Brought to you by: Adeva — Global network of top developers connecting businesses with world-class talent.

In this episode of CTO Insights, Katerina Trajchevska is joined by Mojtaba Hosseini, VP of Engineering at Zapier, to explore how Zapier built a culture of strong customer focus, meaningful metrics, and long-term performance — and how they're using AI to drive real impact across the organization.

What You’ll Learn

- Why engineering is applied science in service of the customer

- How customer focus shapes culture and drives engineering decisions

- What “high performance” really means, and why it’s about the slope of learning

- How Zapier built a team-driven approach to metrics over four years

- What to measure—and what not to—when evaluating developer productivity

- How engineering can support other teams in adopting AI

- Why “always be learning” is a core engineering principle

- How to build habits of sharing and experimentation across teams

Mojtaba Hosseini is VP of Engineering at Zapier, where he’s spent the last several years building high-performing teams grounded in customer focus, data, and continuous learning. With a systems-thinking approach to leadership, Mojtaba has led Zapier’s engineering team through a four-year journey of defining meaningful metrics, shifting measurement from a top-down requirement to a team-driven habit.

He’s been leading Zapier’s efforts to bring AI into day-to-day work—helping engineers work more efficiently and supporting other teams across the company. He combines deep technical experience with hands-on leadership to build engineering teams that scale with focus, clarity, and impact.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Youtube.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ctoinsights.adevait.com