In this BONUS episode, Roman Nikolaev challenges one of the most deeply held beliefs in the agile world: that more collaboration is always better. As Head of Technology at Cambri, Roman has watched teams burn their best hours in meetings and hand offs that create the feeling of productivity without the outcomes. He shares practical tools — from the vacation test to RFC processes — that help teams find the minimum viable level of collaboration.
From Senior Engineer to Accidental Manager
“I kind of accidentally ended up in management. I didn’t want to lead anyone, I wanted to be just a senior engineer doing my stuff. But somehow, four months in the job, I was already leading a team, and then one year after, I was head of technology.”
Roman’s career in engineering goes back to the early 2000s. When he changed jobs during COVID, he specifically didn’t want a management role — he wanted to code. But within months he was leading a team, and within a year he was running the entire technical organization at Cambri.
That unexpected shift from hands-on engineering to leading teams gave him a front-row seat to how collaboration actually works — and how often it doesn’t. What he noticed was that the most important differentiator for technical teams isn’t technical knowledge — it’s communication, and the tax you pay when communication goes wrong.
The Communication Tax Is Real
“The communication tax is real. The less we need to pay for communication, the more we can concentrate and own things end to end.” Continue reading BONUS: The Communication Tax — Why Your Team Collaborates Too Much and What to Cut First
