About Me
From Retail Software Innovation to Product Engineering to Platform Leadership
I've spent 25+ years solving problems across the full spectrum of technology work—from pioneering CD-ROM distribution platforms in the pre-broadband era, to designing user-facing features that millions use daily, to keeping revenue-critical infrastructure running during crises, to introducing AI responsibly in enterprise environments.
What sets me apart isn't mastery of a single domain. It's the ability to flex between product innovation, client services, infrastructure, leadership, and emerging technologies—often simultaneously—while maintaining focus on what actually matters: delivering value and solving real problems.
Recent Highlights
- Led data center exit in under 12 months
- Drove zero-downtime AWS migration with observability upgrades
- Guided M&A platform consolidation protecting 99.5% of revenue
- Built production RAG systems with custom evaluation frameworks
- Achieved 2-3x development velocity through agentic development tools
Career Journey
The Early Years: Learning the Craft
Pioneering Retail Software Distribution
Before broadband was ubiquitous, getting software to consumers meant retail CD-ROM packages in major stores. I joined Aztech's "Cube Team" as a New Media Developer, curating collections of demo and shareware software for retail distribution.
The innovation: I led our small team of 4 developers in evolving from copy-paste-change coding to an XML-driven launcher platform. This seemingly simple change transformed our workflow—we went from code changes between every product release to simple configuration file updates, dramatically simplifying QA and accelerating time-to-market.
This was my first experience with reusable systems thinking—solving a class of problems once rather than solving each instance individually. The principle would guide my work for the next 25 years.
Full-Service Agency & Client Solutions
As Lead Software Developer at a full-service agency, I led a small team creating ecommerce, CRM, CMS, email marketing, surveys, and custom applications for diverse clients.
Notable projects:
- Illy Coffee E-Commerce: Customized AbleCommerce web store (CFML + SQL Server) integrating with membership and subscription management ERP backend.
- AllMetal Inc. B2B Platform: Created public website with extensive parts catalog for B2B customers plus intranet application for order management integrated with legacy mainframe system.
- Harp Survey Tool: Led design of white-label market survey platform with visual designer enabling customers to create surveys with advanced controls and branching logic.
What I learned: Full-stack development across multiple technology platforms, client communication, database design (SQL Server), and the vital difference between agency projects and long-term product development.
Business Process Automation
Independent consulting for a manufacturing & drop-shipping company.
The challenge: Manual order processing consuming significant staff time and creating errors.The solution: Incrementally automated the complete order workflow:
- Extracting order details from email
- Batch upload to MYOB accounting and inventory management
- Integration with UPS WorldShip for fulfillment
I worked directly in the manufacturing office and spent time on the production floor. This experience shaped my understanding that technology serves business outcomes—automation isn't about replacing people, it's about enabling them to do more valuable work.
The Product Years: Building What People Actually Use
Product Engineering & UX Design
I joined as the second engineering hire at a 10-person startup. For nearly a decade, I led the development of features that defined the platform and drove its growth to become one of the largest affiliate networks in the US.
Notable creations:
- Tags & Baskets (2011): What started as a simple categorization tool became the centerpiece of the platform's attribution systems.
- Affiliate Recruitment Tool (2016): A full SaaS CRM feature enabling advertisers to prospect and connect with publishers.
- Product Discovery Tool (2014): Enabled publishers to create affiliate links while browsing any merchant site via injected iframe workflow.
- Newsletter System Overhaul (2014): Complete redesign supporting 1.6M monthly recipients with advanced tracking and analytics.
- UX Overhauls (Gen 6 & 7): Led comprehensive site-wide interface modernizations serving all platform users.
I didn't just write code. I worked directly with customers, support teams, and executives to understand needs and design solutions. This was product thinking, user experience design, and understanding what drives business value.
The Crisis Years: When Everything Changed
Crisis Leadership & Infrastructure Modernization
Following acquisition by Awin and the departure of the founding CTO, I suddenly became the technical steward of the entire enterprise platform serving thousands of merchants.
March 2018 - Data Center Catastrophic Failure:
Mere weeks after assuming leadership, our data center failed (power, backups, and failover all failed simultaneously). I manually executed emergency DNS failover to our disaster recovery facility in Texas and restored full service availability in 24 minutes. Revenue protected. Trust maintained.
Infrastructure Modernization Leadership:
- Reverse-engineered and documented 13 physical Windows servers across multiple data centers.
- Led migration from retiring data center, executing complex p2p, p2v, and v2v transformations.
- Orchestrated disaster recovery strategy using secondary site.
- Established universal version control for all enterprise code and configuration.
- Achieved ISO 27001 Compliance: Modernized authentication implementing NIST 800-63B.
Pandemic Leadership (2020): Led successful transition to 100% remote work achieving record growth with zero system downtime.
