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Lindsay Roberts has been with Starship from the beginning – she is the company’s ninth employee. “It was me, my friend Andy and the Estonian engineers. The first six months were so quiet: the average number of words spoken a day was about seven.
Lindsay is from Sydney, Australia and has lived in Estonia for the past 10 years. Tallinn is his home and he says that working with Starship is like living your dream: “As an engineer, working on robots is a terribly unrealistic dream come true. I have always wanted to work for a company with a real mission and I feel that at Starship, by launching robots on the streets, we are approaching the future.
Lindsay is currently working as an autonomous driving manager at Starship. He was one of the first to build the world’s leading autonomous delivery service provider and saw the company grow from a small one-room office with 10 to more than 500 employees.
You were one of the first employees of Starship, how did your paths cross?
My trip to Estonia started when I moved to Skype in 2011. Then I needed to change almost everything, from adventure. One of the jobs that came up was on Skype in Stockholm, but during the interview process they asked if I would consider moving to Estonia instead. I had to do it on Wikipedia. I was with my roommates at the time, and we got the clear impression from YouTube that Estonians don’t do kicking (extreme sports) all the time, and the first thing these roommates asked me over the years was if I was still kicking, how much times a day I sneezed?
Although at first I thought I would be here for a year or two, somehow without my planning or knowledge, Tallinn slipped in and became my home. In 2014, I decided to leave Skype and go on holiday to Australia. During this break, I aimed to spend some time and think deeply about what I really wanted to do in life. On the second day, I got a call from a friend who asked me if I wanted to talk to Ahti about robotics in the stealth startup, now known as Starship. As soon as I mentioned robots, I dropped any idea of searching for the soul like a lead brick.
What was your first impression of Starship?
A little strange. Skype had hundreds of people from all over the world and constant social activity. Starship’s first office was five people crammed into a small room in Technopol. It was a big thing when I joined to spread out to two adjoining, slightly smaller rooms.
The first six months were so quiet: the average number of words spoken a day was about seven. It was me, Andy and about five Estonian engineers in the office. We just worked. We didn’t have anything, which meant we needed everything desperately, so we sat there in silence and wrote software, and mechanical engineers designed parts for a robot and we tested it outside in the cold and wet.
Although I was used to working with (and being) an introvert as a software engineer, the biggest difference I noticed was that Estonians don’t seem to brag, and that can actually be a problem in large international organizations. At Microsoft, many shouted their work from the rooftops as Estonians quietly achieved greatness. Without looking closely at the production, management may give the impression that the strongest do the most. Overall, I think Estonians are really dedicated and motivated and extremely honest. That when you see emotion or warmth, it’s almost certainly something you really feel and think. For example, it is not a product of social expectations. And knowing that the way people act is honest, that you don’t have to filter, it’s actually deeply relaxing.
What was the most difficult part for you when you moved to Estonia?
Not much, actually, it was an insanely easy place to live. The hardest part was the extreme cold in the first winter, but it became much easier when I stopped being interested in fashion. I thought I would be able to wear jeans and a stylish jacket, but when I started wearing nice thick boots and arctic survival gear, things went much smoother. These days of -30 ° were still extreme, but in a way that made you feel alive instead of on the brink of death.
In Starship, you had many different roles: you started as a localization manager, then you worked as a fleet team leader, and now you work as an autonomous driving manager, now. What was the hardest part so far?
Honestly in the first year. I started working on (robot) localization with a colleague and it didn’t work out for a long time. We had something that worked, but not reliable. It took months and months of work on it, and for most of that time, with no clear signs of progress, no signs that we even headed in the right direction. While we made him work, the disappointment was not insignificant.
At one point the company got big enough and I became the leader of the localization team, fantastic people, really great years. Then I moved to lead the Fleet Orchestration team and that’s because from time to time it seems that Ahti [Heinla] he comes to my desk and asks me if I would like to try this other role. And while these roles are always complex, I tend to say more “yes” than “no,” and any change is challenging, new, and fun.
What is the main aspect that attracts you to Starship?
So, there is the incredible mission, delivering robots on the streets, the crazy science fiction dream of it. And really, to change something, just to significantly influence the world. But other than that, working at Starship was an extremely instructive experience. Every time I think I’ve learned a little about being influential, effective and pragmatic, Starship has something to teach me. And culture is a huge part of that: this is the most pragmatic low BS place I’ve ever worked at.
Engineers, more than anywhere else I’ve been, are empowered and expected to understand what they need to work on. To research, to review data, to think and to give priority. We promote independence, critical thinking and autonomy, I would say even a requirement. Working at Starship made me realize that if you hire such intelligent people, you have to allow them to use all that intelligence. When you actually get five team members not only to perform, but to think critically about what they’re doing, deciding what to work on, you’re essentially using five times more intelligence. This means not just asking for a contribution, but sharing the responsibility for decision-making, for prioritizing, so that people can really practice, learn, acquire a habit.
It also made me realize that the best people are the ones you can leave alone for long periods of time and they will not only continue to do impactful work, but will also surprise you positively.
Regarding your own achievements, what are you most proud of?
I’ve written a huge amount of software over the years, some even in use. But other than that, I would say that if I have inspired or helped someone grow up here, that is what I will be most proud of.
What will the future bring?
Starship affects many people around the world, but as much as we have achieved, there is still much to do. We need to improve everything, we need to make a better application, to make the robot behave more humanely, able to cope autonomously in more extreme situations and say more wonderful things, the list is excitingly huge and extremely exciting. And of course, we need to expand and bring our robots to more and more places.
After all, I would like to say that the world is changing so fast, and in many ways it is. But this crazy, unlikely journey to get robots to deliver on the streets, to automate local transportation of matter in the same way that the Internet does for information, is a space where real change is possible. In this way, a person in Starship can make this amazing change in the world. To get a little closer to the future.
Do you want to join the extraordinary journey? Great, we’re always looking for unusually talented people. Find your next career here”
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