“The Role of a Leader is to Help Others to be More Successful”
By: Porsche Digital
Tags: Company Building, Leadership, Software Development, Career Development, Technology

As a part of the Software Engineering chapter at Porsche Digital, Javier Donado creates digital products and helps to launch them into new markets. He draws from various professional experiences and is constantly experimenting with the latest technologies. Besides technical skills, Javier aims to be a good leader and to keep his mindset open to new ideas.

Javier, what is your job at Porsche Digital?

There are many tasks that we software engineers carry out at Porsche Digital. But if I had to briefly describe it, I would say that I help to create new digital products by turning ideas into compelling working solutions.

We are constantly bringing new products to the market and trying out all kinds of business experiments to build and create digital customer solutions. My job is to find out first how the available technology can help to test our hypothesis in a feasible and convenient way. Together with a multi-disciplinary team, I then coordinate an action plan so that we can turn it into reality.

Although this is the activity that takes up most of my time, there are many other activities that my colleagues and I usually carry out in the company and which I find quite interesting. For example, we also help our business management and partnering colleagues to evaluate technical related risks when scouting for new ventures or we provide advice, support and maintenance of internal tools that we use in the company for our own processes.

What is the most crucial skill in your job?

You need to be open to new ideas and often reinvent yourself. If you are convinced that you are already an expert of one special technology and you keep doing things the same way, chances are high that you miss out on better solutions.

Why might that happen? Because everything will look like a nail to you if the only tool you have is a hammer. It is therefore very important for us to be open-minded and to not restrict ourselves to the technical part of our job. Instead, we try to see as much as possible of the big picture and learn everything we can from our colleagues that are specialists in other areas. In this way, we can create business value together as a team. Doing that in a sustainable and maintainable way is also an important part of the technical challenges we face.

Having held various technical leadership roles in product teams, what was the biggest learning for you so far?

I have learned that good ideas for technical solutions can come from anyone in the team — even from people who have no technical background, and it’s your responsibility to listen to them all.

What do you think makes a good leader in the digital age?

In my opinion, the role of a leader is to help others to be more successful. To achieve that, you need to pay attention to what they have to say — that applies to almost every period of time, and the digital age is no exception. Good leaders will always be open to new ideas, no matter how experienced they are. Today, with things changing dramatically within a few months, we need more than ever the mindset of a beginner if we don’t want to be left behind.

Why did you become a part of Porsche Digital? What fascinated you?

Although I wouldn’t say that I’m a car person, I have always found Porsche fascinating. Since I was a child, my favourite toy was a 911 model car. When I grew up and studied engineering, I always had a deep respect for the German engineering tradition. Being a part of that tradition is an honour to me.

Porsche Digital is the perfect place for someone with my background to keep on contributing to this engineering tradition while at the same time adding value for Porsche in the digital age.