The Transformation Years: Building for the Future
Cloud Migration & Engineering Excellence
AWS Cloud Migration: Led comprehensive migration from hybrid on-premise infrastructure to AWS cloud with aggressive 6-month timeline. Zero downtime during migration of real-time transaction processing systems handling $1B+ annual transactions. Featured in AWS case study.
Team Building: Built and scaled globally distributed engineering teams (US, Brazil, EU). Redesigned onboarding processes reducing new hire ramp time by 50%.
DevOps Maturity Transformation:
- Increased deployment frequency while achieving 90% reduction in change failure rate.
- Migrated from SVN to GitLab with comprehensive CI/CD pipelines.
- Transitioned from long-lived Windows EC2 to containerized solutions in AWS EKS.
- Cost Optimization: 25% AWS reduction and 50% DataDog reduction through architectural improvements.
The Platform Consolidation Years
Principal Architect — Enterprise Integration
Co-developed enterprise migration strategies consolidating real-time mission-critical systems following Awin Global acquisition. Protected vital revenue streams while aligning globally distributed teams.
Key Projects:
- Awin Platform Upgrade Initiative: Principal technical contributor merging customers, platforms, and teams across organizations. Solved complex integration challenges spanning Akamai, AWS, Cloudflare, and legacy stacks.
- Fee Processing Modernization: Designed architecture to displace legacy applications using React, AWS EKS, SQS, SNS, and Lambda (MFE+BFF pattern).
- Security Ambassador: Mentored teams on best practices, increasing developer satisfaction by 25% through engineering enablement initiatives.
The AI Years: Governance & Integration
AI Ambassador & Fractional CTO
AI Governance (2024-2025): Served on AI governance steering group. Documented productivity savings and achieved 200%+ velocity improvement for early adopters. Established responsible AI governance frameworks balancing innovation with security.
Fractional CTO: Providing technical leadership for stealth MarTech startup. Shipped beta product to early customers with positive feedback. Architecture decisions, code review, infrastructure strategy.
Production AI Applications: Built 3 RAG demo systems in December 2025. Custom evaluation framework achieving measurable quality improvements (+15% precision). Multi-platform deployment (Vercel, Cloudflare Workers).
What This All Means
Generalist who goes deep
From pioneering retail software to recovering from catastrophic infrastructure failures in 24 minutes. I've led teams through acquisitions, migrations, and transformations.
Connect technical decisions to business outcomes
Every architectural choice protects revenue or enables growth. Every process improvement reduces toil. Every governance framework balances innovation with risk.
Thrive in ambiguity and crisis
When founders leave, data centers fail, or organizations undergo massive change—I bring clarity, calm, and pragmatic solutions.
Learn what the business needs
Started in retail software. Learned agency work. Mastered product engineering. Learned infrastructure for survival. Learned cloud for migration. Learning AI for value creation.
Hands-on strategic leadership
Equally comfortable writing code, reviewing architecture, mentoring engineers, and communicating with executives.
What Colleagues Say
Over 25+ years across multiple organizations, I've been consistently recognized for:
- Technical Excellence — Solving complex problems others couldn't, from XML-driven platforms to disaster recovery to platform consolidations
- Reliability — The person you want on-call when something breaks at 3 AM
- Collaboration — Working effectively across teams, disciplines, and organizations (US, UK, EU, Brazil)
- Mentorship — Helping junior engineers grow and succeed through hands-on guidance
- Calm Under Pressure — Bringing clarity to crisis situations, from data center failures to organizational upheaval
- User Focus — Building what actually matters, not just what's technically interesting
- Systems Thinking — Solving classes of problems rather than individual instances
Servant Leadership — My ability to flex between product engineering, infrastructure, leadership, and emerging technologies made me invaluable during organizational transitions. My disposition and servant leadership approach earned trust and respect from colleagues at all levels.
Beyond Work
Family first
Married with college-age children. Family includes members with disabilities requiring ongoing support—this shaped my understanding of sustainable work practices and work-life balance. Having experienced massive overtime and burnout myself, I'm uniquely focused on team morale, safety, and sustainable workload.
Creative roots
B.A. in Studio Art and Technical Theatre. Worked in audio-visual technical services supporting professional performers. These creative foundations inform my approach to user experience and problem-solving. Interest in game design and interactive experiences continues.
Continuous learner
Built extensive library on software architecture during crisis years. Systematic self-directed learning approach across 25+ years. Studied SQL Server DBA and ASP.NET/C# tracks. Pursued AI/ML foundations during governance work.
Community focus
Exploring ways to serve knowledge and experience to early-career engineers. Interested in technical writing and sharing crisis leadership lessons. Personal values: Blame-free problem solving, Assume positive intent, Quality over speed.
Currently
Based in the Chicago suburbs. Open to remote roles, consulting engagements, and collaborations with teams building interesting things.
I'm particularly interested in:
- AI Engineering roles combining infrastructure thinking with modern AI capabilities
- Technical leadership positions where strategic thinking and hands-on execution both matter
- Digital transformation: Organizations navigating change where 25-years of experience navigating complexity adds value