Lucas Hendrich. Image: BairesDev
BairesDev CTO Lucas Hendrich discusses the importance of pushing data transformation and the next big trend after DevOps.
As chief technology officer at software development company BairesDev, Lucas Hendrich is responsible for assessing technical challenges of current projects and determining the suitable teams and approaches to solve those challenges.
Hendrich has previously worked in technical research and training for several companies in Boston and New York. He holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Brandeis University and is currently working on a master’s degree in economics at George Mason University.
‘Digital transformation has become the table stakes for all competitive organisations’
– LUCAS HENDRICH
Describe your role and your responsibilities in driving tech strategy.
I lead a team of more than 1,400 expert software engineers delivering technology solutions to more than 100 clients in the US, as well as a team of solution architects whose primary responsibility is discovering the best digital solutions for our customers.
In this sense, we drive tech strategies that align with our customers’ business goals, based on a combination of highly skilled talent along with a focus on solid engineering and design-thinking mindset. We are a digital acceleration expert partner, specialised in solid end-to-end delivery of tailor-made technology solutions.
Are you spearheading any major product or IT initiatives you can tell us about?
We currently have several interesting product initiatives that we are developing to first increase our own internal employee engagement, and then possibly provide to a wider market.
We serve a wide range of clients, developing innovative technology solutions for start-ups, middle-market businesses and more than 10pc of Fortune 500 companies in diverse industries.
We are collaborating with clients that are accelerating their business transformation plans, others that were negatively impacted by the Covid-19 crisis and are investing on their product roadmap, and others that are adapting their business models and pivoting to offer better experiences to their customers.
So, we are also constantly seeking ways to best share our cross-technology and industry knowledge internally to generate more added value for our customers. We are actively engaging in bleeding-edge technologies to learn, prototype and lead the market, particularly in acquiring talent that align to next-generation skills.
How big is your team?
Our services include dedicated teams, an expert autonomous team capable of rapidly and efficiently delivering technology solutions and value, and IT staff augmentation to complement the talent needs to rapidly scale and boost projects.
We are more than 1,800 employees in total, and 1,400 engineers. All of our engineers are our employees and as a provider of outsourced services, we do not outsource ourselves.
What are your thoughts on digital transformation?
Digital transformation, or digital strategy, has become the table stakes for all competitive organisations. Some of our clients had a digital transformation plan already developed, but now they are seeking to accelerate the process. Others are digital by design and they are focusing on constant improvement and innovation.
We are now pushing data transformation: how can digital data be transformed into business intelligence and competitive advantage? How can it be trained, learned, adapted? It is not enough to build digital assets. A data science strategy is an essential component to competitive success.
What big tech trends do you believe are changing the world?
Technology is in the centre of the biggest changes in our lives and after Covid-19 it is more evident that there is no way back.
The way we work, we communicate and interact with others has been disrupted, and people are expecting their experiences with brands, products and services to be frictionless, contactless, seamless and consistent across channels and devices.
That is the reason why we have seen an increased demand for our services. We partner with our clients to develop the best technology solutions via dedicated teams or completing the roles they need to rapidly scale and implement their projects successfully.
Companies across all industries are still adapting to modern application architectures and in the process of discovering optimal utilisation of the cloud. This is still an important transformative trend.
DevOps, while not universally adopted as a working culture and methodology, has at least become widely recognised. The next trend is MLOps [machine learning operations], applying similar principles to the rapid deployment of data models, adapted and accelerated to maximise the best use of data to improve and evolve.
In terms of security, what are your thoughts on how we can better protect data?
Organisations must adopt a zero-trust strategy. This strategy considers that breaches will happen and contains them, versus banking on all-or-nothing protection behind a firewall.
Also, almost every major breach in recent years has been due to human vulnerability. Education is the best protection.
For example, we work for Thomson Reuters, developing the technologies applied to their reporting and accounting services with a strong focus on security protocols and risk avoidance.
Our professionals work on preventing data leaks, anticipating fatal issues, and making sure there is no room for errors while also inhibiting targeted attacks and focusing on building the best and most engaging user experience.
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