I never intended to be a software engineer or work in tech. My degree is in biomedical engineering.
But the switch came almost as soon as I set foot in the workplace — and informed how I still approach tough work problems today.
I initially pursued a career in pharmaceutical research, excited to help make new and innovative medicines. Yet instead of being wowed by the science, I was shocked by the lack of technology powering the science.
All of the brilliant PhD scientists around me were trying to solve really complex medical problems with tools from the ’80s. It got me thinking, ‘How much more productive could these people be with today’s software? How much faster could we launch live-saving therapies?’
Turns out, modern technology could make them a lot more efficient and drive a lot more value.
As the engineering lead at Lonza, a contract pharmaceutical manufacturer, my team digitally transformed the end-to-end drug development process. By applying machine learning models to proprietary data, we dramatically reduced the cost and time to market for novel drugs.
Picking up the pace
In my role at Lonza, I learned that even if you’re working with really smart engineers, you can’t build something really powerful — really valuable — unless you truly know what’s painful to the end user.
Because of my background, I could see what was slowing Lonza’s scientists down and explain it in a way that my fellow engineers could understand. And that directly impacted their motivation. When they understood how all the puzzle pieces fit together and the value certain features could bring to our staff and patients, the problems at hand were much more fun and rewarding to work on.
While my time there was gratifying and illuminating, I wanted to apply the knowledge and experience I’d gained at a company that was moving at a faster clip and could support me with the resources I needed to help them scale.
Tearing things down to build them back up
Right around this time, Kollective, a B2B SaaS doing live video broadcasts and analytics for large enterprises, was hiring, and I was brought in to run their Operations and Customer Support teams.
When I arrived, I realized — once again — that there was a huge opportunity to streamline and level up backend processes. This time, the ROI would come from moving Kollective to the cloud: a huge undertaking that would essentially involve rebuilding the platform from scratch.
That massive project is what got me into data architecture and, ultimately, catapulted me into a leadership position. I built out Kollective’s first site reliability engineering and security teams and moved their engineering from waterfall to agile.
I also got wrapped into several cross-functional projects, which eventually transitioned my role into more of an all-encompassing ops position, enabling engineering, GTM, and support. Overseeing these teams, I saw how much happier our employees and our customers were when I made a point to align team goals to real customer value — a lesson I’d first learned at Lonza.
Pivoting to fintech
With everything humming along at Kollective, I wasn’t really looking for a new gig. But to my surprise, I lingered on a job opening I saw on LinkedIn earlier this year. It was for Kard’s Head of Data Platform, and what really piqued my interest was the company’s commitment to consumers.
There’s no gotcha with Kard rewards. There’s no monopoly money or ambiguous points system. Consumers get a discount on things they are excited to buy, at no cost to them.
Kard facilitates the complex interactions between card issuers and merchants who are providing the discounts, and the end user is saving money — just by being a loyal customer. Even better, Kard’s relationships with modern debit and credit card issuers make it easier for traditionally underserved communities to build their wealth.
All this potential value is what prompted me to start a conversation with Kard’s VP of Engineering, Gary Poster.
Kard is the place to be
From my research, I already viewed Kard as a high-growth startup, but talking to Gary and the rest of the Kard team solidified its trajectory. I now know that we are sitting on a goldmine of potential insights for our issuers and merchants, and everyone is in growth mode. Listening to folks share their ideas of where the product could go and how much potential there is in the market gets me amped to be a part of that journey.
The attitude of Kard’s employees resonates with me, too. They’re low ego, all about collaboration, and dead set on figuring out the next best thing for our customers and deploying it as quickly as possible. Humble, hungry, smart teams are rare, and I knew I wanted to be on this one.
Since joining Kard, I’ve been amazed at how many moving parts there are between merchants, issuers, and cardholders and the work it takes to stitch everything together seamlessly. Turns out, this is a problem I’m intimately familiar with. Building in process and standardization to create one unified Kard data platform is a challenge I’m excited and ready to tackle.
And there’s no better place for me to help engineering teams improve their efficiency. All teams at Kard are centered around driving business value, and with the talent we have on our technical teams, I feel very optimistic about the value we’ll deliver.
Curious to know how we’re approaching these problems?
Follow us on LinkedIn if you haven’t already. We’ll be dropping some behind the scenes in the coming months, so tune in.
Bonus round: Lars’s obsessions
I’m obsessed with soccer (read: football). Though I’m past my prime, I still play 4+ times a week and will keep playing until I physically can’t! I also love learning to cook foods from around the world and sharing them with family and friends.