When I was considering an exit from medicine into health-tech, one of the biggest uncertainties I had was around the granular detail of what a job in tech actually entailed. For example, what kind of job-roles were there, what tasks would I be doing in each, what meetings would I be attending, what tools would I be using and of course, what are the perks and **ahem** remuneration like? I really wanted these questions answered, so that I could make a judgement call on if I had the knowledge, skills and interests to do well at a tech start-up and enjoy it. But no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t find enough detail to help me make this judgement. Today, I’m changing that…

👋 Introduction

Hey guys welcome back to the channel, my name's Shaene and I'm a doctor, supervisor at Oxford University, and manager at a multi-million health tech company.

• Today, I’m going to share with you what a typical month in my life looks like as a manager at a multi-million health tech company, so that you can decide for yourself if a job in tech is suited for you.

• I’ll firstly give you some context, then go on to the month overview, discuss meetings, tasks and tools.

• Finally, we’ll end with the socials, perks and of course, pay.

• Now, let’s kick-off with some context.

🏗 Structure

1. Context

2. Month Overview

3. Work

   • Meetings

   • Tasks

   • Tools

4. Socials, Perks & Pay

📍Context

• First, I’ll give you some context on the tech company I work for, the departments within it and my particular job role.

So, I work at a post-series A multi-million health tech company as a manager within the department of operations.

• If you’re not fully familiar with some of these terms, don’t worry, neither was I at the beginning.

• Let me explain, starting with a high-level explanation of the term ‘series A’.

• When a start-up (i.e. early business) gets going, it usually requires capital aka money to start and grow.

• This capital can be gotten organically by selling their products or services to customers.

• But another, often faster route to generate more capital more quickly is to undertake various investment rounds where investors buy equity aka shares in the company.

• The first investment round is often known as the ‘seed round’, followed by ‘series A’, then ‘B’ and so forth, until the privately held company decides to become public through what’s called an ‘initial public offering’ or ‘IPO’.

• Now, this is definitely an oversimplification and there a lots of caveats to this, so here are some more detailed, yet accessible articles that give us the full picture: Series Funding & IPO.

• Anyway, in this case, the term ‘multi-million post-series A’ signals that the start-up is fairly well established and is more of a ‘scale-up’ at this point, where the business has gone from finding its feet to looking to spread its wings.

• To add further context, the start-up or now more of a scale-up, I work for is called Doccla, a health-tech company building the first and largest virtual hospital in Europe through the use of tech-enabled virtual wards powered by cutting-edge remote patient monitoring.

• Its business model is powerfully unique within the heath-tech space as it provides all aspects of remote patient monitoring, from software, to hardware to logistics to CQC approved clinical care and customer support.

• This gives back NHS clinicians their precious time allowing them do what they do best.

• This powerful model does therefore mean that there are a lot of moving parts to the business.

• The broad cogs are:

  • Strategy which focuses on sales and business development.

  • Operations which includes logistics, implementation, customer success and service.

  • Clinical which includes clinical monitoring starting from light-touch to full CQC approved high-level monitoring.

  • And finally, but definitely not the least, Tech which includes all the software and hardware that enables the product and service to be so powerful.

• So, as I mentioned, I work as a manager within operations.

• More specifically, I work as a manager in implementation and optimisation.

• Very broadly, the purpose of my role is to ensure that the product and service, in this case remote patient monitoring and virtual wards, are implemented successfully and our clients maximise its use and benefits.

• Now, as the company has grown, I have moved into a more strategy and growth role where I’m working to grow the business through optimisation of delivery.

• Okay, so I’ve said a lot of words so far, and you’re probably losing faith that I’m going to deliver (pardon the pun) on my promise, which was to provide you enough detail about the day to day.

• So without further ado, this is what a typical month at a tech start-up looks like…

🗓️Month Overview

• This month is taken from my own calendar with some minor modifications to protect commercially sensitive content.

• Some weeks are a little busier and some weeks are a little quieter, but this is a good average representation.

• Some key stats for perspective.

• Work Location:

  • Typically, I spend 3-4 days a week working remotely from home with 1-2 days a week in our swanky office in London or with a client at their site.

    • This is a good point to mention that Doccla has a very progressive attitude to remote and flexible working.

    • The culture and focus is very much around getting the job done well in a timely manner more than exactly how it’s done or about face-time in the office.

    • Doccla very much don’t have a minimum time in office rule, but I’ve certainly come across other tech companies that mandate 1-2 days minimum per week in the office.

    • So bear in mind that the ratio of home to office may vary from company to company, depending on their culture.

