build-automation
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Hans Dockter
Hans Dockter is the founder and CEO of Gradle Technologies, the company behind the Gradle build tool - downloaded over 23 million times per month - and Develocity, an enterprise developer toolchain observability platform. A German-born physicist-turned-software-engineer, he co-created Gradle in 2008 out of personal frustration with existing build systems, transforming it into one of the most widely adopted build automation tools in software development. Under his leadership, Gradle Technologies has raised $53.2M in total funding and grown to 170+ employees, serving enterprises including Netflix, Google, LinkedIn, and Airbnb.
Kevin Gounden
Kevin Gounden is the Chief Executive Officer of Buildkite, the CI/CD platform trusted by Airbnb, Uber, Shopify, Slack, and Canva to ship software at scale. Appointed in August 2025, he brings over two decades of experience founding and scaling SaaS ventures, most recently as Chief Product Officer at Lightcast and Randstad where he drove product strategy across 70+ countries. His mandate at Buildkite: lead the platform's next chapter at the intersection of AI and software delivery.