ScaleUp Sound Bytes

In this episode, Brendan sits down with Sam to reflect on Raiz's 10 year journey, the lessons learned along the way, and what financial education in Australia should really look like. The conversation covers the highs, the hard calls (including pulling out of Southeast Asia), and the philosophy behind building a product designed to take customers from cradle to grave. It is essential listening...

Ben Chinwah has spent over 20 years in the work health and safety space, and what started as a career pivot sparked by a conversation with a relative has turned into a mission to protect Australian workers and the businesses that employ them. As Founder and CEO of Laminar Pro, Ben is tackling one of the most underestimated compliance challenges facing small to medium businesses across the country:...

In Episode 20 of ScaleUp Sound Bytes, Sam sits down with Sam Carigliano, Co-Founder and CEO of SkyCiv, to unpack how a simple beam calculator built at UNSW turned into a global structural engineering platform used in 160+ countries. No funding. No hype. Just solving a real problem and sticking with it. 🚀 From a University Lab to 15 Million Projects Solved 🚀 What happens when two civil engineerin...

In Episode 19 of #ScaleUpSoundBytes, Sam sits down with Nicole Gibson, founder of InTruth, former Mental Health Commissioner, and a force of nature at the intersection of biotech, empathy, and AI. 🧠 Emotion as Data. Consciousness as Design. 💡 They explore how Nicole is building technology that translates the subconscious language of the body into science. And it’s not just about decoding emotion...

In this episode of ScaleUp Sound Bytes, Sam sits down with Xharmagne Carandang, founding engineer at Lorikeet, one of Australia's hottest startups, and someone who is quietly redefining what it means to build great tech with purpose. From working in federal government to startups barely past MVP, Xharmagne has intentionally gone from big to small, chasing learning, ownership, and impact at every s...

From Delivery Vans to Design Led SaaS: The Wild Ride of Niklas Olsson! In this episode of ScaleUp Sound Bytes, Sam sits down with serial founder and spreadsheet disruptor, Niklas Olsson. He’s the brains behind klaro and has previously built everything from delivery startups to data platforms, with an acquisition or two along the way. Niklas is what happens when you mix industrial design, a love of...

Sam kicked off 2025 with a bang, sitting down with none other than Yaniv Bernstein , Founder and CTO of Vera (check them out here   https://vera.guide ) . He's the co-host of The Startup Podcast, former VP of Engineering at Airtasker, ex-Google-er, and all-around startup legend. In this episode, we dive into the mindset, mechanics, and missteps of scaling early-stage startups. Yaniv talks cand...

Sam sits down with Nicholas Clancy, CTO of EngineRoom. What’s special about Nic is that Piero actually placed Nic into his first role as a software engineer into Pooled Energy about a decade ago. Fast forward a to now years and Nic has scaled his career into CTO. All of this would not of been possible if he was in a corporate environment. Tune in a discover Nic’s personal journey, what it’s like t...

Ben Meneses-Sosa shares a blueprint for any aspiring leaders of tech teams to ensure smooth leadership and deliverables. Ben came into the ScaleUp Sound Bytes office to share his wisdom in the latest episode of ScaleUp Soundbytes.   Find out first hand why he is considered one of the best leaders of leaders in Sydney as he shares a play-by-play for any aspiring leaders of tech teams to follow ensu...

Dale Hurley, former CTO of CreditorWatch & COO/CDO of Avenue Bank, joined us at the ScaleUp SoundBytes studio for a chat about all things Start Up sharing his journey from corporate consulting into the start-up world.    Listen on as you get to hear what led Dale to leave an incredibly well paying & stable role into the gamble of a startup. You get to hear what made CreditorWatch the succe...

In this episode, Sam sits down with Raj Senanayake, Technology Delivery Director, at WTW (Willis Towers Watson). Follow his journey from a kid mucking around with computers to working at one of the world’s biggest global risk advisory, insurance brokerage and consulting solutions companies as their Director. Here’s a quick overview of what to expect: 💡 How he got into tech & how you can encou...

Sam and Simran discuss the typical traits of engineering leaders. Leaders will come from 1 of 3 backgrounds (tech, people, delivery), Engineering leaders will be a blend of 1 or 2 and it's incredibly hard to be the perfect/unicorn blend of the three. When these skill sets blend the leader adopts a particular persona that will usually guide their ability to lead, influence and delegate. If this...

Start you own business? What the worst that could happen? - Monica Ly Co-Founder of EdgeRed EdgeRed stands at the forefront of empowering businesses to make informed decisions by collaborating closely to analyse and engineer their data.   This conversation not only delves into Monica's path to entrepreneurship and the creation of a distinctively successful business, it explores her family'...

Sam recently had a blast chatting with Roneel Muhammad, Director of Engineering at OpenTable. Acquainted for just shy of 10 years now, he is by far one of the most inspiring technology leaders in Australia. Roneel spills the beans on how he fine tuned OpenTable's interview process in order to scale quickly and effectively. Picture this: a team desperately wrestling with acquiring the right tec...

Selina Small - Engineering Manager at Fresho talks about switching careers into software development and growing into a leader. In this exciting episode of ScaleUp SoundBytes Sam sits down with Selena Small, Engineering Manager at Fresho. Follow her journey into software development, leadership, presenting & what it’s like to be a professional kick boxer juggling a career on the side. Selena f...

Ken Kencevski, founder and owner of Devika, shares his story of creating a successful software consulting company, innovating new products and retaining staff & clients. Go on the journey as Ken and Sam discuss the flight of passage that Ken went through to build Devika, a successful 7 year old software consulting company based in Wollongong. Throughout the in depth discussion you will find ou...

Welcome Antoine Sabourin, CTO and co-founder of Streem. Join us as we have an intimate discussion about the realistic life of what it was like to build Streem, a highly innovative tech start up that is successfully disrupting the media space. Sam's been fortunate enough to support Streem throughout their growth and he discusses with Antoine the joys and pains of scaling the tech team at Streem...

In this episode, Sam sits down with CTO Micha Wotton, over the past decade he's worked as an Engineering Manager, Head of Engineering and CTO for multiple SME’s and Start-ups in the Australian technology scene.   Micha has the expertise of being an exceptional people leader of technical teams with a passion of identifying and fostering the growth of leadership potential within his teams.   We...

Rozario Chivers has worn many hats throughout his career, he's spent a lot of time within enterprise organisations in particular within the finance space. Roz has developed an expertise of implementing modern technology initiatives around creating visual user interfaces with JavaScript technologies.   Throughout his career Roz has navigated the political landscape of implementing digital trans...

The Russians have a saying “the first pancake is always lumpy” meaning things aren’t going to be perfect the first time so don’t expect it to be. Much can be learnt from this when trying to navigate a career transition into software development. It's something Paul is incredibly passionate about and been through it himself. Throughout this podcast you will hear from Paul, who has created his own c...

Join us on episode two of ScaleUp SoundBytes as we interview Dr  Kaushik Ram, PhD , Neuroscientist and inventor of the Precognition Method. Kaushik has a seriously impressive resume having spent over a decade studying the optimal performance of the brain and nervous system, and how to release stress, overwhelm and anxiety in busy lives. He spoke at the inaugural 2022 TEDx Sydney Conscious Leadersh...

Sam sits down with Dave Bolton, ex CTO of Domain, WooliesX and ING talking about how to navigate your career to become a CTO. Stay Curious Stay Humble is a great discussion talking about Dave’s journey to becoming a CTO and specifically the level of business acumen needed to get to this level. We delve into his thoughts around needing an MBA to get there as well as what you can do to use free, rea...