Growing Your Own: How to Turn Technical Staffers into IT Leaders
Sanjib Sahoo
Chief Technology Officer
OptionMonster Holdings, Inc.
• “Leadership Comes from integrity-that
you do whatever you ask others to do”
• - Scott Berkun
The challenge..how we started
Build a world class online brokerage system,
providing an amazing user/trading experience within
a short time period with a limited budget.
Use cutting edge technologies (incl. Open Source) to
achieve scalability and performance in the online trading
world
Compete with top trading firms in the nation with limited
resources and a relatively ‘small’ tech budget
Attract talent to work for a small one room start-up
Retain talented people with a limited financial budget
Manage a multi-location organization,
utilizing an onshore-offshore
development model
Organization
optionMONSTER
Holdings, Inc.
OM Securities, LLC optionMONSTER
Technologies, LLC
optionMONSTER
Media, LLC
Retail media portal &
subscriptions
Online Education
Invest Like a Monster
(ILAM) conferences
Technology development
IP management
Tech support
Registered brokerage
Retail online brokerage
‘Institutional’ brokerage
The Company’s primary businesses are run through its subsidiaries: Retail online brokerage:
tradeMONSTER.com (OM Securities, LLC) and Media site: optionMONSTER.com
(optionMONSTER Media, LLC)
Where we have come from..
optionMONSTER – Co-founded in 2006 by Jon ('DRJ')
Najarian and Pete Najarian, a pair of professional traders,
financial executives, and CNBC contributors. Best for
options content in the industry.
tradeMONSTER – Launched in 2008, ‘Best for Options’
online trading firm in North America since 2010, ranked
Top 3 retail trading firm in 2012 by Barron’s. Well known
for unique and innovative trading platform, great user
experience, technology and patented design.
tradeMONSTER has retained it’s original technology
team with almost no attrition and has been able to run a
successful trading operation with using innovative
approaches & new technologies incl. the Open Source
stack.
A different approach to build leaders
Started with all technology resources, no managers
hired
Non-traditional hiring model
Rotational well-rounded radical approach to build
leadership skills
Intra –team acceptance model for leadership
Stress handling models to strengthen leaders
Creating Leaders-Custom Model
Phase 1 Flat organization
Hiring strategy
Inclusive management style
Tough love
Phase 2 Identify talent
Acquire business knowledge
Cross training
Technical leadership(horizontal and vertical structure)
Phase 3 Acceptance of leaders within team
Conflict management
Overall vision development
People management
What aided this?
Non-political open door environment
Open review process(supervisor, manager, peer
reviews)
Periodic 360 degree reviews for leaders
Innovation committee and mapping to product plan
Create passion and motivation within every level of the
team
Create communicational and inclusive management
style
“I feel my leadership skills and willingness to lead teams have grown here at
optionMONSTER. The way I have taken on more and more responsibilities with
getting more and more involved with the team has given me confidence to take on
more management tasks, which I was not sure was my forte before. This steady
additional level of responsibility pushed me to make sure that my team performs at
its best at all times. Today I feel more comfortable to take on more management
tasks”
- Kris K. Director of Technology, optionMONSTER
Motivating Technologists…
Tuning them to the business success
Inclusive management style- periodic business and
strategic updates to whole technology team
Revenue and business implication updates for
products developed by technology
Tech appreciation meets on a quarterly basis
Creating politics free, fun environment and building an
attached leadership model
“ My experience at OM has taught me to ask many questions to lead the team to the
desired outcome. Not only does it build better team work, but the solutions are more
robust and the risks are mitigated quicker. The team environment here and the vision of
leadership from top has made me more comfortable as a leader and handle people much
better in a challenging environment “
- Lucy B, Leader of Quality Assurance
“ The open and agile culture at OM has brought out a tough attitude in me with a no
fear attitude to face critical issues. Working with great minds has increased my
knowledge and confidence and my hard work has been acknowledged always and has
helped me grow more and strong as a leader.”
- Dham P, Leader of Production Support
Motivating Technologists..
What else helps?
Cross platform training and rotation policy for tech
resources
Attention to detail and constant sharing of vision
Open houses to understand opinions and thoughts of
the team
Encourage decision making within lower levels and
clear communication of acceptance/rejections of those.
Overseeing the hiring process.
Striking the right balance of tough love for team.
“Morale on our technology team has never been higher, and we are extremely excited
about our products and the services that we provide. We have a culture of “whatever it
takes” to meet many difficult challenges that we have overcome “.
-Aaron W, Senior Implementation Engineer
What we achieved…
Minimal Staff attrition, key team retained during growth
period (Ranging from 0 to 3% yearly basis)
A platform with 99.98% uptime ; created a scalable, high
performance trading platform
Ranked #1(4.6 out of 5) by Barron’s for Technology
amongst online trading brokerages in North America,
Patented technology design
A fluid organizational structure that has created well-
rounded leaders and able technologists.
Thank you
“As technology leaders, we have a big responsibility of
bringing upcoming leaders not only for the interest of
ourselves but for the industry as a whole. This story
highlights what we have been able to achieve with a
different approach for creating leaders and different
motivational approaches taken to retain talent in a high
stress environment. Hope this approach helps all of you
to get a new perspective!”
Thank you,
Sanjib Sahoo