Solutioneers at heart, 20fifty builds intelligent, scalable solutions that are recognised as the gold standard of innovation. Our 20fifty team works with remarkable people and companies. We build world-class products that shape our collective future for the better. At the centre of our technical operations, our Technical Team Lead, Melanie Mauch, brings a calm, focused energy to our team.
As Technical Team Lead at 20fifty, Melanie Mauch is not one for sitting still. Accordingly, Melanie is the team lead that tracks and ensures our consistent delivery of exemplary work. Melanie is also a wellspring of knowledge and wisdom, which she generously shares across the team. Not one to rest on her laurels, Melanie is a PhD Candidate pursuing her Doctorate in Informatics at Stellenbosch University. Prior to this, she completed her Masters in Socio-Informatics (Cum Laude), having completed her Bachelor of Science (BSc) Computer Science Honours Degree (Cum Laude) at the University of Pretoria.
Technical Team Lead
Melanie Mauch started her career as a Software Developer at one of South Africa’s largest financial institutions. She then moved on to a role as DevOps Engineer at a premier software development house. From there, she continued to climb the ranks into her role as Cloud Engineer and in short order, Technical Lead. Subsequently, with more than 9 years’ experience, Melanie joined our team at 20fifty.
AWS Qualifications
Melanie holds several AWS certifications. These include:
- AWS Solution Architect Professional and Associate
- AWS DevOps Professional
- AWS SysOps Associate
Never one to stop learning, Melanie is currently pursuing her AWS certification in Security – Speciality. Correspondingly, the AWS Certified Security – Specialty qualification validates expertise in creating and implementing security solutions within the AWS Cloud environment.
Melanie Mauch within The 20fifty Team
Melanie places extreme emphasis on mentoring, coaching, and capacitating our team, while remaining deeply involved in our backend development cycles. Her natural ability to nurture talent enables Melanie to spot opportunities and discover new solutions to unique problems. Particularly, as a team lead, Melanie actively curates and creates a safe space to speak for each team member, highlighting her quiet power as a leader. Mel is both determinedly dedicated to her team, and simultaneously able to make every member of the 20fifty team understand that their voice matters, is heard, seen, and understood.
Flipping the Script
As a woman tech lead, Melanie has seen and experienced the script flipping throughout the software development industry. As a self-proclaimed solo worker, Melanie’s dexterity towards managing teams came, however, to the fore. As her career progressed, Melanie found herself easily suited to jumping across teams to ensure excellent delivery, and eventually pushed towards focusing her energies on supporting a single team. This experience, combined with her vast portfolio of qualifications, was highly formative for Mel, highlighting her natural ability to lead across technical and development teams.
State, Lead, Do
As a mantra, Mel sets the standard for our team, with these simple words: State, Lead, Do. Melanie’s ability to isolate potential problems, encapsulate them, and work with our team to discover solutions is a highly dependable skill. Always eager to discover unique opportunities to optimise processes or solve odd problems, Mel retains a key focus on delivery. After all, true leadership is found in ensuring delivery.
Team Dynamics and Delivery
As our Technical Team Lead, Mel’s agility towards managing different personalities, skill sets and perspectives is a superpower. Significantly, Melanie holds a firm commitment towards problem solving and ensuring seamless delivery to our clients. Subsequently too, Mel undertakes regular performance reviews, team one-on-ones, and ensures comprehensive feedback is received and understood by all team members.
20fifty Team Guidance
Deftly driven by process, Melanie’s skills match with our 20fifty document-driven processes. Through her one-on-one sessions with team members, Melanie enables team members to pick their preference when it comes to regularity, subject matter, and preferences. Adopting an approach of collaborative goal setting, and documenting progress with each team member, Melanie guides 20fifty towards success in every respect. Undeniably, with her innate ability to understand the unique approach and perspective of each team member, Melanie personalises her leadership style for everyone. Keeping each team member’s and the business’ goals in mind, she engages with our team at a level that enables mentoring in a space where people feel comfortable to excel.
Remaining open to change and evolution is key, and it’s there where Melanie commits to staying open to listening with intent. As our guiding principles at 20fifty outline, Melanie highlights our team commitment to:
Be present: Listening is the most generous gift you can give to another human being. It is more than simply “not speaking.” To be present and listen actively is to give others your undivided attention. To set aside your own judgments and preconceived notions. To let go of the need to agree or disagree. Most importantly, we need to listen to understand. This builds trust, enables better collaboration and builds stronger relationships within our team and with our customers.
