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Director of Engineering | Scaling Startups | Growth, Hiring & Platform Strategy
I’m a Director of Engineering at a Series A SaaS startup (Qdrant) offering a vector database as a service. I lead teams across platform, growth, and cloud infrastructure — helping the company scale both its technology and its organization. My career spans early-stage startups and mature tech companies, giving me a broad and pragmatic view of what it takes to grow an engineering org. I’ve built teams from scratch, led large platform transitions, and helped mature orgs adopt scalable systems and processes. One of my core strengths is bridging the gap between business goals and engineering execution — translating strategy into clear technical direction. I’ve helped teams implement OKRs, define quarterly planning frameworks, and align roadmaps to customer and business impact. Beyond technical leadership, I’ve also built people processes from the ground up — including performance review systems, career ladders, and structured growth paths for engineers. I believe strong team health and clarity around expectations are key to scale. I’ve worked on: • Designing platform and architectural strategy for SaaS teams • Implementing delivery processes that work at startup pace • Defining and rolling out OKRs that align product and engineering • Building performance review frameworks and growth paths • Running guilds for architecture and platform alignment • Coaching technical leaders and mentoring senior ICs I love mentoring startup founders, new engineering leaders, and senior ICs navigating scale, delivery bottlenecks, or team growth. If you’re looking for help connecting your business strategy to your engineering organization, let’s talk. 🔗 Want to know more about my background? Feel free to check out my LinkedIn profile for a deeper look into my experience, past roles, and what others I’ve worked with say about me.
I’ve worked in environments where resources were limited but expectations were high. I can help you prioritize ruthlessly, build lean engineering teams, and make pragmatic tech choices that won’t slow you down later. From hiring your first engineer to setting up delivery workflows that don’t rely on big budgets or overhead, I bring a practical lens to getting things done — fast, with focus, and without overengineering.
I’ve built engineering teams from the ground up in both startups and more mature environments. I can help you define what roles to hire first, how to balance seniority and skill sets, and how to structure your team as you grow. I also offer guidance on creating onboarding processes, setting expectations, and making early hires that align with your long-term goals — avoiding common mistakes that can cost you time and momentum.
I’ve helped engineers and tech leads grow into leadership roles, define their career paths, and navigate transitions with confidence. I’ve built career ladders, led performance reviews, and coached people through growth plans tied to real impact — not just titles. Whether you’re aiming for your next role, unsure of your direction, or looking to level up as an IC or manager, I can help you get clear on where you’re going and how to get there.
I work closely with Support and Product teams to make sure engineering stays connected to real customer needs. I’ve designed escalation processes, incident response workflows, and internal collaboration systems that improve customer outcomes without burning out teams. I can help you structure how Customer Success collaborates with engineering, define SLAs, and turn support insights into product improvements — all while maintaining customer trust and satisfaction.
While I’m not a designer by trade, I’ve led cross-functional teams where UX is a core part of product success. I can help engineering leaders and founders understand when and how to involve design, set up effective collaboration between design and dev teams, and avoid the common trap of shipping fast at the cost of usability. I’ve also helped shape upstream processes that ensure UX isn’t an afterthought — especially in technical products.
I’ve partnered closely with Product, Sales, and Marketing to ensure engineering supports a successful go-to-market (GTM) motion. I can help you align technical execution with GTM goals — whether that means prioritizing the right features, shaping early roadmap decisions based on customer needs, or making sure your infrastructure can support what sales promises. I’ve also contributed to launching new pricing models, onboarding flows, and customer-facing tooling in fast-paced environments.
I’ve mentored many talented people — from new managers to senior ICs — who quietly felt they weren’t “good enough” despite clear achievements. I’ve seen how impostor syndrome shows up in fast-paced environments and during big career jumps. I can help you unpack those doubts, put things in perspective, and build confidence through clarity, feedback, and progress — not perfection. You’re not alone, and it’s more common than you think.
I’ve led engineering teams through hypergrowth, platform transitions, and organizational change — from early-stage chaos to structured scale. I can help you grow as a leader, whether you’re managing your first hire or leading multiple teams. I offer guidance on setting direction, giving feedback, coaching others, and navigating the balance between delivery and team health. Leadership isn’t just about decisions — it’s about building trust and clarity. I’m here to help with both.
I’ve mentored startup founders, new engineering leaders, and senior ICs navigating uncertainty, self-doubt, and the pressure of fast growth. I bring a calm, honest perspective rooted in real-world experience — helping people zoom out, reframe challenges, and focus on what truly matters. Whether you’re stepping into a new role, dealing with team dynamics, or feeling stuck, I offer practical mindset support to help you lead with clarity and confidence.
