Engineering Manager
Engineering Manager | Technical Leadership
Built Teams From Zero Three Times. 558 Peer Recognitions.
“You made it very healthy for me to develop and innovate.”
Engineering Manager who builds teams that ship AND stay. I've built engineering orgs from zero to 12 engineers three separate times. The most expensive technical debt is the person who just quit.
Problems I solve: Team burnout during high-stakes delivery. Talent attrition during major initiatives. Delivery pressure without clear escalation paths. Engineering investments misaligned with business priorities.
How I create leverage: Zero attrition across every major initiative, including a COVID-era 10x volume surge that took down competitors. 558 peer recognitions given to my teams over two years, not because I was required to, but because culture is built in the daily moments. 185+ documented 1:1s with career frameworks, feedback loops, and growth records. Engineers I managed advanced to Senior and Staff. Retention and development, not a tradeoff.
How I lead: Careers before code. Retention before velocity. Sustainable delivery over heroic sprints. Said "no" to scope creep with data, not emotion. Negotiated realistic timelines with leadership while keeping the team intact and the delivery on track.
Direct report: "You made it very healthy for me to develop and innovate."
Leadership Impact
People outcomes first
How I Lead
“You made it very healthy for me to develop and innovate.”
Teams I've Built
My Management Style
People-first engineering leadership
What Sets Me Apart
Core Skills
Credentials
Execution Log
Staff Software Engineer | AI Systems Architect
Staff Software Engineer | AI Systems Architect
Led AI-powered modernization for a global platform (53 markets), architecting multi-agent systems that transformed migration velocity and engineering productivity. (IC track — AI migration systems and tooling)
Built multi-agent AI migration system with 5 specialized sub-agents, reducing endpoint migration time from hours to under 10 minutes—enabled 289 endpoint migrations at unprecedented velocity.
Reverse-engineered legacy compiled Acucobol systems without source access, producing 45+ migration specifications (1.75MB/50,000+ lines) through AI-assisted bytecode analysis with 99%+ query accuracy.
Orchestrated 34 parallel AI agents for migration validation framework, achieving 90% error reduction in schema mapping (validation suite, before/after comparison).
Designed Truth Source Architecture enabling AI agents to consume documentation and refactor code without hallucination—patterns now adopted organization-wide.
Built AI sprint intelligence system using historical transcripts as knowledge base—benchmarked against human estimates at ±1 story point (blind comparison, 6 sprints), achieving 2.5x throughput (story points over 6 sprints) and 13% sprint efficiency gain.
Designed AI governance framework—read-only agent accounts, DevOps approval workflows, failure-as-state design principles—after identifying blast radius from an unscoped agent action.
Engineering Manager / Technical Lead
Engineering Manager / Technical Lead
Recruited to lead digital transformation of 289-endpoint legacy system. Achieved 96% production traffic on Laravel with zero major incidents while driving $336K+ annual cost savings. (Management track — platform modernization and delivery)
Retention Through Delivery: Zero attrition during 289-endpoint migration while supporting engineers' advancement to Senior/Staff. Replacement cost is material at Staff+; retention preserves execution capacity.
Cultural Velocity Engine: Maintained high-frequency validation loop (PRs, ADRs, checkpoints, recognition) with decision records. Direct report: 'You made it very healthy for me to develop and innovate.' That culture delivered 4x throughput.
Protective Leadership: Said 'no' to scope creep that would have burned out the team. Negotiated realistic timelines with data, not emotion. Result: on-time delivery, $336K+ freed for product work, team intact.
Executive Trust: Shaped decisions in every Trio and Tech Lead meeting for 2+ years. Built credibility to push back when engineering needed protection by presenting tradeoffs with quantified risks.
Principal Engineer
Principal Engineer
Promoted to Principal Engineer to drive technical strategy for a platform processing $2B+ in transactions. Led cross-team architecture, pioneered early GenAI adoption, and single-handedly led flagship Instacart and Shopify integrations.
Executive Partnership: Provided strategic technical guidance to leadership on application roadmaps, risk management, and team investments.
Mentorship at Scale: Developed structured growth frameworks for engineering org, establishing promotion criteria and development paths.
Cross-Department Influence: Built relationships with Operations, Customer Service, and Product leadership. Engineering investments tracked to what the business actually needed.
Senior Lead Software Engineer
Senior Lead Software Engineer
Joined during a critical inflection point. Built the Operations engineering team from zero (just me) to 9 engineers, broke it into specialized squads, then transitioned to lead all three teams through a monolith-to-microservices migration during COVID-19 10x traffic surge.
Organization Building: Built Operations engineering team from 0 (solo) to 9 engineers, structuring into 3 specialized squads (Operations backend, CS Support, API migration), then transitioned to lead all 3 teams (12 engineers total).
Crisis Leadership: Led team through 10x COVID surge with zero attrition, maintaining velocity and morale while handling 50% MoM order volume growth.
Growth Group Leadership: Identified as top performer and placed in cross-departmental leadership development program. One of two engineers selected org-wide.
Performance Culture: Established engineering metrics and feedback loops that boosted application performance 87% in first 90 days.
VP of Engineering & Lead Systems Architect (Founder)
VP of Engineering & Lead Systems Architect (Founder)
Founded and scaled a cross-border e-commerce marketplace from Zero-to-One, serving complex trade and financial flows between China and the U.S.
Designed distributed architecture spanning AWS (US) and Aliyun (China), solving 'Great Firewall' latency and enabling seamless cross-border e-commerce.
Architected unified logistics engine integrating 8+ international providers, automating bonded/free-trade import logic across 3 countries.
Implemented multi-currency payment system connecting 19+ payment gateways including ICBC (world's second-largest bank), directly enabling international transaction volume.
Won 2nd place at international technology competition in China; achieved compliance with public company (LifeVantage LFVN - NASDAQ) regulatory requirements.
Built and mentored distributed engineering team of 3+ developers post-MVP, instituting Agile/DevOps practices that scaled with the business.
Principal Engineer
Principal Engineer
Recruited to a specialized task force working under Sir Tim Berners-Lee to engineer decentralized data ecosystems (Solid). Led a team of 6-8 remote developers rescuing a failing insurance fintech project.
Rescued failing insurance platform 6 months behind schedule by restructuring architecture and coordinating 6-8 remote developers—delivered on-time with zero regulatory compliance issues.
Delivered real-time quoting engine handling complex state-specific regulations for all 50 states, processing quotes in under 2 seconds across 200+ rule variations.
Coordinated blended remote/on-site team under pressure, maintaining stakeholder confidence through transparent communication and consistent weekly delivery milestones.
Founder & Principal Solutions Architect
Founder & Principal Solutions Architect
Led a boutique engineering consultancy delivering full-stack solutions for enterprise clients. Operated as Fractional CTO.
Secured and executed multiple NewBalance.com contracts, directing performance engineering that improved page load times 40% and increased conversion rates measurably.
Operated as Fractional CTO for 5+ enterprise clients simultaneously, managing end-to-end SDLC and establishing engineering standards that outlasted engagements.
Delivered performant, scalable web applications using Node.js, PHP, and Angular—building a consultancy with 100% client retention rate over 4 years.
Software Engineer
Software Engineer
Software Engineer on PowerStandings AngularJS sales dashboard, implementing DevOps practices and Salesforce integrations.
Delivered the only two new features for PowerStandings in 90 days while prior developers performed only maintenance—demonstrating high productivity in short tenure.
Implemented linter, test pass requirements, and minimum coverage commit blockers—establishing code quality gates that raised engineering bar for entire team.
Built Salesforce API integrations for internal CRM connectivity, enabling sales workflow automation.