Christos Chatzis
Sr Technology Manager | ex-Associate Director of Engineering | ex-fCTO
Athens, Greece
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Christos is a technology leader specializing in big data and software engineering. He leads distributed teams and shares insights at conferences and publications. He is the author of “git push -f leadership” newsletter and the founder of “leadership discussions in tech” meetup. In his free time, he enjoys basketball, HYROX training, and playing with his son and family.
Area of Expertise
Topics
Turning Challenging dialogues into growth opportunities
Abstract: Navigating Growth and Accountability in Leadership
Managing a team is a balancing act between fostering individual growth and maintaining organizational standards. In this talk, we’ll explore two pivotal challenges faced by leaders: handling undeserved promotions and managing underperformance.
The first part of the session delves into the complexities of declining promotions that may compromise team integrity, emphasizing the long-term benefits of transparent communication and fair evaluation criteria. We’ll examine how promotion cultures driven solely by retention can harm organizational health and morale, and offer strategies to ensure promotions are earned and aligned with true merit.
In the second part, we shift focus to addressing performance issues, particularly among junior team members. We’ll discuss why one-size-fits-all approaches fail, the risks of overly relying on punitive measures like Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs), and the transformative power of mentorship and constructive feedback. Attendees will gain actionable insights into nurturing growth, fostering accountability, and recalibrating promotion and performance strategies to align with both individual potential and organizational goals.
This session provides leaders with a toolkit to turn tough conversations into opportunities for building trust, driving engagement, and cultivating a thriving team culture.
Embracing Discomfort for Growth—A Personal Journey
Growth, whether personal or professional, begins where comfort ends. In this talk, we’ll explore how stepping out of routines and embracing discomfort can catalyze transformation, drawing insights from a year of challenges, resilience, and self-discovery.
From competing in international fitness events to tackling public speaking fears and building new communities, I’ll share how taking calculated risks opened doors to growth. This includes overcoming setbacks, such as navigating a disappointing competition, and finding motivation in the drive to push forward. These experiences highlight the value of persistence, adaptability, and the courage to answer the question: “Do you want to be good or great?”
Professionally, we’ll connect these lessons to leadership and self-improvement, addressing how discomfort fosters creativity, confidence, and the ability to tackle high-stakes challenges. Whether it’s presenting at conferences, launching new ventures, or supporting others, the path to fulfillment lies in embracing change and striving for impact.
Join this session to gain practical insights into navigating challenges with resilience, cultivating a growth mindset, and thriving in both personal and professional arenas. Let’s explore how the journey to the “major leagues” can redefine success and bring dreams to life.
DealBeyond the Deal: Tackling M&A Integration Head-On
In this presentation, the ambitious journey undertaken by Orfium in its integration with a competitor will be explored, signifying the dawn of a new epoch in our sector. Attention will be drawn to the complex process where two distinct companies were merged into a unified, cohesive organization. The challenges encountered – ranging from the merging of diverse corporate cultures and work methodologies, to the intricacies involved in combining product lines and reconciling differences between cloud-based and on-premises infrastructures – will be detailed. Additionally, the strategies employed to bridge knowledge gaps will be discussed. Emphasis will be placed on how these challenges were successfully navigated and transformed into a narrative of triumph.
DealBeyond the Deal: Tackling M&A Integration Head-On
In this presentation, the ambitious journey undertaken by Orfium in its integration with a competitor will be explored, signifying the dawn of a new epoch in our sector. Attention will be drawn to the complex process where two distinct companies were merged into a unified, cohesive organization. The challenges encountered – ranging from the merging of diverse corporate cultures and work methodologies, to the intricacies involved in combining product lines and reconciling differences between cloud-based and on-premises infrastructures – will be detailed. Additionally, the strategies employed to bridge knowledge gaps will be discussed. Emphasis will be placed on how these challenges were successfully navigated and transformed into a narrative of triumph. To conclude, insights and lessons gleaned from this audacious integration will be shared, providing a blueprint for similar endeavors in the future. Attendees are invited to an informative session on the dynamics of successful corporate mergers, presented in a comprehensive and enlightening manner.
DealBeyond the Deal: Tackling M&A Integration Head-On
In this presentation, the ambitious journey undertaken by Orfium in its integration with a competitor will be explored, signifying the dawn of a new epoch in our sector. Attention will be drawn to the complex process where two distinct companies were merged into a unified, cohesive organization. The challenges encountered – ranging from the merging of diverse corporate cultures and work methodologies, to the intricacies involved in combining product lines and reconciling differences between cloud-based and on-premises infrastructures – will be detailed. Additionally, the strategies employed to bridge knowledge gaps will be discussed. Emphasis will be placed on how these challenges were successfully navigated and transformed into a narrative of triumph. To conclude, insights and lessons gleaned from this audacious integration will be shared, providing a blueprint for similar endeavors in the future. Attendees are invited to an informative session on the dynamics of successful corporate mergers, presented in a comprehensive and enlightening manner.
