Almost twenty years of engineering leadership, most recently at Vanna Health. Taking on one or two new clients this quarter.
Depending on what a team needs, I'm the CTO, the VP of Engineering, or the one writing the code. Often all three in the same engagement.
I've built products and engineering teams at every stage, from early-stage startups to serving as a Director of Engineering at Slack, where I led a Core Messaging organization along with Frontend and Desktop Infrastructure, and at NerdWallet, where I built the membership experience.
Most recently, as VP of Engineering at Vanna Health, I joined as the company's first engineering leader, built out its engineering organization and technical foundation, and transformed a struggling team into a high-performing one.
I love brainstorming product ideas, building apps, and turning ideas into something real. I've built teams I'm really proud of. They moved fast, held high standards, and loved what they did. I also genuinely enjoy hiring. Coaching engineers and leaders outside my own teams has been a constant alongside the day job for years.
I spend a lot of time with modern AI tools, and I have strong opinions about how they're changing what a small team can accomplish.
For a founder, CTO, or head of engineering who wants an experienced person to think with.
Sourcing, evaluating, and closing engineers. It's where I'm strongest, and it's the thing most teams are worst at. Good if your next three hires will define the company.
A standing conversation about the hard calls: what to build, who to hire, when to rewrite. Good if you're the most senior technical person and have no one to think out loud with.
Team structure, leveling, and growing first-time managers into good ones. Something I've done as a coach and mentor well beyond my own orgs. Good if the team grew faster than the structure around it.
A short, honest read on what's actually slowing your team down, and what to do about it. Good if things feel slow and you can't tell why.
For when you don't need another advisor. You need someone to build.
Take a major product or technical project end to end, alongside your engineers. Good if something important keeps slipping.
Zero to one apps and features, shipped. Good if you need it to exist before you can hire for it.
Get your team genuinely fast with modern AI development tools. Good if you suspect you should be moving faster than you are.
Open to other shapes too, including interim engineering leadership.
Led Core Messaging, plus Frontend and Desktop Infrastructure. Built some of the company's most widely used features and changed how frontend engineers thought about code quality and velocity.
Came in while the team was between engineering leaders. Coached the engineers, partnered with product, and helped shape architecture decisions through a stretch of consequential technical calls.
Oversaw engineering and data. Built the organization and technical foundation from scratch, and reshaped a struggling team into one of the most productive I've worked with.
One of the early engineering leaders. Built the membership experience.
Built Zynga Poker. Where I cut my teeth on scale, performance, and moving faster than I thought a team could.
Invited by BTV to be an Engineering Mentor for their Accelerator Program, working with a cohort of companies across a wide range of technical challenges, and a long-standing mentor on MentorCruise, Intro, and Plato.
Every engagement looks a little different, and you don't need to know exactly what you're after. If any of this sounds useful, send me a note and we'll work out the shape together.
