🧑🏽💻 Bhawna Singh joined Auth0 as SVP of Engineering. Why she plans to focus on mentoring innovation.
Relying on Ask.com for quick answers or researching your next role at Glassdoor? You’re likely leaning on innovations Bhawna Singh helped make possible. With over twenty years of helping companies through tech transformations, scaling challenges, and participating in multiple acquisitions, Bhawna brings an understanding of how to deliver growth that serves end users and develops talent on the way to building revenue.
That experience is coming to Auth0 at a critical moment. While we’re seeking to strongly align our product and engineering teams, we’re also working through our recent acquisition by Okta — and we want to do that while sustaining our growth trajectory.
We sat down with Bhawna to learn more about how she grows talent through innovation, what brought her to Auth0, and why she’ll be applying the power of diversity of thought to the global identity market.
Why join Auth0?
Three things intrigued me.
First, you, Eugenio [Pace], Matias [Woloski], were upfront and transparent about challenges. More importantly, though, Auth0’s mission and roadmap was compelling.
Second, I really enjoy the people interaction that comes from working with a global team. But Auth0’s engineering talent spread across many countries presents an interesting time zone challenge.
Third, the technological challenges presented with Auth0’s high growth. Auth0 needs to work across 21 deployment regions to securely and reliably support billions of logins a month while continuously calling the team and technology to meet growth demands. This is an area where I can help and learn at the same time. Bottom line? I see the high growth and complexity of challenges ahead as an opportunity to make a larger impact.
Now that you’re here, what are your short-term goals?
In the short term, hiring is my top priority. Even before Okta’s acquisition, Auth0 had big hiring goals. I am currently partnering with multiple teams and leaders on our hiring and onboarding strategy. At Auth0, we are solving hard problems around authentication, security, scale, and a product that needs to be highly available, along with continuous innovation in the identity space. So making sure new engineers understand that when they come to Auth0, they’re going to get to solve hard problems with leadership support (which means mentorship, team building, and securing proper funding) and strong cross-org alignment, specifically with product and process teams.
Longer-term?
Mid-term, I’m looking to build Auth0’s engineering vision and roadmap to align our technology investments and product innovation plans. This will also play into our longer-term Okta + Auth0 vision. As a team, we are constantly innovating and making big bets. It is important that we build external awareness of key initiatives (watch for more engineering-specific content) to help continue attracting top talent and satisfying evolving customer needs.
If I’m a new or current engineer at Auth0, what kind of leadership can I expect from you?
Table stakes for me are genuine empathy. But if I am going to ask you to rally behind me, there are really four core qualities that I look for in leaders, whether I am looking in the mirror or at leadership across an org.
- High-accountability. Everyone is going to make mistakes. I hold myself highly accountable for what happens in my org. This helps build team integrity, trust, and collective ethics. The point is never to be mistake-free but to make sure we take the time to learn from our mistakes.
- Listening-based communication. For a lot of people, listening is passive. For me, active listening means checking that you’ve effectively communicated what needs to be communicated and making sure it was received correctly. Information and feedback need to flow both ways, which is also key to building a transparent organization.
- Planning long-term. As we look at our organization and tech stack, we need to invest in our long-term vision and strategy along with making short-term bets and wins. Aligning engineering with our vision and long-term goals means investing in people, investing in our technology, and strengthening innovation.
- Investing in leaders. The mentors I wanted and needed weren’t right there at the start of my career. If I could go back and change something in my own career, it would be to mentor sooner. Investing in developing team leadership through mentoring, coaching, or providing access to additional training and contacts can make a huge difference in the amount of creativity and innovation that comes out of an org. But more importantly, it helps keep the entire industry growing and innovating. I ensure that I am coaching my leaders to grow, and together we are building an organization inspired by learning and problem-solving. I also make every effort in connecting with underrepresented groups regularly and evaluate how effectively I help them to achieve their goals. If you’re on my team and would appreciate mentorship, I will either mentor you directly or connect you with someone within my network.
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