#104 - End-to-End Technical Independence feat. Alexander Matthey // CTO @ Adyen

Discover the benefits of end-to-end technical independence with Alexander Matthey, CTO of Adyen.
Learn why Adyen cherishes its in-house strategy as Alexander shares how Adyen’s extreme technical independence (no third-party vendors) enables efficiency in everything from libraries to security.

Listen to find out:

• Security First: How Adyen makes security a priority for everyone. 🔒


• Pick Up the Phone📞: How direct communication makes them more efficient.


• How Adyen’s long-term vision drives innovation. 🚀


• How Conway’s Law is applied to their team structure

Listen here

Timestamps:
(00:00) Introduction to the Alphalist Podcast
(00:44) Meet Alexander Matthey, CTO of Adyen
(01:34) Adyen's Founding and Growth
(02:47) Alex's Nerd Journey
(05:42) Transition from Coding to Leadership
(07:28) How GenAI is changing coding
(10:52) Life in the FinTech space
(15:04) How Adyen's Long-Term Vision Drives Innovation
(18:12) End-to-End Independence. No third-party vendors.
(20:39) Product Discovery - Start with Customer
(22:49) How industry has changed
(23:43) Adyen Tech Strategy: Have set languages/tools etc.
(27:24) Adyen Tech Stack
(27:50) Adyen's Organisational Structure & Conway's Law
(28:28) -Biggest Concentration on Payments
(29:35) -Teams powering Financial Services
(30:39) -Data and Platform Engineering
(31:48) Transitioning to Smaller Teams
(33:06) Starting from Scratch: Building a Payment System not in 100% private cloud
(35:33) The Adyen Formula: Direct Communication via Phone
(42:13) Security First: Internal Responsibility
(46:16) Tools and Monitoring for Security
(49:57) Security if start from scratch
(54:07) Advice to My Younger Self