Show Notes
Remote work is here to stay – but distributed teams are a whole different game. In this episode of SEEK Bytes, Elliott, William Lark, Laavanya Kathiresen and Jerome Chan unpack how SEEK runs truly APAC-wide tech teams across Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia – without falling into “us vs them”.
This episode's special guests: Laavanya Kathiresen (SEEK Engineering Director, Candidate) and Jerome Chan (SEEK Head of Engineering, Profile & Apply)
In this episode, we explore: • Remote vs distributed: what’s the real difference? – why “remote” is about how individuals work, while “distributed” is an organisational discipline around ways of working, agreements and processes across locations. • How SEEK makes distributed teams actually work – setting core hours, protecting “sacred” lunch time, keeping calendars and Slack statuses up to date, using Zoom-only meetings with cameras on, and designing async done right so people stay in flow instead of drowning in Slack. • The upside: careers, diversity and global coverage – how distributed ways of working unlock roles across Melbourne, KL, Auckland and beyond, widen the talent pool, bring richer cultural perspectives into problem-solving, and even keep the lights on when one country’s on a public holiday.
Whether you’re a software engineer, SRE, BA, PM, people leader or IT manager trying to make hybrid/distributed work actually work, this episode is packed with real tactics from teams who ship across time zones every day – without losing culture, connection or careers.
🔔 Follow the SEEK Bytes podcast so you never miss a new episode
More from SEEK Bytes
This special Season 3 finale of SEEK Bytes – a podcast for engineers by engineers – dives into one of the biggest AI engineering shifts of the moment: spec-driven development with GitHub Spec Kit. If you’ve been wondering how teams are using AI for more than just code completion, this episode unpacks a workflow designed to help engineers plan better, reduce drift and build higher-quality software faster.
What happens when you give 100 high school students four days, real SEEK mentors and a crash course in how tech actually works? In this episode of SEEK Bytes – we're joined by special guests Asha Ioculari and Leon Belobrov and go behind the scenes of Camp SEEK, SEEK’s immersive program designed to open the doors of tech to girls and non-binary students and show them there’s far more to this industry than just writing code. From design thinking and user research to pitching in front of 200+ people and senior SEEK leaders, this is a brilliant look at how SEEK is building confidence, broadening horizons and helping shape a more inclusive future for tech.
Ever shipped a UI that “works” but still feels clunky, janky or confusing to users? In this episode of SEEK Bytes, Elliott and Will chat with lead engineer Eddy Nguyen about Bleeds – a simple but powerful way to design every UI state your users actually experience, not just the happy path.
AI might look simple on the surface — just send a prompt, get a response — but behind the scenes, there’s a whole platform challenge to solve. In this episode of SEEK Bytes – we’re joined by Thet Ko, Senior Staff Engineer in SEEK’s AI Platform Services team, to unpack how SEEK is building an AI Gateway to centralise AI calls, improve governance and make it easier for teams to build with AI without reinventing the foundations every time. From cost visibility and PII protection to guardrails, resilience and shared memory across agents, this episode lifts the lid on the platform work that makes enterprise AI actually usable at scale.
AI is moving fast — but are we building it responsibly? In this episode of SEEK Bytes – we sit down with Sreyna Rath, CEO and co-founder of jaimee.ai, who arrived in Australia as a refugee and is now running her own AI company with the aim to create something truly transformative for women. Elliott sits down with Reyna to unpack her journey and the real-world risks of AI bias, why safety can’t be bolted on at the end, and what developers can do to build tools that are fairer, safer and more human from day one. From biased hiring systems to sexualised image outputs and AI companions designed for vulnerable users, this conversation is a powerful reminder that AI doesn’t just reflect technology — it reflects us.