Señors at Scale

SummaryIn this conversation, Angel Paredes, an engineering manager at Datadog, shares his journey from being a student with a passion for art to becoming a successful engineer and manager in the tech industry. He discusses the differences between the tech environments in Madrid and Barcelona, his transition to engineering management, and the importance of team dynamics and leadership. Angel also delves into the evolving landscape of engineering roles, the challenges of interviewing in tech, and shares valuable book recommendations for personal and professional growth.TakeawaysAngel's journey reflects the importance of finding one's passion in engineering.The tech environments in Madrid and Barcelona have distinct characteristics.Transitioning to management doesn't mean stopping coding; it's about balancing both.Effective team management requires understanding individual motivations and challenges.The future of engineering roles may shift towards product management and AI integration.Interviews in tech are evolving, moving away from traditional algorithms to more practical assessments.Cheating in interviews is a growing concern, especially with AI tools.Cultural fit is crucial, but it should not overshadow technical skills in hiring.Continuous learning and adaptation are essential in the fast-paced tech industry.Books on management can provide valuable insights and frameworks for personal growth.

In this kickoff episode of Señors @ Scale, host Neciu Dan sits down with Danilo Velasquez — Staff Engineer at Adevinta and longtime frontend performance obsessive. They unpack the real battles behind Web Vitals, micro frontends, and the growing complexity of modern frontend work.Danilo shares war stories like:Supporting Internet Explorer 6 in production (yes, really)Building a homegrown Lighthouse bot to track 100+ pages every 15 minutesHow Core Web Vitals became the trigger for SEO incidentsWhy platform work is often the highest-leverage roleWhen React “won the war” (and why he still prefers Vue)How a setTimeout(0) hack saved his team’s performanceIt’s a candid, technical, and surprisingly human look at engineering at scale — packed with lessons for frontend leads, staff engineers, and anyone optimizing in the wild.🎧 Whether you're wrestling with architecture decisions, debugging layout shifts, or mentoring your next hire — this one's for you.