DevFlow

Software & engineering leadership

Leadership for the people who build software.

DevFlow Services is a consultancy for engineering organisations. I work with the leaders responsible for software — on the team, the technical direction, and the conditions that let difficult work move.

Write to me The practice

The name

Development, and the flow

Development is the work: software being built, and the people building it.

Flow is the state in which challenge and skill meet, attention holds, and the activity itself carries them. It is losing track of time: the work holds so completely that hours pass unnoticed. Csikszentmihalyi called it “the secret to happiness”, reached at “the optimum level of engagement”[1].

Flow is also the passage of the work: the steps that have to be taken, and the people who have to be involved, to bring it from the start until it is in front of the customer[2]. The focus of that passage is to “improve overall efficiency” and “deliver value to customers faster”[3].

DevFlow joins the three. I help an engineering organisation bring value to its customers faster and more efficiently, while its engineers stay happy and engaged in the work.

  1. [1] Robson, D. (2024). The flow state: the science of the elusive creative mindset that can improve your life. The Guardian.
  2. [2] Pereira, S., & Davis, A. (2024). Flow Engineering: From Value Stream Mapping to Effective Action. IT Revolution.
  3. [3] Brown, L. (2024). Value Stream Mapping: Unveiling the Path to Efficiency and Customer Value. IT Revolution.
Mehmet Sencer KARADAYI

About me

I am Mehmet Sencer KARADAYI, an Engineering Lead at TikTok, based in London. For more than fifteen years I have worked both as an individual contributor and as a manager, including at Booking.com and Meta, as Chief Technical Officer (CTO) at Dexter Energy, and as Head of Engineering at WeTravel.

I started in software consultancy and product work in Ankara, and I studied Computer Engineering at Middle East Technical University. DevFlow Services is the practice I bring to engineering organisations: leadership, how a team is built, and the technical direction that lets the work move.

LinkedIn

Past engagements

Where the work has been.

  • sosha.ai — social sharing and user-generated content
  • colonist.io — online Settlers of Catan
  • gambits.com — chess, played socially and as a sport

The practice

What the consultancy is for.

Leadership for the people accountable for software, the shape of the team, and the conditions that let the work move.

01

Engineering leadership

Advisory for the people accountable for software: chief technology officers, heads of engineering, and the managers around them.

02

Team structure

How teams are shaped, staffed, and led, and whether that structure still fits the work. Responsibility should be real, and people should be able to see how they grow.

03

Technical strategy

The choices that set the path: architecture, platforms, and the trade-offs between speed, quality, and cost, set down as a direction the business can actually use.

04

Ways of working

Priorities, cadence, and the friction that keeps a team from the work it was hired to do.

05

Technical due diligence

A clear reading of the technology when a company is being bought, funded, or asked to show what it has built: what is sound, what is fragile, and what that means for the decision.

06

Coaching and mentorship

Time with an engineering leader, or with the engineers they are responsible for, on the decisions in front of them. The aim is that they leave more able to do the work.

Other engagements

I am open to other kinds of work than the ones above. If you have something else in mind, let’s discuss it and see whether it fits.

Start with a note

Tell me what you’re building.

Write with the organisation, the leadership question in front of you, and what a useful engagement would change. I’ll reply from the same address.

info@devflow.services