Journey from a Fintech VP Product to VP Software Engineering

Our Head of Product Practice, Heidi Ram, recently sat down with Handika Handoko, VP Software Engineering at Broadridge Financial. Handika shares his journey from Product Management leadership to Engineering leadership and explores the relationship between these two critical functions.

Full Transcript:

Heidi

Hey everyone, my name is Heidi. I recruit Product Managers and I am super pumped to be chatting today with my friend Handika Handoko. I’m going to let him introduce himself because I want you to hear his story today. So, Handika tell us about where you work, what you do and what you’re solving for today.

Handika

Thanks very much Heidi for considering me and actually taking the time to have a chat with me. Like Heidi said, Heidi and I go quite way back from a professional relationship first and then kind of moving on to a more personal relationship as a friend now.

My name is, Handika. I currently work as a Vice President of Software Engineering for Broadridge Financial solutions — it’s a global fintech leader. I work for a Canadian business unit where we cater to Canadian independent brokerage. So think of the solution that we’re doing as a brokerage in a box.

So if you ever in your lifetime want to, hey, maybe it’s cool to open up a brokerage firm, you come to us and we’ll set you up with everything that you need from front to back end. Well, I’m talking in tech tech lingo, but I feel like from front office to back office a from a brokerage operations perspective. So that’s kind of what my title and what I’m doing and where I’m working at.

Currently, I’m focused on things that is what everyone else in the space is focusing on. Kind of modernizing our tech stack while at the same time trying to keep lights on, making sure that our clients are able to service their clients, their investors to reach their life goals. So that’s kind of what we’re trying to do in our day to day in our work.

Heidi

One of the reasons I was so excited to chat with you today is because you have a fascinating career where, you have been a very successful product management leader.

You were in product for the majority of your career and then you made the decision to pivot into engineering and so much of what we do in our product practice is working with Product Managers also working with engineering leaders as well. And there’s such an interesting relationship between these two critical functions of a software vendor.

I’m curious, what led you to making the decision to move out of product and into an engineering role?

Handika

If you look at my career I did start as a Developer. I did start as a Programmer. So, I’ve got my roots in programming and I’ve always had an interest in technology. I’ve always kept myself up to date with advancements in technologies — like advances in Blockchain. I’m trying to dabble in crypto space, and advancements in AI. So, those are just fascinating things.

I think people in the product space, they’re most likely familiar with that venn diagram where as a product person you got that intersection between knowing the business, knowing the technology and knowing the UX — knowing the customer experience. right? So it’s all so intertwined with each other and once you’re in the product space or the technology space — the lines do get blurred at some time.

For me, I think I have the advantage and the benefit of knowing about the space, knowing about the technology, knowing about the business. So I’m more easily adaptable and when the opportunity comes and shows up which in life it is a rare opportunity. I feel like I could do a big contribution to the department. I could deliver value in that. That’s why I made the jump back to my roots if you will, into technology.

Heidi

You sort of hinted there a little bit about how your career as a Product Manager really helps your career now as a Vice President of Engineering. Maybe expand on that a little bit more.

How do you find product management skills translate into being a more effective Vice President of Engineering?

Handika

I think in the product management space you’re definitely exposed more to the business side of things. I like to think of all of us in the workspace are really working towards solving a big puzzle. The more different roles that you’ve been in the space, in the organization, the better idea of a puzzle that you’re trying to solve.

My knowledge in product management I think really helped me to look at things from a business/ revenue/ client experience side of things. Like on the technology side of things back then, it was, oh, shiny new technology, let’s go at it, let’s give it a try, let’s do it. And I think we still do that, we still experiment, we still innovate that way.

But in terms of making it go-to-market, that’s when I think, the things that you learn from product management, product marketing really comes into play. Like, do we have a competitive edge there? What is the value prop we’re trying to deliver? What is the problem we’re trying to solve? I think that being in product for so long, that’s been ingrained in me. That’s always the thing that I ask whenever we try to do things.

It also helps with technology right now when I hear from my people, hey, there’s this new technology that we want to try, this is something cool that we want to play with. I can associate that with what clients have been saying, what the market’s been saying, what the business needs. And I could more easily tie them back, hey, we want to achieve this goal for our clients, for our business and this is the technology that we think can support that or would be the most efficient solution to achieve that.

So I think that’s kind of like how I would say it has helped me, it helps me complete the picture, it helps me to see the bigger picture. And I could kind of put together all the little pieces and make the perfect solution.

Heidi

Very well said, I love that. It gives you the chance to really see that bigger picture, which is so critical when you’re a business leader as you are now as a Vice President of Engineering.

A lot is said and talked about regarding the relationship and what a healthy relationship might look like between a product org and an engineering org. I think back to some of the searches that we’ve had, where our clients will tell us, hey, this has largely been an engineering-led business and we’re trying to move it closer towards being product-led or some other stakeholders might joke around and say, oh the engineers, it’s all about them and they’re building whatever they want. That product is trying to
move that towards what the customer wants and what can be monetized.

How do you define the healthy relationship between engineering and product? What does that look like? How might one move closer towards healthy relationships?

Handika

I think you gotta start with respect. I think each side needs to respect what they bring to the table.

Again, going back to that Venn diagram, I think everyone in this space either you’re more technology-centric or more product-centric, they oftentimes have similar skill sets, similar backgrounds. So one might think that they know more than the other. But then we’ve got our own swim lanes to be kind of like… how to make this happen. So, I think that mutual respect is really crucial to a healthy relationship.

