2018 to 2021
Philips India
Designed and ran the company's bar-raiser hiring program
Jun 2021Philips India
~45
session attendees
Spoke for Philips at a major developer conference in Brazil
- Certificate
Mar 2021Philips India
Campus annual award for organizational capability
- What changed
- Campus-level award.
Mar 2021Philips India
13
people in the core team
- 6,000+employees mapped to software job profiles
Finalist in the Philips Excellence Competition with the software capability team
- Message
- 1 quote
Mar 2021Philips India
Moved into a managerial role leading software excellence transformation projects
“Datta has been a pivotal member of the SW CoE team for years and has been deservedly rewarded with a promotion this year.”
Manager, Software Center of Excellence, Philips, 2021 - 1 quote
Feb 2021Philips India
1 of ~30
people worldwide named for the CTO Outstanding Technical Achievement Award in 2021
About 30 named worldwide
Cited for teaching coding to compliance officers and for a data-driven hiring framework.
- Certificate
- 1 quote
2021Philips India
575
connects
- 448hours
- 2,975colleague touchpoints
Ran 575 connects with 2,975 colleague touchpoints in 2021
2021Philips India
+18%
candidate NPS after I redesigned senior hiring, with hiring-manager NPS up 15%
Candidates: +18%Managers: +15%
- Message
- 2 quotes
2021Philips India
~€2.1M
realized in 2021 by a technical-debt program I coached as lead coach
Realized: ~€2.1MIdentified: ~€3.45MThe second figure was identified as future savings, not realized.
Dec 2020Philips India
4
goals rated Exceeds
Top score and top results in 2020, with four goals Exceeds
- 1 quote
- Performance review
Oct 2020Philips India
98
active participants
- 788repositories
Helped the bootcamp lead structure the campus engineering bootcamp
- 1 quote
Sep 2020Philips India
15+
interviewers coached
Coached 15+ interviewers in Brazil for the global hiring rollout
- 1 quote
Aug 2020Philips India
7
bar-raiser cohorts
Seven cohorts of bar-raisers, 2020 to 2021
Inducted in three regions: Brazil, North America, Europe
Designed and ran the company's bar-raiser hiring program
- Message
- 1 quote
Aug 2020Philips India
2,125
participants in my connect sessions over seven months of 2020, in 12 cities
Participants per month. Unique people ranged from 125 to 175 a month.
- 1 quote
Jan 2020Philips India
2,000
recognition points
Recognized for running the 2019 code-craft assessments
- 1 quote
2020Philips India
Co-authored one CI/CD reference architecture for the company
“Thanks to Datta's notes as well; it was interesting to work on these comments.”
Architect, whitepaper co-author, Philips, 2020 
- Message
- 1 quote
2020Philips India
F to B
code-quality rating for one product team after we moved quality checks to the developer's desk
FBeforeEDCBAfterAThe same team halved internal defects per release. Three teams went live on quality gates.
- Message
Dec 2019Philips India
5 to 24
talks and workshops a year, from 2018 to 2019, my first year in software excellence
The 2019 review counted 235 people met across about 100 teams.
- 1 quote
- Performance review
Dec 2019Philips India
Ran open year-end code-quality assessments with product teams
“The assessment was very open, transparent & informative and we indeed learnt new tools/technologies in the suggestions that came from SW CoE team directly.”
Product team, magnetic resonance business, Philips, 2019 - 1 quote
Oct 2019Philips India
Compiled measured duplicate-code data for the CTO's extended call
- Before
- Code quality would have been discussed as opinion at the top table.
- The call
- Give leadership measured results from the teams' own code.
- What changed
- A senior director asked for a mechanism to remove and commit 23% of the duplicate code.
Sep 2019Philips India
18,688
lines of duplicate code removed after teams adopted the analysis I introduced
Each line here stands for about 1,000 lines of code
- Message
- 1 quote
Sep 2019Philips India
225+
attendees
Took the duplicate-code tool to 225+ engineers in two time zones
- 2 quotes
Jul 2019Philips India
750
recognition points
Recognized for changing code-quality culture across the campus's businesses
- 1 quote
Jul 2019Philips India
Moved to company-wide software excellence to lead technical debt reduction
“In his journey with Philips, his passion for software excellence has gravitated him towards taking up a role with Software Center of Excellence.”
