I address this post to software engineers all over the world but primarily to software engineers in Poland and other countries in Eastern and Central Europe. Eastern European countries have their brand in Silicon Valley – it is a brand of high-quality software engineers. It is a brand of talented people, and it is a brand of dev shops that provide great development. The latter is especially true of Poland and Ukraine. Dear engineers, you are doing a great job. Congratulations!

The software guy in a startup team

When starting a company, the rule of thumb says that three people are necessary: product guy, sales guy and software guy. Dave McClure phrased it nicely: hipster, hustler and hacker. What is the role of the software guy? Basically the software guy has two goals:

• to make the product work as specified by product guy
• to help define the best product

The first point is a must. If the software guy and his team cannot deliver the product, there is something wrong either with delivery or with the specification, and in any case it shows that the startup is dysfunctional and it is time to make serious changes within the company.

The way how the software guy helps to define the best product may vary. It may be help that is close to zero or it may be fundamental in the defining of the product. The insights of software guy may help with design, functionality, product architecture, alternative way to build the product and or even it they may lead to a different product due to the technological conditions not to mention the long-term vision of the product or optimisation of production costs.

The way how the software guy helps makes the difference and this leads us to the next issue:

The technical co-founder

There is a breed of software engineers that are scarce in Eastern Europe and who are quite abundant in Silicon Valley. These people are the technical co-founders. A technical co-founder is a software guy in a startup team who makes the product work and helps the product guy to make the specification. Delivery and help – this is the role of the technical co-founder.

There are several levels of how a software guy in a startup or a company may help. Let’s go through them:

• product UX and functionality
• product architecture
• an alternative way to build the product and eventually a different product due to the technology used
• long-term vision of the product
• production costs
• all team issues
• all business issues

The list above may be treated as a spectrum of business participation for the technical co-founder. The spectrum starts with understanding the customer and their problems, then understanding product design and product management, then understanding the business model of the company, then understanding financing and business assumptions. If the software guy does not help with any one of the above, there is no participation in the business. If the software guy helps in all of them, there is full participation of the technical co-founder in the business. In such a case, there is full partnership.

Half way

Software is eating the world. The digital revolution is affecting industry after industry. Eastern and Central Europe, and some other regions in the world are participating in that revolution by delivering the brain power of tens of thousands of software engineers.

I have a threefold appeal to software engineers in Central and Eastern Europe.

1. Participate in startups.
2. Become technical co-founders.
3. Become technical co-founders who not only deliver products, but also embrace the whole spectrum of duties in the above list.

In my opinion, the future of the region depends on software engineers. Let’s have hundreds of first-class technical co-founders over here.