Leadership

My leadership experience spans the full range of organizations - from garage startups to publicly traded Fortune 50 giants. I’ve led globally distributed engineering teams of hundreds of people, mentored principal engineers, and provided technical direction for hundreds more across multiple organizations. I’ve worked for boards of directors on company audits and organizational cleanups, and I’ve been in the executive meetings where the real decisions get made.

I’m most effective at the CTO level or below. Not because I can’t operate higher - but because I love technology and choose to stay close to it. Executive credibility with technical commitment.

Leadership Philosophy: “Eyes on, Hands off”

I use an “Eyes on, Hands off” leadership style. The goal is to maintain flexibility between different elements of servant leadership and typical delegation while still maintaining business priorities by being results-oriented and balance sheet focused.

What This Really Means

I coach and train people, teams, and organizations so that leadership is not a bottleneck on the productivity of the team. I maintain control over results without creating organizational problems that limit company growth or employee retention.

I’ve worked for leaders who created bottlenecks and leaders who created multipliers. I decided early which one I wanted to be.

On Strength and Leadership

I’ve learned that true strength in leadership isn’t dominance - it’s the ability to help someone succeed even when you could have let them fail. I’ve built careers for people who didn’t always return the favor. I kept doing it anyway, because that’s the job.

When I leave a team, they’re stronger than when I arrived. That’s the only metric that matters.

On Training and Retention

“What if we train our people and they grow enough to leave or ask for more money?”

What if you don’t improve your team’s skills at all, and they decide to stay? Your company dies slowly because your people stayed junior in their roles for too long and nobody noticed until it was too late. See the Boiling Frog Problem.

“What if our organization is more junior because we can’t retain our best people?”

If you’re not treating people with respect, limiting working hours to 40-45 hours a week, paying market competitive rates, and removing the bad managers you think are good - fix those first. Your retention will improve.

If that’s not helping, you have a leadership problem. Your leadership or management is chasing your best people away even if you’re paying them enough. I specialize in helping companies keep their best people as part of larger efforts to grow teams to be more productive.

Your best people will always leave first, because unlike the people who stay, they have the opportunities that allow them to be the ones who leave.

On Engineering Leadership

Engineering teams require a specific leadership approach - one that respects technical depth, protects focus time, and understands the difference between productivity and activity. I’ve seen what happens when engineering teams are led by people who don’t understand this, and I’ve learned from those experiences.

I’m most effective leading engineering teams. I’ve also led cross-functional work when the situation required it, but I’m clear about where my strengths create the most value.

Track Record

Engineers I’ve mentored have advanced to senior and leadership roles at Microsoft, Microsoft Research, Amazon, Walgreens, Starbucks, and PayPal.

I don’t measure success by what I build. I measure it by what the people I develop go on to build.

My “Eyes on, Hands off” philosophy isn’t theoretical - it’s produced directors, senior engineers, and technical leads across multiple Fortune 500 companies.

I’ve also delivered systems that pass regulatory scrutiny - FDA, FIPS, HIPAA, ITAR, and financial compliance audits. Building software is one thing. Building software that satisfies auditors, lawyers, and regulators while still shipping on time is a different skill. I have both.

Key Leadership Experiences

The pages below detail specific engagements, but here’s the high-level view:

• Director at Walgreens (Fortune 50): Global scope across 3 time zones, offered VP role (declined due to relocation)
• Biotech turnaround team at Dendreon: Part of small team that helped stabilize company during stock collapse, FDA-compliant cancer treatment logistics
• Principal Engineer (L7) at Amazon: Individual contributor leadership on S3-related infrastructure
• Multiple Microsoft Research engagements: Asked back repeatedly - MSR doesn’t do that unless the work warrants it
• Currently: Engineering leadership at a browser manufacturer