WeAreDevelopers Tech Leader: Atul Bhardwaj, CTO of MediaMarkt Saturn Retail Group

Thank you, thank you. Please, damn happy to be here.

Yeah, so in my life I built it on three things. I started my career with Accenture, then spent 10 years with Tesco, and as you say, in April I came here. I had a choice between turning right and doing a role in the UK or turning left, getting up at 5 AM, getting on a plane and coming here. I chose to come for a number of reasons. I looked at the stores we have, about a thousand stores across 14 countries, but also because of the transformation journey. Media Markt Saturn realized they have to transform and that technology is a key enabler. Technology is no longer a cost center; it's a revenue generator. They decided to put technology on the board, and I'm the first board member as a technologist. We are fundamentally rewriting all our core systems, moving to cloud-based, API-driven modern tech stack, moving from traditional IT teams to product-centric teams. We've introduced 84 product teams. That's why I decided to come here.

Now the world's moving back to engineering, so we have to become an engineering-led organization. As technology becomes a revenue generator, not a cost center, we have to own the technology because that's our secret sauce. The journey we're on is becoming engineering centric. We're platforming our front-end to Google Cloud using React and Node, building a brand new analytics platform and data lake using Python and Scala, changing our supply chain with SAP, building a new point-of-sale using Spring and Java. We've been playing with artificial intelligence for three years. We have a robot called Paul that runs around one of our stores, and cashier-less going live in Austria. The job now is to take these things and scale.

You've hit the nub of the issue. Amazon and Alibaba have done an awesome job in logistics and online, but they've come a certain way. We've been awesome store operators and now we're moving into the online space, so you see a convergence. We are the largest consumer electronics online retailer in Europe. The challenge is an architectural challenge: how do you make these two pillars — stores and online — come together seamlessly.

I think they have a really important role because we don't have all the best ideas. We need to create an ecosystem of partners who bring ideas to us. I imagine an architecture with internet-facing open APIs where we can work with startups to build quick use cases, test and learn. I need the retail tech hub and partner ecosystem for that to work. We're platforming our front end, building an API framework, new order brokers, supply chain backbone, category management, point-of-sale, and a data lake. We're also starting to think about voice and AI. There's a lot of areas where we need people to come and do great things.

We have to look at what we have and figure out how to get to where we want to get to. Our endgame is to have proper services. We're moving from an integration-led architecture to an API-led architecture, starting with exposing what we have as APIs and then over time refactor what's underneath so it becomes a seamless service.

When I think about AI, I think about three things: natural voice processing, deep learning and advanced analytics, and computer vision and object identification. Some use cases include natural language processing in our call centers, where we use computers to help identify and assist the customer with context. It's not a bot; it has to be context relevant because people naturally ask questions.

The product teams are autonomous teams that problem-solve. I fundamentally believe that at the end of the year you can look back and see the footsteps in the snow and know what you've done. I'd love for our product teams to look back and say, 'I did this, we did this, the feedback is great.' It's less about pool tables and more about solving problems, being recognized for it, and having the autonomy to solve problems the way you want.

We are doing a few things: introducing a bootcamp, a Technology University, and a lot of new things around self-learning. We give people time and space to learn. There's a lot of investment and encouragement. From a recruiting perspective, we use engineers to hire engineers. We have senior and junior engineers working with the recruiting team. We've been fairly successful because people like the story of transformation. You can join an organization that is transforming — it's about fundamental change.

I'd say work for a company that is transforming through technology. We are solving a lot of problems with tech, and tech is now such an important voice in this organization. You have a voice, you will solve problems using the latest innovative technology. We're investing in tech, we want the best solutions and the best technologists. We're changing technology everywhere. So come and join us.

Thank you, sue, thank you.