Distinguished Engineer at Capital One · founder, Mayven Studios (acquired) · selectively taking outside engagements
Most weeks I take one or two outside calls — usually founders, CTOs, or boards wrestling with engineering scaling, hiring, or architecture decisions that don't have an obvious right answer. If you're in that spot, here's what I do, what I don't, and how to reach me.
Recurring 1:1 time with founders and engineering leaders on the things that don't fit a clean playbook — hiring under constraint, scaling architecture before you can afford it, navigating an acquisition, structuring an eng org around a marketing motion. Monthly or quarterly cadence; equity, retainer, or both.
For: seed–Series C founders, new CTOs, eng leaders
Independent or technical board director for companies where engineering, infrastructure, or AI strategy is a board-level question. Particularly useful for non-technical-CEO companies that need a translator between the engineering org and the board.
For: companies post-Series A, especially regulated industries
Time-boxed leadership coverage during a transition — between CTOs, during fundraising, or while spinning up a new business line. Not a permanent seat; an engagement with a defined start, end, and outcome.
For: post-revenue startups, < 50 engineers
Discrete, two-to-four-week reviews of an engineering organization: hiring pipeline, dev velocity, on-call health, system architecture, security posture, vendor lock-in. Written report. Honest. The kind of thing a board would commission before a financing or an acquisition.
For: investors during diligence, founders pre-raise, acquirers
Conference keynotes and panels on scaling engineering, remote work, marketing-led engineering, and engineering economics. Podcast guest appearances on technology and operating topics. Past venues: SXSW, NASDAQ (Times Square), and others.
For: conferences, podcasts, corporate events — see /speaking
Best path: short email. Tell me what you're working on, what's stuck, and what a good outcome looks like. I read everything; I respond to the ones that look like a fit.
A short, specific email gets the fastest reply. "Quick chat?" gets the slowest.