#104 - End-to-End Technical Independence feat. Alexander Matthey // CTO @ Adyen

alphalist.CTO Podcast - For CTOs and Technical Leaders

Independent. Direct. Security First

Discover the benefits of end-to-end technical independence with Alexander Matthey, CTO of Adyen. Learn why Adyen cherishes its in-house strategy as Alexander shares how Adyen’s extreme technical independence (no third-party vendors) enables efficiency in everything from libraries to security.

Listen to find out:

• Security First: How Adyen makes security a priority for everyone. 🔒
• Pick Up the Phone📞: How direct communication makes them more efficient.
• How Adyen’s long-term vision drives innovation. 🚀
• How Conway’s Law is applied to their team structure

Listen here

Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction to the Alphalist Podcast (00:44) Meet Alexander Matthey, CTO of Adyen (01:34) Adyen's Founding and Growth (02:47) Alex's Nerd Journey (05:42) Transition from Coding to Leadership (07:28) How GenAI is changing coding (10:52) Life in the FinTech space (15:04) How Adyen's Long-Term Vision Drives Innovation (18:12) End-to-End Independence. No third-party vendors. (20:39) Product Discovery - Start with Customer (22:49) How industry has changed (23:43) Adyen Tech Strategy: Have set languages/tools etc. (27:24) Adyen Tech Stack (27:50) Adyen's Organisational Structure & Conway's Law (28:28) -Biggest Concentration on Payments (29:35) -Teams powering Financial Services (30:39) -Data and Platform Engineering (31:48) Transitioning to Smaller Teams (33:06) Starting from Scratch: Building a Payment System not in 100% private cloud (35:33) The Adyen Formula: Direct Communication via Phone (42:13) Security First: Internal Responsibility (46:16) Tools and Monitoring for Security (49:57) Security if start from scratch (54:07) Advice to My Younger Self