Making Change a Skill, Not a Crisis - Michal Nowak - Hiring Happy Hour - Episode # 034

From Hiring Happy Hour · 36:33

Show by SmartRecruiters

AI moves fast, and the organizations building for it need to move just as fast. In this episode of Hiring Happy Hour, Nicole Hammond sits down with Michal Nowak, SVP of Engineering at SmartRecruiters, to unpack the organizational shift behind building Winston and preparing for an increasingly agentic world of hiring. Michal shares why SmartRecruiters moved away from long-standing product teams and reorganized around six key outcomes, with small, short-lived squads focused on shipping specific features. He also explains how an “acceleration squad” protects teams from distractions, why process changes can be just as powerful as AI coding tools, and what the team has learned from making constant evolution a core part of how they work. Takeaways:Change shouldn't feel like an emergency every time it happens. Build a repeatable process for reorganizing your team so each transition gets smoother instead of starting from scratch.When you're launching something new, define the outcome first and let people choose where they contribute. Teams show up more engaged when they pick their lane instead of being assigned to it.Not every task is exciting, but someone still has to own it. Rotate the unglamorous work across your team so the same people aren't stuck doing it indefinitely.Focus beats multitasking. A team working toward one clear goal at a time will consistently outpace one juggling five priorities at once.Before you build or roll out anything new, talk to the people who'll actually use it. Months of direct feedback upfront saves you from shipping the wrong thing.Don't just ask if a change "felt" successful. Track it: how fast work moves, how much gets delivered, whether people stay, and whether quality holds up.Give people a light at the end of the tunnel. Knowing their role or project will be revisited in a few months keeps people invested even when the current one isn't their favorite.Quote of the Show:“Organization change or change in general shouldn't be like an event. It should be a competence. It should be something that we operationalize and internalize, and just be better at it.” - Michal NowakLinks:LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mjb-nowak Website: https://www.smartrecruiters.com Ways to Tune In:Substack: HiringHappyHour.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1Pnhu7Njmi09N6Yzye59Nf Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/hiring-happy-hour/id1868802369 Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/d60912b0-8925-4bba-aff1-f5230a0cc793 iHeart Radio: https://iheart.com/podcast/317223012/ Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/hiring-happy-hour-6340769 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HiringHappyHour Transistor: https://podcast.hiringhappyhour.com/

More episodes of Hiring Happy Hour

More episodes

PodSearch is a free, independent podcast search engine. Read about PodSearch, the privacy policy or contact us.