Campus announcement, Philips, 2019 - 1 quote
Mar 2019Philips India
63% to 86%
unit-test coverage on an identity management product in six months, with no extra people
January: 63%July: 86%Feb 2019Philips India
Led the first CI/CD milestone: automated end-to-end tests
“I would like to thank all the contributors in the first step of our initiative. This is very crucial step in the CI CD PIPELINE DRIVE.”
Director, identity management, Philips, 2019 - 1 quote
2019Philips India
341
connects
- 236people reached
- 109business units
- 25programming languages
Set up measured outreach: 341 connects across 109 business units
- 1 quote
Dec 2018Philips India
First Philips review: DevOps strategy and quality drives delivered in four months
“Appreciate his effort in bringing few quality drives already in 2018 to strengthen the quality code delivery. Demonstrated already UT coverage improvement.”
Director, identity management, Philips, 2018 - 1 quote
- Performance review
Sep 2018Philips India
~20
people on the identity management team I directed
- Sep 2018start date
Senior architect for identity management, directing product strategy for a ~20-person team
Also at Philips India: 34 more entries without a card
2021
- SepReverse-mentored a senior business leader on DevOps, observability and BizDevOps
- JunRecommended by the Head of Competencies to a senior US leader for a US Software Center of Excellence role
- JunCo-ran an observability workshop for 22 at the global Software Excellence Conference
- FebSet up observation-based productivity coaching for developers: 36 sessions in 2021
2020
- JulJudged the finals of a business unit's internal hackathon
- JunManager recognition 'Eager to improve and inspire' for building the bar-raiser initiative
- MayTaught the quality-at-desk approach at the campus-wide Virtual Learning Summit
- MarRan monthly business progress dialogues with a software team in China
- YearAdapted and ran the 'Crack the Code' coding challenge for the team in Brazil
- YearLeadership development center and 360 review: above the company average on every competency
- YearReverse-mentored senior leaders on software practices in the company reverse mentoring program
2019
- DecCoordinated the kick-off of Philips' technical-debt measurement work with Software Improvement Group
- OctLed the working group that upgraded campus hiring and reworked the interview questionnaires
- OctJudged the campus best-practices competition finals and connected finalists to take ideas further
- OctIntroduced mutation testing to a radiation oncology product team
- OctMeasured 20% duplicated code in a shared application codebase and reported it to its owners
- OctProposed that teams protect 3 days per program increment for technical debt
- SepPanelist at the Philips developer conference fireside chat 'How much is enough?' (~500 attendees)
- SepSpoke at Bengaluru's Software Excellence Conference on program behavior metrics (70) and BDD live coding (20)
- AugRan a half-day TDD and clean code workshop for 25 nominated engineers
- JulRan a half-day unit testing workshop for 24 nominated engineers
- MayManager recognition 'Eager to improve and inspire' for coaching a product team on interviewing (500 points)
- MayCoached a product team's interviewers to collect evidence, design questions and stay neutral
- AprRan a hands-on workshop on S101 architecture visualization
- AprDrove central ELK logging and monitoring for identity management and started its next monitoring iteration
- AprSpoke at the Software Center of Excellence April technical sharing session, before joining that team
- FebRan a Java best practices session for 24 Philips engineers, the first of the 2019 workshop series
- FebStarted the Philips Innovation Campus interview-standardization initiative with a five-point framework
- JanIntroduced by the chief architect to Philips architects worldwide as Project Architect for Identity Management
- JanSet one defect life cycle for identity management, with required fields, owners and change-control rules
- JanSet up a single team site for identity management's process, standards and plans
Role
- Nov 2021Promoted to Software Excellence Competency Lead with the transfer to Philips North America (see the Philips North America layer).
- Mar 2021Took on a managerial role as Software Competency Specialist II and led software excellence transformation projects for Philips businesses with small teams of architects and specialists.
- Jul 2019Moved to Competency Specialist, Software Excellence, in the Software Center of Excellence, to lead initiatives such as technical debt reduction across Philips businesses. This is where my cross-functional leadership, across teams and businesses rather than one product, began.
- Sep 2018Joined Philips Innovation Campus, Bengaluru, as senior architect for Identity Management, directing the platform's product strategy and growth for a team of about 20.
Scope and responsibilities
- Directed strategy and policy for software quality, security and regulatory compliance in medical software development and delivery, advising business leaders across Philips businesses.
- Owned medical software lifecycle responsibilities under ISO 13485 and IEC 62304 for the platforms in my remit, directing planning, design reviews, verification and validation cycles, and change control.