• Time in meetings:

  • In November, I spent 8.8 hours in meetings, December 25.5hrs, January 35.5 hrs and February 9.8 hours (so far).

  • Finally, over the month of January, I had 10.3 hours of 1:1 meetings and 25.3 hours of larger group meetings.

• Now, you’ve probably picked up that there’s a significant amount of time here that hasn’t been accounted for.

• So what happens in this time?

• Well, during this time, I undertake and complete tasks, some of which are linked to the meetings I’ve shown you and some are to do with other key projects.

• And of course, some of this unaccounted time is used for team building and personal development, which is encouraged at Doccla.

• So, in summary:

• I work mostly remotely from home with some days in the office or with clients at their sites.

• And my schedule involves meetings and tasks.

• Let’s now take a deep-dive into what meetings I have and what tasks I undertake, starting with meetings.

📍Meetings

• The meetings in my schedule can be broken down into two broad categories.

• Internal and external.

• Let’s look at external first.

👔 External:

• The external ones are the ones that are client facing and involves discussion with various key stakeholders mostly from the client side and sometimes also including key individuals from my company’s side.

• My role in these meetings differ based on the ownership of the meeting.

• For example, if I have called the meeting and therefore “own” it, then my role is to act as the chair of the meeting who sets the agenda, invites the right people, and facilitates the most productive and efficient flow of discussion to arrive at the best outcomes, ultimately to improve patient care.

  • An example of this type of meeting is the weekly project meeting that I run where we discuss the client’s current utilisation, future pathways, changes and learnings to improve the service.

• In other cases, the meeting may be owned by someone else in my company, for example the clinical governance meetings, where we discuss clinical learnings and is led by the clinical team of my company.

  • Here, my role is to answer questions around any clinical events that I have helped resolve.

• Alternatively, the meeting may be owned entirely by the client, for example ICB project meetings, where the client discusses our service with their top executive stakeholders to review and improve their utilisation to enhance patient outcomes.

  • Here my role is to listen, learn and contribute to the discussion by answering questions pertinent to my company, track future projects that may be discussed and also to align on expectations.

• Next, some external meetings are actually training or demo of our product and service.

  • This is owned by me and my role is to arrange the session, demo Doccla using an example patient journey and train clinical users on our systems.

  • For example, how to refer a patient, how to set their thresholds, how to use our interface to monitor the patients’ readings etc.

• Lastly for the external meetings, most may be more collaborative with ownership less important.

  • An example of this are the clinical pathway meetings such as frailty or heart failure, where the meeting is owned by the client’s project manager, but my role is to work collaboratively with the client’s clinical team to design and implement a clinical pathway.

• Now let’s look at internal meetings.

👕 Internal:

• The internal meetings are the ones that are within my company and cuts across lots of departments for lots of different purposes.

• These meetings can be subdivided into 5 meeting types.

1. First, we have ‘Sync or prep’

   1. This is where myself and a few other team members meet to ‘sync’ and share our knowledge based on different meetings or tasks we have undertaken.

   2. We then use this shared knowledge to prepare for a future meeting or do a task together.

2. Next we have, ‘Internal project’,

   1. In these meetings we discuss an internal-facing project, such as increasing operational efficiency using video training material or AI for example.

   2. In initial meetings we scope the project, define the must have’s, won’t have’s and the nice to have’s.

   3. Then we generate process steps and delegate to the correct team members with the right skill-set to complete each one to push the project forward.

3. Moving on, we have ‘1:1 development’,

   1. Here, we meet 1:1 either with our line manager (i.e. the person we directly report to) in order to set professional goals and carry out work reviews

   2. Or in other 1:1s, we meet with a buddy who could be anyone in the company, but often someone either with a bit more or less experience than myself so that we can learn and develop together.

4. Next, ‘Group review’

   1. In these meetings, all members of a team, such as delivery for example, would meet to discuss progress, roadblocks and future goals.

5. And finally, ‘Company alignment’

   1. This is where the whole company comes together to get weekly updates on progress from all the cogs of the company.

   2. It’s also a space for us to bring questions to teams and execs that we may not work with day to day.

   3. We often start these meetings with a patient story to keep us grounded and aware of who’s at the end of our product and service, as well as motivated as we get to see our impact.

   4. A final example of this type of meeting, is the ‘founder’s coffee’, which again is a nice feature of Doccla’s company culture, as the founders free up time to take any and all questions from absolutely anyone in the company.

   5. It also lets us get to know them as people, helping to create a much flatter hierarchy than in other companies.

• Next, let’s look at tasks.