How Metaverse transforms the music industry. Opportunities && Challenges
“The Metaverse is the post-reality universe, a perpetual and persistent multiuser environment merging physical reality with digital virtuality. It is based on the convergence of technologies that enable multisensory interactions with virtual environments, digital objects, and people such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). It enables seamless embodied user communication in real-time and dynamic interactions with digital artifacts. This speech will try to uncover how the metaverse will transform the music industry, how the copyrights are going to be protected in this era, and to shed some light on the opportunities and challenges ahead.”
Kaizen's Cloud Data Lake 2.0: Redesigned for the Future
Redesigning Kaizen's Cloud Data Lake for the Future
At Kaizen Gaming, data is the backbone of our decision-making process and a driving force behind our innovative services. However, as our organization has grown, the complexity and volume of data we manage have scaled exponentially. This growth revealed inefficiencies in our legacy cloud architecture, leading to escalating costs, delayed insights, and limited scalability. Our initial setup, which was designed for a much smaller organization, could no longer meet the demands of our current scale operating in 18 countries and handling over 350M daily transactions (over 1PB in storage). Shared quotas, lack of cost transparency, and operational bottlenecks had become significant barriers, preventing us from fully leveraging our data’s potential.
To tackle these challenges, we embarked on a journey to redesign our cloud architecture, focusing on improving scalability, increasing cost transparency, enhancing data accessibility, and strengthening data governance. Central to our new approach is the concept of Data Landing Zones – a scalable and modular cloud framework designed to support the needs of a growing organization. By decoupling cloud resources across teams, departments, and environments, we eliminated shared quotas, enabling divisions to scale independently and more efficiently while being accountable for their costs.
Automation has been a cornerstone of this transformation. By implementing repeatable infrastructure, we significantly reduced administrative overhead and enhanced visibility into cloud costs through a FinOps framework, enabling granular insights at the team level rather than just the company level. This automation streamlined key processes like environment provisioning and reduced lead times paving the way for self-service infrastructure, allowing us to deliver insights faster and more securely with cross governance. Additionally, centralized governance using Unity Catalog ensures that data remains accessible while adhering to compliance and security standards.
The migration to this new architecture was not without its challenges. We needed to maintain the stability of our data products, manage data transfer costs, and minimize network latencies. To address these, we adopted a phased migration strategy to ensure continuity and minimize disruptions. Unity catalog’s Delta sharing protocol helped us hide migration complexity from our end users, while Databricks Asset Bundles streamlined our multi-environment setup, cutting down on operational complexity.
The results have been transformational. By democratizing access to our data platform, departments across Kaizen Gaming are now empowered to make data-driven decisions faster and more effectively. Enhanced cost attribution and observability have provided teams with greater control over their budgets, enabling them to optimize variable cloud expenses. Furthermore, the new architecture has significantly shortened onboarding periods for new teams, fostering a culture of innovation and operational efficiency.
Through this session, we aim to share our journey of migrating to a more scalable, efficient, and transparent cloud architecture. Attendees will gain a practical understanding of leveraging modern cloud solutions to address organizational challenges and walk away with actionable insights to apply within their own environments.
Key Takeaways:
Designing cloud architectures for organizational scale
Comparison of old vs new architectures
Enhancing data governance and data security
Leveraging variable cloud costs to optimize operational expenses
Migrating with minimal service disruptions
Reducing migration effort and impact on teams involved
From Startup to Scale-up: Principles of Tech Extrapolation
In today’s rapidly evolving tech arena, the journey from a startup to a scaleup is fraught with distinct challenges and opportunities. This presentation delves into the key principles underpinning successful scaling in the SaaS domain. We'll dissect strategies for assembling robust teams, advancing tech stacks, and nurturing innovation, all while preserving the agility and spirit of a startup.
We'll highlight the criticality of evolutionary architectures, delve into the synergy of cross-functional collaborations, and examine how integrating customer feedback loops can effectively enhance scaling operations. The discussion will also cover team topologies and strategic resource allocation to ensure sustainable growth.
Our goal is to arm engineering leaders with an insightful framework to navigate the intricate path from startup to scaleup in the SaaS sector. Participants will depart with practical insights and an enriched comprehension of tech extrapolation principles vital for scaling triumphs.
OKRs: Linking Developer Effort to Business Impact
In today’s fast-paced tech landscape, aligning developer efforts with business goals is essential for driving organizational success. This presentation explores how the OKR (Objectives and Key Results) framework can bridge the gap between developer experience and business impact. By focusing on developer needs, motivations, and productivity, we will discuss how to craft OKRs that not only align with company objectives but also enhance developer satisfaction and engagement. Attendees will gain practical insights into implementing OKRs that foster a supportive development environment while driving measurable business outcomes.
JavaCro'24 Sessionize Event
SkySummit Sessionize Event
WeAreDevelopers World Congress 2024 Sessionize Event
DeveloperWeek Global 2024 Sessionize Event
Christos Chatzis
Sr Technology Manager | ex-Associate Director of Engineering | ex-fCTO
Athens, Greece
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