- Set new interview policies, goals, KPIs and procedures for global software hiring at the India site leader's request, with tools that met each region's data rules, and coached senior leaders on them.
- Built recruitment strategies with recruiters and HR across regions, mentored senior managers through shadow and mock interviews, and interviewed for senior roles as a decision maker.
- Led cross-competency teams through hands-on workshops, seminars and pairing with leaders and architects, mentored leaders on DevOps and drove adoption of BizDevOps practices.
- Delivered measurable code-quality practice to business units, from duplicate-code detection to quality gates at the developer's desk, and directed Philips HealthSuite platform solutions and the move of legacy systems to Philips' cloud platform.
- From Sep 2018, directed product strategy and growth for the identity management platform and its team of about 20 as senior architect, then from Mar 2021 led software excellence transformation projects end to end with small rotating teams of architects and specialists: scoped them with business heads, allocated and supervised the work, presented findings and approved remediation actions.
Signature work
- 01
Set one hiring bar across regions
Started interview standardization at the campus, designed and ran the bar-raiser program (global inductions for Brazil, North America and Europe, seven cohorts) and led the senior-hiring redesign sponsored by the India site leader: candidate NPS up 18%, hiring-manager NPS up 15%. The CTO award citation named the data-driven hiring framework.
- 02
Made code quality measurable and got teams to act on it
Raised identity management unit-test coverage from 63% to 86% with no extra people, brought duplicate-code detection to business units with hands-on workshops (teams removed 18,688 duplicate lines) and took the data to the CTO's call, then led the quality-at-desk program, with three teams live on its quality gates.
- 03
Savings and reach at company scale
Lead coach for the technical-debt program, which realized about EUR 2.1M in savings in 2021; the connect program reached 341 connects across 109 business units in 2019, about 2,125 participants in 2020 and 575 connects in 2021.
In numbers
- 7bar-raiser cohorts
- 18,688duplicate lines removed
- 29workshops at 8.93/10 in 2019
+18% candidate NPS. ~EUR 2.1M savings. CTO Outstanding Technical Achievement Award (one of ~30 worldwide). campus annual award. Exceeds in 2019, 'top score' in 2020, promoted in 2021.
What people said
“Exceeds is related to the speed with which Datta built a network, ramped up to many workshops and preparations and got good feedback.”
“I wished to thank you for all that you have been doing regarding the bar-raiser project, all the effort that you are putting into this. There is no way we could make this work without you.”
Year by year
- 2021
Took on a managerial role in March as Software Competency Specialist II and led software excellence transformation projects for Philips businesses, then was promoted to Software Excellence Competency Lead with the transfer to the US in November. I led the senior-hiring redesign sponsored by the India site leader (candidate NPS up 18%), was lead coach for the technical-debt program that realized about EUR 2.1M in savings and spoke at a developer conference in Brazil. The CTO Annual Address named me one of about 30 Outstanding Technical Achievement Award recipients, and I won the campus award for organizational capability.
12 events
- 2020
Designed and ran the bar-raiser hiring program, with global inductions for Brazil, North America and Europe, and led quality checks at the developer's desk, with three teams live on its quality gates. As work went remote I kept the connect program going online, with about 2,125 participants across 12 cities, and co-authored the company CI/CD reference architecture. Four goals rated Exceeds, 'top score and top results'.
15 events
- 2019
Moved in July from architecting one product to company-wide software excellence, after leading identity management to automated end-to-end tests and unit-test coverage from 63% to 86% with no extra people. I brought duplicate-code detection to business units with hands-on workshops, put the data in front of the CTO, started and led the campus interview-standardization work and ran 341 connects across 109 business units. Rated Exceeds.
30 events
- 2018
Joined Philips Innovation Campus in September as project architect for identity management, responsible for its architecture and delivery pipeline. In four months I set the team's pull-request and code-quality rules and its 2019 CI/CD goals, and built a DevOps architecture strategy with the team that my first review recorded as delivered.
5 events
What I took from it
Philips India is where I learned to build systems for other people. A central team earns its place by going to the teams, measuring honestly and handing them tools they can run themselves, which is how the duplication program and the craftsmanship assessments worked. Hiring and code quality turned out to be the same problem: make the bar explicit, coach people to it and measure the result, which is what the bar-raiser program did across three regions. That belief has shaped every program I have led since.