📍Tasks

• Now, the majority of my work time is spent doing tasks, which fall within two buckets: admin tasks and strategy tasks.

• Let me explain.

✍️ Admin tasks

• Admin tasks, as the name suggests, are the less glamorous of the two and can be further broken down into meeting related tasks and document design.

• Meeting related tasks include preparing for any of the meetings I’ve mentioned previously and also undertaking any fall-out tasks generated within the meeting.

  • Preparation involves creating and circulating agendas, collecting relevant data, constructing slide decks and reviewing minutes.

  • Whilst fall-out tasks may involve acting on any decision made within the meeting as well as getting new data points and more information to answer clients’ questions and fulfil their requests.

• The other group of admin tasks is document design, where I create and edit information governance related documents, such as data protection impact assessments, as well as other more operational documents that outline standard operating procedures and clinical pathways.

• Next, the strategy tasks.

🧠 Strategy tasks

• The strategy tasks are certainly the more exciting of the two buckets and are quite diverse.

• Broadly, I group them into 3 buckets:

1. Operational efficiency

2. Internal collaboration and

3. Client engagement

• Without going into too much detail and revealing commercially sensitive information, I’ve led projects and undertaken tasks such as video creation, editing, web design, running work-shops, drop-in sessions and leading multi-faceted marketing campaigns.

• I’ve been very fortunate to have received a diagonal promotion quite early on in my career within Doccla.

• This has allowed me to work within cross-functional teams and leaders from all aspects of the business, including commercial, product, tech and operations.

• As part of this, I frequently have direct dialogue with C-suite executives including the CEO and co-founders.

• This internal move has also allowed me to lead exciting projects designed to scale the business, which have had very powerful outcomes and given me exposure to so many facets of how a health-tech business functions and scales.

• This experience has allowed me to develop a powerful set of skills and knowledge that I can translate into any future career.

• Finally, it’s also given me the ability to develop proficiencies with many diverse set of tools, which brings us nicely to the next point: tools.

📍Tools

• As a health-tech company, patients are at the heart of Doccla, but of course this is made possible by the tech, tools and people of Doccla.

• Here, I’ll briefly tun through some of the tech and tools I use on a daily basis working at Doccla, again not revealing too much, but giving you enough detail to identify what areas to expand your proficiencies in.

• We use Slack primarily for internal communication and confluence for storing and sharing internal information; think Notion, but on a much bigger scale and a lot more powerful.

• We use Jira and Radar for project management and incident reporting.

• Google apps such as google drive, calendar and mail are the preferred suite for document design, storage, organising meetings and all non-NHS mailing.

• We also use Open AI’s chatGPT enterprise in increasingly powerful ways to boost our productivity.

• We use HubSpot for lots of commercial purposes, including marketing campaigns and efficient comms.

• Finally for software tools, I specifically use final cut pro x and motion for video projects, which are then hosted on Vimeo.

• In terms of hardware, we are provided a M2 MacBook Air as well as some accessories to get us set-up and comfortable for remote working.

• Truly, a world away from the tired Lenovo Thinkpad PC that was still putting in a shift in my old doctor’s office.

• Next, socials, perks and pay.

📍Social, Perks & Pay

• Socially speaking, there is a huge bonus to working at a tech start-up.

• Here at Doccla, we have quarterly company retreats including one where we went to Lisbon, as well as biweekly pub outings and monthly team bonding such as trips to Crystal Maze.

• In terms of perks, as I’ve already mentioned, you get very cool kit like MacBooks, accessories and stash like bottles, back-packs, hoodies etc

• But we also get get to Deliveroo our lunches whenever we visit the swanky west London office, where glass doors, sofas, table tennis, gym and barrista coffees greet us.

• On top of all this, we get a monthly Heka wellbeing budget that allows us to pay for things like gym memberships, spa days, Fitbits and even enormous plants.

• Finally, I promised I’d discuss reward and remuneration.

• For contractual reasons, I can’t directly reveal the exact figure.

• But I can say this.

• I’m now earning more than my previous salary as a ST2 pathology specialty doctor (£47,923), but less than what a first year medical consultant (£93,666) would be making; BMA Junior Doctor Pay-scale & BMA Consultant Pay-scale.

• A fairly coy discussion, but enough information hopefully to give you a realistic perspective on what to expect in tech.

🎱 Conclusion

• Now, if you’re reading this and thinking, ‘yep, I’m sold! how do I get in?’, then you might like to read this article and watch the video below on how I wrote the cover letter that got me into this multi-million tech company.

• But that’s it from me for today, thanks so much for reading and I’ll see you again next time.