I’ve set up and scaled internal operations across engineering, support, and platform teams — from incident management and on-call rotations to customer escalation workflows and internal SLAs. I can help you create processes that support growth without adding unnecessary friction. Whether you’re building a lean ops layer or formalizing responsibilities across teams, I focus on clarity, ownership, and alignment with business priorities.
While I’m not a PM, I’ve partnered closely with Product teams to shape roadmaps, define MVPs, and align tech execution with business outcomes. I can help engineering leaders and founders build stronger product/tech collaboration, improve prioritization, and avoid common delivery pitfalls. I’ve worked on processes that bridge strategy and execution — from quarterly planning and OKRs to backlog management and cross-functional coordination.
I’ve worked in early-stage startups where finding and refining product-market fit was a team-wide effort. I can help you connect engineering with user feedback, prioritize what to build (and what not to), and shape development around clear customer value. I focus on translating early signals into actionable roadmap decisions, reducing time to learning, and aligning technical investment with what actually drives adoption and retention.
I’ve led fully remote, distributed engineering teams across time zones and functions. I can help you set up async-friendly workflows, create clarity in communication, and build a healthy team culture without relying on constant meetings. From documentation habits to onboarding, performance management, and accountability in a remote setting — I focus on creating systems that support autonomy while keeping teams aligned and connected.
I help startups choose the right tools and technologies to support their stage and goals — avoiding premature scaling or vendor lock-in. I’ve led platform transitions, introduced scalable internal tooling, and defined architecture strategies that balance speed with long-term maintainability. Whether it’s evaluating third-party services, setting coding standards, or defining the tech stack, I focus on what’s practical, future-proof, and aligned with your team’s capabilities.
While I don’t run user research directly, I’ve worked closely with Product and Design teams to bring customer insights into the engineering process. I can help technical leaders and founders make research actionable — from shaping early MVPs around real user needs to integrating research findings into roadmap prioritization. I also focus on closing the feedback loop between support, engineering, and users to ensure what we build truly resonates.
I’ve used Confluence to manage documentation, RFCs, and team knowledge at scale. I can help you set it up in a way that avoids clutter and actually supports collaboration — especially when paired with tools like Jira. My focus is on creating structure without overcomplicating things, so teams can find what they need and keep docs alive, not abandoned.
I’ve used Docker extensively to standardize development environments, streamline CI/CD pipelines, and deploy services across staging and production. I can help you adopt Docker in a way that improves team velocity, reduces “it works on my machine” issues, and sets a strong foundation for scaling your infrastructure.
While I’m not a designer, I regularly work with Figma in cross-functional teams to review mockups, give feedback, and align on implementation. I can help engineering leaders and founders create effective workflows between design and development, use Figma to clarify expectations, and avoid late-stage surprises by integrating design earlier in the process.
I use Miro regularly for collaborative planning, retrospectives, architecture discussions, and team workshops. It’s a powerful tool for making thinking visible — especially in remote teams. I can help you set up effective boards for async or live collaboration, structure sessions for clarity and alignment, and use Miro to turn messy ideas into actionable plans.
I’ve used Mural to facilitate remote workshops, retros, and brainstorming sessions across distributed teams. It’s especially useful for driving alignment in early-stage planning or problem-solving. I can help you design sessions that are focused, inclusive, and actually lead to clear outcomes — not just sticky-note chaos.
I’ve led teams through setting up and refining Jira workflows to support everything from lean startup execution to cross-team planning. I can help you avoid overcomplicating things, design a workflow that matches your team’s real needs, and use Jira to gain visibility without creating process overhead.
I use Notion as a central hub for team documentation, onboarding, planning, and async communication. I can help you structure it to actually be useful — not just a dumping ground. Whether you’re building a company wiki, aligning on goals, or running retrospectives, I focus on making Notion clear, actionable, and lightweight.
Leading multiple engineering teams across Platform, Growth, and Cloud. Built core processes for performance reviews, hiring, architectural decisions, and incident response. Helped scale the org post-Series A while aligning product delivery with technical strategy and customer needs. Leading transitions from DevOps to Platform Engineering and from ad hoc execution to structured delivery frameworks.
At New Relic, I led engineering teams focused on reliability, backend and frontend systems, and developer experience at scale. Working in a mature product-led organization gave me firsthand experience with global-scale observability, strong incident management practices, and deeply collaborative engineering culture. I learned how high-performing teams operate in complex environments and how to bring that clarity and rigor back to younger companies. It shaped the way I now approach platform design, system resilience, and cross-team alignment — especially valuable for startups growing fast and trying to “build like the big players” without the overhead.