At the helm with Trish Khoo

Trish Khoo, Director of Engineering at Octopus, reflects on her role and contributions to the company over the past year, drawing from a diverse background at companies like Google and Microsoft. Her typical day involves engaging with multiple Slack channels, collaborating with engineering leaders, and writing policies and strategies. Khoo emphasizes the importance of clarifying roles and processes to enhance team effectiveness and has successfully redefined the Engineering Manager role to focus on people management and team culture. She has also contributed to creating scalable hiring strategies and establishing the first R&D group to improve strategic planning. As Octopus undergoes rapid growth, Khoo identifies maintaining engineering productivity and scaling systems as significant challenges, while her vision for the future includes fostering a high-performing culture where engineers can excel. Success is measured by both customer satisfaction and internal delivery efficiency, with ongoing efforts to enhance new customer experiences and integrate with enterprise products like ServiceNow.