Susan Brander

I'm a CTO, developer, and leadership trainer, and I've spent my career at the intersection of deep technical work and the human side of building great teams. At Kaleida I get to do both at once. As lead technical founder, I architected our career development platform and lead the small team that built it on serverless AWS, from idea to MVP to live product.

Alongside the platform, I train technical leaders. I design and deliver leadership development programs for engineering organisations, growing people's skills and confidence, including plenty who were once written off as not a "natural" leader.

I also organise Tech Leading Ladies, a community of nearly 2,000 people bridging the gender gap in technical leadership across ANZ. Not a side project. A cause I genuinely believe changes the industry.

I speak and write about continuous improvement, collaborative architecture, and the thing I care about most: making sure nobody gets written off as "not technical enough."

Alongside Kaleida, I take on a small number of fractional and advisory clients. The main way in is The Technical Sounding Board: a monthly retainer where founders and engineering leaders get a senior technical and leadership partner to think through the hard calls with, without a full-time hire.

I know what this is worth because I've been on the buying side of it. When Kaleida's data model stopped flexing and half the team wanted to swap the database, what changed the shape of that decision was bringing in someone from outside the team to look at what we'd built and what we actually wanted. I've written that one up: Changing the engine mid-flight.

I'm also always up for turning good work into a good story. If you've got a hard problem worth digging into, let's build a case study together: real work on a real challenge, written up and shared on stage and in writing, with your blessing.

Either way, start with a conversation. Forty-five minutes, no charge, no obligation. Tell me what you're wrestling with and I'll tell you honestly whether I'm the right person for it. If I'm not, I'll usually know someone who is.

Tech Leading Ladies is a community for women-identifying and non-binary people in software development and technology roles, with a specific focus on stepping into and thriving in technical leadership.

What started as a coaching circle has grown into a community of nearly 2,000 members across Australia and New Zealand, with 76+ events, an active mentoring program, and a Slack community where real conversations happen.

If you've ever been made to feel like you're not quite technical enough, not quite senior enough, or not quite the right fit, this community is for you.