#108 - Monitoring as Code feat.Hannes Lenke // CEO & Co-founder @ Checkly

alphalist.CTO Podcast - For CTOs and Technical Leaders

How DevOps has Changed QA

Keep an eye on the latest trends in this CTO podcast episode featuring Hannes Lenke (CEO and Co-founder of Checkly). Hannes shares insights from over a decade of shaping the testing and monitoring landscape. From AI-powered mobile testing to cloud-based browser testing to synthetic monitoring, he has seen it all. Listen to find out: 👀 What is "Monitoring as Code"? How does it differ from traditional observability? 🔄 Has DevOps changed QA forever? Is there still a place for dedicated QA teams in an automated world? 🚀 How did Checkly evolve into a PLG company with a sales team? ⚙️ How do they run customer code at scale across 21 global data centers?

Listen here

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Timestamps

(00:00) – Introduction to Alphalist Podcast (02:05) – Meet Hannes Lenke (05:13) – Hiring the Right People (07:50) – Hannes’s Journey into Computing (12:30) – TestObject: AI for Mobile Testing in the Early 2010s (16:33) – Globalizing a Berlin-Based Business (21:01) – The Birth of Checkly and Monitoring as Code (23:00) – How DevOps Changed QA (30:52) – The Right Observability Stack for SaaS (37:39) – Cross-Functional Teams vs. Dedicated QA (43:10) – Challenges of Executing Customer Code at Scale (49:08) – How Teams are Arranged at Checkly (50:51) – PLG with Enterprise Sales (53:52) – Lessons Learned as a Second-Time Founder: Pace Yourself

About Hannes Lenke

Hannes is the co-founder of Checkly. former CEO and Founder of TestObject and General Manager EMEA Sauce Labs. Addicted to devops and passionate about all things tech.

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QUOTE: "As a second-time founder, you always think it's so much easier to fall into a second business. I think it's not… the expectations are just larger."