but you know use the opportunity in the beginning to really drill down with your team how do you want to work with this new setup? Like what are the concrete and actual steps that we want to do? Uh how do we know uh you know what the how does the left hand know what the right hand is doing, and and start you know drilling that down and and creating that bond in in the team. And then which which is by the way, something that's my buddy uhnos that you mentioned, he is a lot better that at that than me. And I really respect that about him, uh, because and that part of also why we are working so well together. That's he he always reminds me that uh you know the people aren't computers, you know. So that's uh that that that that's always a good thing for me to hear. But it's I I would say work with that for uh for a while. Don't sort of be worried about uh you know the the time being spent on that in the beginning, because when you actually start building your product, that that time investment into the apparatus or into the the process uh will be well spent, you will get get that investment back 20fold, 30fold. And I would say set the level of quality that you expect early because if you don't set that level of quality, it's way harder to introduce it later on, and so be vigilant about that, and people will also respect you a lot for that, so don't be afraid of sort of setting that bar. And I mean, what else can I say? Have some fun with it as well, you know. Try it, try some crazy, you know, go go go bananas for a little while, you know. It it's like why don't treat everything like it's the um like it's the uh you know um NASA space mission or whatever. Like try to have some fun along the way, yeah. Build some fun stuff together, try and you know, get get into it because um you know but one of the things I built with AI when I was experimenting was like um a mini game uh that I could play on my own. Um because you know it's just what I wanted to do right then and there. And it those types of things they keep you engaged and they keep you energized and they keep you uh and keep you motivated and and learn. And if you're coming from more traditional development world, I would say don't be afraid of acknowledging that you don't know anything. Um I mean I've been around in this game of work or this line of work for you know, I don't know how many years now, 20, 20 years, 25 years. Um I've I've been um you know I I have no problem saying uh that I know uh I know less now than I did when I started out, uh but that's only because my kind of my horizon has gotten broader. So even after all of these years, I know that I'm working within a field where there's more to learn that I will ever be able to learn. And to me, that is the most exciting thing working with technology is is not being the expert, it's constantly being hungry for the next thing, right? So the I'm I'm I'm really afraid of the world word expert in in that sense because that kind of gives you a gives you a right to sit back and relax for a little bit. But you know, why why do that when there's all of this cool to learn, you know? So that's um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

I love it. You know, I think um that's a good place for us to start to wrap up. And I want to ask some more forward-thinking questions. The first is like the definition of a developer. Like, how do you think about what a developer is today and how that we will evolve over the next three to five years?

SPEAKER_01 43:53

So I think you know, with the admin magentic uh or AI assisted development, uh I think any developer right now who is sort of still leaning on the on the fence that this this won't be the future, is is kind of doing themselves a disservice. I I would say that. I think for for the next five years you will see a gradual shift, which is happening pretty qu fast, in my opinion. You will see a gradual shift for more and more actual coding work uh being done by AI agents. But meaning that you need to adapt your skills because you do have a lot of skills uh in that space, but you need to know how to reapply them correctly. So where do you like if say say the best thing about your day-to-day is coding, say say that's the best thing you know, okay, try to try to harness that energy and put it into you know spec design or try to harness that that energy and and and put it into something else uh that's related to this new world. Because your skill sets are definitely way uh way more valuable now than than ever before. Uh but the the the concept is that you need to reapply them. It's not that you know whenever I see the mark the the headlines sort of the AI or developers will be replaced, or you know, AI will take over everything. I I think it's I you know I I totally get the shock headlines and and the clicks that you get from from all of that. But to be honest, I think really knowing a subject now is more important than ever. Like try to try to be the best in cybersecurity, try to be the best in frontend development react next.js, find find like a niche to be the absolute best at. Um because we we definitely for the future we're going to need extremely skilled people to handle these beasts. And yeah, but but you gotta know how to reapply that that skill to to the new world, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:21

Yeah, young people that are graduating and trying to figure out what they should do. What would be your guidance to them? They are you know maybe studying computer science or some business degree, they're just graduating out of school. Where should they be focusing their attention and trying to get leverage?

