Who Does What
Who's who at the Octopus zoo. How we're structured and how we think about management.
It shouldn't be hard to figure out who to ask about something at Octopus. This section gives a high-level overview of each of the departments at Octopus, how they're organized, and who's leading each one.
At a high level, Octopus is organized into a handful of departments, in no particular order:
- Engineering
- Product
- Design
- Support
- Revenue
- Solutions Engineering
- Marketing
- Sales Operations
- People & Culture
- Finance
- Legal, Compliance & IT
From the names, you can probably guess what each one does, though we've included some notes further down. Each of these departments has a leader - a VP or Director (explanation below) - who reports to Paul Stovell, the CEO. There are also usually a couple of people who don't fit clearly into any of these categories, who also report to Paul.
As you read, you'll notice that Octopus is very R&D heavy - many people have a technical background or work in a technical role. While we're slowly growing in other areas, this is a deliberate choice, and we expect we'll remain a very R&D-heavy company.
We use a system called Bob to manage feedback, and it also maintains an up-to-date organisation chart. If you want to find out who somebody's manager is, what pronouns they use, or their title, you'll find it on the Org Chart page.
Mike Noonan leads Engineering. It’s the largest team at Octopus, comprised of the Engineers who write the code for Octopus Deploy and operate Octopus Cloud. Engineers are part of product teams alongside Product Managers and Designers and are supported by an Engineering Manager. A typical team is between 5-10 people. Some of our larger teams split into pods to create focus on a particular goal when it makes sense. Engineers are based in Australia and New Zealand to keep everyone with lots of time zone overlap.
Colin Bowern leads Product. Product Managers have the difficult job of listening to just about everybody - support tickets, customer conversations, industry trends, and opportunities from sales - and distil everything into a cohesive product roadmap that actually makes sense. Product Managers are based in Australia and New Zealand, listening to and engaging with customers worldwide.
Colin Bowern leads Design. Designers get involved in user research and interaction design to ensure we deliver a product experience that is easy for the first user and scales to the needs of the seasoned user of Octopus. Designers work closely with Product Managers and Engineers to build an in-depth understanding of use cases and the product to shape user experiences specific to our users. Designers are based in Australia and New Zealand.
Chris van Dal leads Security Operations. Security analysts and security engineers proactively and reactively reduce the risk of threats so customers feel confident trusting Octopus with their keys to production. They are the first responders for security incidents and work closely with our Legal, Compliance, and IT team, doing the heavy lifting to implement and improve the controls underpinning our Information Security Management System (ISMS) - think of these as guard rails making it easier for teams to do their jobs safely.
Alex Rolley leads Support & Customer Success. Support helps our customers when they have problems and helps them get un-stuck. They are experts on Octopus and the kinds of issues customers can experience. Support works together with team members in the US, UK, and Australia, giving us "follow-the-sun" availability and fast response times.
Customer Success builds close relationships with some of our largest customers, checking in frequently and helping them realise the business value of Octopus Deploy. In this capacity, they also act as advocates for our customers internally. We have a Customer Success presence in the US and UK to connect with customers when it works best for them.
Harsh Sabikhi leads Revenue. Revenue teams create lifelong customers who put their trust in Octopus to get their pipelines into production. While Octopus is usually adopted & championed by technical folks within a company, there are still many hurdles a company faces when deciding to buy or renew a license, and the sales team is here to help. Our motto is to be there when customers need us but not to bother them if they're "just browsing". While we don't believe in top-down sales, we've learned that our customers still like to talk to a human, especially in large Enterprise organisations. The Revenue team can help the deployment teams justify “Why Octopus” with formal Proof of Value (POV) and business case documents. The revenue team is based in the US, UK, Denmark, Australia, and Canada to help customers make the right decisions.
Mike Nguyen leads Solutions Engineering. The Solutions Engineering organization includes Solutions Engineers (SEs) and Technical Account Managers (TAMs): SEs work with our customers to build solutions that prove the value of Octopus; TAMs work with our customers to plan and achieve success with Octopus.
SEs and TAMs are experts on Continuous Deployment and understand the DevOps ecosystem that enables a software pipeline. SEs and TAMs deliver webinars and workshops, speak at events and write blog posts, and ultimately educate our customers on optimizing their Octopus experience. The Solutions Engineering organization spans across Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US.
Joanna Wyganowska leads Marketing. Marketers tell the story of how Octopus helps customers shift from stressful deployments to happy deployments. They do it through the web, content, and events that support technical evaluators in making decisions. They also create engagement opportunities for our users through community and social media. Marketers are based in the US, Australia, and Europe.
Cheryl Rehn leads Sales Operations. Sales Operations’ primary objective is to systematically maximise revenue potential for our revenue teams. Sales Operations looks after the sales processes, business systems, and integrations we've built to strategically enable Marketing, Sales, and Support to focus on great customer experiences and drive revenue growth. They strive for efficiency and effectiveness while building bridges to align revenue processes and departments across the org. Sales Operations are based in the US and Australia.
People & Culture handles all things ‘people’ from talent attraction to offboarding and its mission is to lead the company-wide effort of making Octopus a great place to work. People & Culture are based in Australia and the US.
Sammy Michaels leads Finance, managing our budgeting and forecasting, compliance, tax, payroll, expenses, vendor management, and more. The team runs our payroll across several countries and files payroll taxes and worker insurance in a dozen US and Australian states, all while making sure Octopus is a solvent, above-board company. Finance is based in Australia.
Ray Marshall leads Legal, Compliance & IT. They look after all the legal and compliance issues that come our way. They are also responsible for all the day-to-day ‘glue’ IT systems that keep the company running smoothly, securely, and in alignment with our legal and compliance obligations. Ultimately, they're responsible for ensuring we are worthy of our customer's trust and that we operate in a way that doesn’t cause us to lose that trust. Legal, Compliance & IT is based in Australia and the US.
Last modified 20d ago