Vetted Director of Engineerings in Florida

David Lapsley

Screened

Executive Engineering Leader specializing in AI infrastructure and cloud platforms

Tampa, FL14y exp

“Founder building Shipkode.ai, an enterprise SaaS product using generative AI to automate the front half of the software development lifecycle—from idea and customer feedback to engineering-ready specifications—with a beta planned for the first week of April. Has spoken with 24+ VCs over two years and mentors cybersecurity startups through the Tampa Bay Wave accelerator, emphasizing rigorous customer discovery to avoid misaligned product development.”

“Engineering leader (ActiveCampaign, Yalo) with a track record of scaling both systems and orgs: grew an engineering team from 90+ to 200+ (30+ scrum teams) while re-architecting a marketing automation platform from batch to near real-time. Led major infrastructure shifts (RabbitMQ to Kafka, multi-region redundancy) and reports outcomes including 600%+ throughput gains, 99.99% uptime, and business growth from ~80K to 185K customers with revenue surpassing $200M over ~3 years.”

“Co-founded a Digital Loss Prevention (DLP) startup and raised $6M in seed funding by showcasing a controlled, laptop-based technology demo. Post-funding, drove MVP planning and execution by sequencing operations and assembling a team to build an appliance MVP, using an iterative build/evaluate/visualize approach.”

“Hands-on engineering leader with 22 years in marine vessel monitoring/control who spans embedded electronics/software through cloud services. Built end-to-end telemetry platforms (sensors to cloud to web UI/API) and led a shift from low-level implementations to web-native technologies to accelerate delivery and broaden the hiring pool, while also scaling teams with a strong culture of openness and accountability.”

Tyler Stroud

Screened

Executive Engineering Leader specializing in AdTech and scalable cloud platforms

Miami, FL15y exp

“Engineering leader with experience in small, bootstrapped startups and exposure to VC environments, currently pursuing CTO-level opportunities. Thrives in fast-iterating, high-uncertainty settings and emphasizes data-driven clarity plus strong problem/market validation when evaluating new ventures.”

“Has worked at a startup within an incubator program and is a certified mentor with a startup mentorship non-profit focused on early-stage/pre-funded companies. Not currently seeking to found a company or take equity-only roles, but open to working at very early-stage companies (pre-launch/pre-revenue/pre-funded).”