SPEAKER_01 46:42

I would say this is gonna sound a little bit uh self self-serving as well, but I would say try try as hard as you can to stay away from the big companies that are trying to hire developers at this point in time. Try try as much like of course you have to make your money and you have to sort of survive in the world, but try as much as you can to stay away from from that space. Uh that space will uh eat you alive, I think, in in this in this environment. Uh, you will be a cog in the wheel. And you know, in in technology, you have all kinds of approaches to technology. Some of them I I like, some of them I don't like. What I particularly don't like is are these companies that kind of live on the change requests. They they go to companies and they say we're gonna build this, they spec it out in a 50-page document, and then for every time you want to change that document, you have to pay 2,000 whatever in a per hour to get the change request through. So that that's what I mean by sort of the the machine, the machinery of IT. Uh, try and stay away from that as much as you can. Try to find a place to work where you can explore and where you are allowed to explore, where you are allowed to not only work with the tools that you are given, but also learn how to master those tools. And if that means that you need to start something on your own, I would highly recommend doing that when you're young, uh, not doing it when you're old like me. Because it it only becomes harder. I know I envy the guys that are 20 and uh just starting out and being able to start a company now. But I I think the most important of getting started now is to hone your skills, it does it doesn't matter, like really, really, really get into a depth of expertise as quickly as possible. And the the more the the question I get asked the most is okay, so where do I start? And I would say start everywhere until you find something that you enjoy. You know, suddenly you figure out that it's you know API or integration work, suddenly you find out that you're excited about frontend, suddenly you find out that you're excited about mobile app development. You know, try it, try it all. Uh, I mean you're young, you uh you can uh go at it for 20 hours a day. Um I think what I also tell young young people starting out is that becoming an expert or becoming a really experienced person with a lot of knowledge is the hardest thing that you're ever going to do, and it's the most rewarding thing you're ever going to do. Uh it's the hardest in the amount of pain hours uh that you have to sink in sink into it. We're talking, you know, 14-hour days breathing, living your passion for the for uh all foreseeable future to sort of live that game. And I'm not saying that to scare people, I'm just saying it to sort of if you decide to go down that path, it's going to be the most rewarding part of your life. Uh work wise.

SPEAKER_00 50:13

You know what's really interesting about what you're saying here, and obviously it's an advice for young people that are graduating and uh you know starting their careers. But I can tell you as a CEO that when I make my hiring one hiring assessments, I look for that fire in my candidates.

SPEAKER_01 50:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:32

People that are AI native, that are hungry, that are learning, uh, that don't necessarily box themselves into something. Like, yes, they have a passion for something, but they are just they're insatiable in terms of um, you know, their knowledge and leveling up. You know, do you find that to be the case as you evaluate candidates for a part today?

SPEAKER_01 50:53

Oh, 100%. I mean, have passion is almost uh be all and all. We we can talk about a lot of things and you can be uh you can come to me with a long resume of of things that you have achieved, but if you don't have that fire in your eye still, if I don't sort of see you reading up on something, watching YouTube, trying things out, like still doing that game, it's it's just not gonna work out. Um I think part of that is also when you're doing that yourself, you also need that around you to fuel your energy, you know. So um I I think finding that passion, whatever it might be maybe. I like uh just I know we're getting to the end here, but I mentioned I was a m I was a musician before, and that was that was a part of my life where I almost didn't do anything or development or but I fully dedicated myself, I actually dropped out of school to pursue guitar and and you know dedicate myself fully to learning the instrument of guitar. And you know, did 14, 15 hour no nobody was telling me to do 14, 15 hour practice days and just sort of almost no no uh food, no sleep, just sort of practicing, practicing, practicing. But the end result of it was that you know I I played in a band, I had a lot of fun. I've I've I was really passionate about it to the uh to the extent I could sleep on floors when we were out uh playing around, you know. And so that there's just nothing like finding that fire. So but you can't find it unless you explore. And if you if you go to the first things, you know, paying you some money, you're you're quickly gonna be eaten by the machine. So I would I would try and stay away from the you know, I would uh what what does it say? The man, you know, have have some uh try try and uh really really find your passion and uh and uh and go for it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 53:22

I love that. Well, I think that's a perfect place to end. I think one of the key things that I've taken away from this conversation, amongst many different things, is one of the key jobs of any leader is to evaluate quality. And you can't really do that if you're far away from the work. And in order to be a part of the work a way that you truly care and care about its success, you got to be passionate about it. So finding that alignment, not being afraid to get in the trenches with your team, especially in a world that's changing so fast with AI, is absolutely critical. So, Alexander, thank you so much for your time and your thoughts today. Where can people go to learn more about you, about a part, about what you're doing?

SPEAKER_01 54:04

Uh you can uh you can uh first of all, you know, you your friend Google. But also we are available at apart.tech. Um I'm I'm also fairly um uh easy to get a hold of. Um I'm not the most easy to get a hold of on email, if you ever find my email. Because I don't uh you know, I I don't believe in email as a communication form. So but but I I will eventually answer you after a couple of weeks. But uh the uh uh you know get in touch if you wanna uh I'm fairly easy to get a hold of on on other channels, so get in touch if you if you want to continue the discussion in in uh or have any other questions. Um I'm also passionate about that. So um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:54

Yeah. And I have uh I've learned so much from you, just kind of you know, being you're someone I consider a friend and a mentor, someone I I just am very impressed with, and just appreciate everything that you bring to the community and uh just your disposition towards software development. So I'll I'll quote uh you and end this by saying keep rocking in the free world, my friend.