A day in the life of a fintech CTO

(L-R) StashAway co-founders Michele Ferrario, Nino Ulsamer, and Freddy Lim / Photo credit: StashAway

Day in the Life is a series where personalities in the Asian tech community recount what they do on a typical day. Read more from the series here.

My name is Nino, and though my name makes many fellow Europeans think that I’m from Italy, I’m actually German. That’s right, straight from the country of engineering, known for structure and punctuality. Thus, you might expect my day to be hyper-planned and organized, and the truth is, sometimes it is. But I also work in a creative profession and thus require blocks of time where I can work uninterrupted and am able to focus.

As the CTO of the company, I am responsible for our product and technology, as well as ensuring our operations (banking and trading) run smoothly. Being a founder drastically widens the range of responsibilities, though, as more often than not you will be asked for your opinion or guidance on a variety of topics. Very frequently, there is just nobody else to turn to.

But let’s see how a typical workday looks like for me.

7 am

Don’t worry, I’m not working yet. However, I like to have at least an hour of time in the morning to myself. I will usually workout, then do a mediation session, read some news, and prepare breakfast for my wife and myself. We try to eat breakfast together, but she’s a slow eater, so I usually hop into the shower while she’s still eating.

9 am

I reach the office and go through my emails and Slack messages. We use Slack quite excessively, so this can take some time. For example, I look at the error logs that our systems have streamed overnight into separate Slack channels and see if there is anything suspicious or unusual.

Typical problems that can happen here are, for example, a rounding difference of 1 cent during the settlement of a trade that got flagged by our reconciliation systems. While we work on automating every step of the process as much as we can, the constant development of new features means there are usually new small issues popping up that require manual attention.

10 am

Standup number one!

My hybrid role at the crossroads of tech and business teams mean that I participate in the (separated) standups of both the business and tech teams.

Unsurprisingly, the earlier standup is the one for the business team. I share with them on a high level what I’m working on, which is usually acknowledged with empathetic nodding and the occasional question of “what in the world is a container-orchestration system?”

10:30 am

As the time until lunch is short, I usually try to get more of the “admin-related” tasks out of the way. Think an expiring SSL certificate, a laptop that needs to be purchased for a new joiner, reviewing compliance procedures for software upgrades, looking through resumes, and other things that you might not expect when reading the “glamorous” job title of CTO.

12 pm

While most people are heading out for lunch, this is also prime time for interviews (for obvious reasons). As we are constantly on the lookout for highly skilled developers to join our team, I am often interviewing candidates during this time and heading out for lunch a bit later.

2 pm

Standup number two with the tech team!

3 pm

5 pm

7:30 pm