EMCEE
Working with the VP of Engineering, we
divided responsibilities between us: he wanted to handle
managing technical development and for me to be a
people manager focusing on improving communication,
morale, process, and productivity. I took direct
managerial control over two teams, Core Development
and Data Science, and later created a DevOps team.
Over a short period, my teams went from being scattered
code-firefighters and basically just surviving to being
organized, disciplined, and the most productive teams in
the org. Once intra-team tools and communication was
sorted, I focused on inter-team processes next and again
was met with great success. Teams started sharing
information, coordinating better, and eventually shared
developers between them. Engineering velocity
skyrocketed!
SKYTRAC Systems
I accomplished a 300% productivity increase by rewriting broken processes,
building new productivity tools, and improving communication and cooperation
within the company. In addition, our median CS ticket response time was reduced
from several days to a mere two hours.
I reduced stress for each individual on the team through weekly one-on-ones
and by taking action on their feedback and input. One of my teammates said that
I was "50% a leader and 50% a therapist" and I am quite proud of that. I
increased the technical leadership and created personalized education paths for
mid-level and junior developers on the team which increased their job
satisfaction and made them more valuable employees to the company.
BrainCheck
- Lead Engineer / CTO (in training)
- Three Developers
- View Website
In an attempt to clarify responsibilities and increase the quality of
communication, I dramatically increased productivity by envisioning and
implementing a company-wide restructure which increased communication between
teams and allowed for better milestone prioritization. This restructure was
implemented quickly, adopted by all, and we started reaping the rewards almost
immediately.
I also took initiative to draft and enforce a formal Engineering Plan to define
proper software engineering procedures around adding new features, automated
testing, dev-ops, and code reviews. This substantially raised engineering and
delivery standards, and I set the rest of the team up for success by helping
them raise their skills to meet these standards.