A firm, a startup like you said, may start from an engineering-centric kind of position because that is what helped them cement their position in the market. They built something that solves the problem and then as they grow, they do need that product management rigour in terms of trying to build a project — building that product now, not building a project. Trying to build something that address a larger market, address a segment that you build it once and you serve a lot of people or you solve a lot of problems multiple times. That’s kind of like what product is there to do in terms of rigour.

So I think technology and product again, they gotta have that mutual respect. They got to understand that, yes, the guy that’s leading technology may come from a product background so they may say things about product, but again we’ve got the dedicated product and likewise, the product person may come from an engineering background and they may think, oh, this one’s easy, you just do that. Because of that, I think that’s where things get a little bit unhealthy, where you say that I could do whatever you are doing more easily. So that’s where things break down I find.

So appreciate respect and appreciate what each other has to say and kind of marching towards the same goal. We are all working towards solving problems, delivering value, making sure that our customers or users have a delightful experience.

Heidi

I love how you summarized what you just said and how you phrased it — tell me if I got this right — build it once and then solve for many people over time.

Handika

Yes, exactly.

Heidi

Beautiful.

If you think about Vice Presidents of Product and that persona of individual in a software company, what might they not understand about the role of a VP of Engineering and perhaps the struggle or the challenges that you’re facing that might benefit them to have some visibility into?

Handika

I was thinking about that and I think one of the challenges I think I face is that, in my day to day dealings, I deal with all of my engineers who have aspirations, who wants to make sure they’re not getting obsolete from a tech perspective, like in terms of what we use and what they want to learn.

I have to find that delicate balance between making sure that they’re happy, they’re growing, they’re learning what they want.

First is meeting the business needs, which typically comes from product, that we need to build it this way, or we need to build in this technology kind of thing that helps answer whatever client needs. So sometimes those demands comes from. Sometimes that becomes a point of friction between us and saying my set of people here. Yes, I know they have this technology under their belt. They know about this but they want to start to learn about new things. They want to start to learn about new technology. So, I’d like to invite you to maybe take a risk and let’s try this out.

Then maybe we embrace a little bit of an agile methodology where let’s give it a try, if it doesn’t work, let’s fail fast and pivot. So I think that’s the part that maybe… not to say that the leaders of product are heartless and they don’t care about people. They do but they just I think they’re closer to different aspects of the business and that’s where their interests are but for me, my heart and my interest is always with my people and making sure that they’re as happy as they can, so they can unleash their potential. And that’s where the friction comes, to balance, making sure they get what they need vesus what we need to deliver to our clients.

Heidi

Beautiful. Let’s end with some advice.

Let’s think about the Product Manager in the market today or the product leader who at this time in the market, there’s so much hype around getting into product. It feels like everyone’s, taking courses and classes and workshops and they’re writing books and everything is about getting into product. Yet, there are a lot of folks out there who feel the pull to more of the engineering side — for different reasons and maybe opportunities are opening up for them on the engineering side, but they’re questioning might that be the right move for me?

What advice would you have for someone who’s trying to kind of weigh those pros and cons and think about whether that could be, a great career move for them?

Handika

Yeah, based on my history. It’s a little bit more difficult for me to kind of summarize what advice would I give to people in that situation because my background was easy for me because I was pretty much in both roles most of the time.

But for people that are solely in product right now and they want to think about stepping outside. I think a good advice would be that they look at themselves in the mirrors and look at what they bring right now. What is the asset that they have right now?

I think it’s always good to inventorize that and making sure that you own that and you know what you bring to your table. So that when you do want to try to embrace other stuff, you know what you could lean on and you know how you could compensate for what you don’t know yet and what you’re looking to learn with what you’re good at.

So when you join a different team or a different organization, you know that yeah, you’re not great in that technology side yet, but you’re compensating with what you bring to the table from your past experience.

The other advice is to start joining different groups. I know you and your firm created that or help with the Toronto Product Management Association, so that’s one organization. And I’m sure if there’s a product person with that sort of thought, there’s gonna be more than, that one product person with that sort of some sort of thought.

So gather much, talk to other people that are like-minded and kind of figure out, how are you tackling this problem? How are you kind of like trying to discover yourself? I think that’s kind of part of your question, right?

The last advice I would give is that like in the past I was interested in consulting, but for me to go into consulting, nobody’s gonna hire me… So I actually tried to find pro bono opportunity to try out consulting and see whether that is something I would want to do and maybe get my foot in the door of consulting firms. So that’s what I did to try to expose myself, to try to learn and discover myself — is that what I want to do? And to know more people.

To summarize, take a look at your inventory of assets, join clubs, meet-ups and whatever groups that you have with like-minded people or maybe venture out to a purely technological group to see like if you gel with the people? It’s the dymanics too, right? Like if you gel with the people, you’ve got chemistry, a lot of problems, you can solve that. And the last thing, try volunteering. I know there’s a lot of nonprofit that look for people with… maybe they need help building a website. I know in what we do, technology is different, but depending on the spectrum of the product person, right? That might be where you start.

Heidi

Super advice. Thank you so much. Always a pleasure, Handika. Always a pleasure chatting with you. Thank you so much for the investment of your time to share your insights with our community and thank you. Thank you again.

Handika

Yeah, feeling is mutual Heidi. Always great to chat with you.

Would you like to explore new opportunities? We have a variety of product and engineering opportunities available on our job board, have a look!