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Building Tech Teams with James MacDonald

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Latest episodes

Why Everybody Unpacks the Dishwasher: Ella Brennecke, People Operations Manager at Everlab

September 15, 2026 · 59 min

DESCRIPTION Most people teams wait until someone with an HR background is in the room before they build a culture function. Ella Brennecke didn't have one, and Everlab's culture is stronger for it. In this episode of Building Tech Teams…
The Engineer Who Hasn't Written Code in 9 Months: Jack Rudenko, 10x Labs

September 1, 2026 · 1 hr 17 min

Jack Rudenko hasn't written a line of code himself in nine months. In that time, his team has shipped six or seven products used by millions of people, and he says that gap, between who writes the code and who's actually building, is the…
Nobody Knows What to Pay Anymore: A Building Tech Teams Best-Of

August 25, 2026 · 21 min

Eight guests into Building Tech Teams, one theme has shown up in every single episode: money. A principal software engineer who now manages a team of agents asks what he should be paid, and nobody in the room has a clean answer. AI has…
Why "The Number Is Never the Problem": Matt McFarlane, Founder of FNDN

August 18, 2026 · 1 hr 13 min

Most companies treat compensation as a math problem: get the number right and the rest takes care of itself. Matt McFarlane says that’s backwards, and it’s the reason so many pay conversations go sideways even when the number itself is…
Why "Show Me Your Harness" Beats Any Coding Test: Adam Witanowski, AI Architect

August 10, 2026 · 1 hr 15 min

Most technical interviews still ask a candidate to write a function on a whiteboard. Adam Witanowski says that question is already obsolete, and what should replace it says everything about how AI is changing who gets hired. In this…

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The Junior Engineer Isn't Needed Anymore: Cloë Stanbridge, Talent Lead at Airtree

August 3, 2026 · 1 hr 4 min

The junior engineer used to be the safe first hire. Cloë Stanbridge says AI just made that job disappear, and that's only the start of what's rewriting tech hiring right now. In this episode of Building Tech Teams, James MacDonald sits…
How to Build AI Capability Without Chasing Every New Model, with Patrick McQuaid

July 27, 2026 · 1 hr 14 min

Most organisations are asking which AI model they should use. Patrick McQuaid thinks that is the wrong conversation. Patrick is Group Head of Data, Analytics & AI at NGM Group. He joins James MacDonald to explain how leaders can build…
Are Your People More Productive or Just Faster? Claudia Barriga-Larriviere, Startup Flamingo

July 20, 2026 · 1 hr 6 min

Every great team she has ever seen shares one trait: they are comfortable with discomfort. Claudia Barriga-Larriviere has spent nearly 20 years building people and culture inside startups and global enterprises — and she thinks most of the…
AI Can’t Replace Domain Expertise — Nathan Hill, Head of Telco at AWS

July 13, 2026 · 44 min

The business wants AI, and it wants it yesterday. But once the proof of concept works and the partner goes home, someone inside the company has to keep the thing running. Nathan Hill, Head of Telco at AWS and a 20-year veteran of the telco…
Guardrails Are Just Suggestions: Securing AI Agents with Okta's Kevin Akermanis

July 6, 2026 · 1 hr 7 min

The business wants AI now. The people who have to secure it are being told to move faster while their budgets shrink. Kevin Akermanis, Solutions Architect at Okta and a 15-year Salesforce veteran, sits down with James MacDonald to unpack…
Why Your First Hire Isn't an Engineer Anymore — Michael Batko, ex-Startmate CEO

June 29, 2026 · 1 hr 7 min

The first hire used to be an engineer. Michael Batko thinks that's now backwards — and that's just the start of how AI is rewiring the way you build a tech team. In the first episode of Building Tech Teams, James MacDonald sits down with…
Tech Exec // Oliver Shanahan, Group Head of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure at BetMakers Technology Group

October 29, 2025 · 58 min

From a childhood without electricity to co-founding a listed betting company, Oliver Shanahan’s story is a masterclass in technical grit and commercial pivots. As the Group Head of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure at BetMakers Technology…

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About the show

Building Tech Teams is a weekly podcast on how Australia hires, builds, and leads tech teams in the age of AI. Host James MacDonald sits down with the founders, CTOs, VPs of Engineering and People Leaders building Australia's best tech teams, from startups to enterprise, on what actually works. How they hire, how they build and lead their teams, and the calls that made or broke them. It is built for the leaders making the hire and the tech professionals making the move. Building Tech Teams is produced by Day One®, trusted partners in the technology space and the team that spent more than three years helping to build Blackbird Ventures' Wild Hearts into one of Australia's best-known founder podcasts. Sister shows include First Cheque, Oversubscribed and In The Blink of AI. Episodes are cross-promoted across the network.