Vetted Director of Engineerings

“Product-minded frontend/UX leader with notable experience at CNBC, where they owned premium subscription and engagement flows from problem definition through production and post-launch iteration. They stand out for combining high-polish React implementation, Figma-driven systems thinking, and AI-assisted prototyping to quickly ship and refine conversion-focused experiences.”

“Engineering leader and player-coach with a long tenure leading 5 teams/17 engineers, combining organizational leadership with hands-on SQL, architecture, and production incident work. Particularly notable for shipping AI-powered lead engagement systems like an intelligent voice agent, while also driving operational improvements such as release cadence standardization, team restructures, database migrations, and major rules-engine performance gains.”

Matthew Allyn

Screened ReferencesStrong rec.

Executive engineering leader specializing in enterprise architecture, cloud, AI, and FinTech

Rolesville, NC24y exp

“Engineering leader with experience modernizing e-commerce platforms and leading product strategy for data-driven franchise growth tools. Notable for scaling distributed teams, making pragmatic build-vs-buy and architecture decisions, and delivering measurable business impact including dramatically faster checkout performance and revenue gains.”

“Director of Engineering at Proofpoint for 8 years, leading architecture and integration of Java microservices within a detection platform. Demonstrates pragmatic delivery leadership—incurring short-term cost to meet launch deadlines, then systematically paying down technical debt and optimizing AWS spend—plus a disciplined, long-horizon approach to backward-compatible API/schema evolution across many dependent services.”

“Engineering leader (12+ years Director, 17 years lead) focused on developer productivity and platform/framework work across Oracle, PlayStation, Workday, and CafePress. Notable for building distributed teams from scratch and delivering high-impact platform architecture—e.g., re-architected PlayStation’s upload pipeline to support 500GB–5TB submissions using browser-to-AWS chunked uploads with SNS/SQS and deduplication/resume support.”

“Engineering leader (Sr Director/VP) with healthcare marketplace and e-commerce/art marketplace experience who has shipped AI-driven pricing, scaled engineering teams rapidly, and navigated messy legacy integrations. Currently doing fractional tech advisory, leading a migration from self-hosted infrastructure to Google Cloud using IaC while mentoring a junior developer and modernizing security/patching posture.”

“Engineering leader (Director of Development) with hands-on cloud and product experience who builds business-aligned technology roadmaps and scales teams. Delivered an enterprise cloud-migration enabler at UHG by implementing AD authentication and Terraform-based IaC for custom VM images while meeting 90-day InfoSec patch/rotation requirements, and drove a 20% lift in user consumption/retention by designing an interactive branded media portal experience for Sunkist.”

“Engineering leader with experience building point-of-care diagnostics platforms (IoT-connected PCR device delivering results in <15 minutes) and scaling multidisciplinary teams (55+). Has led major data/IoT architecture decisions (multi-cluster Kubernetes with secure routing; Kafka + Gobblin over MQTT) and runs execution with Agile roadmaps tightly aligned to GTM and senior leadership.”

“Senior engineering/CTO-level leader with hands-on delivery of serverless, event-driven cloud governance platforms (deployed across multiple GE business units) and experience building adaptable usage-based billing at UserTesting. Has advised startups (including CaseText during YC) and supported fundraising and acquisition due diligence, including investor materials for a smart cooler custody management system presented to BARDA during Operation Warp Speed.”

“Aspiring founder building an AI governance and compliance startup for the finance industry, focused on agents that monitor data lakes/lakehouses to detect security vulnerabilities, PII exposure, and governance issues in real time. Has already formed an S-corp, has not raised capital yet, and approaches idea validation through Minimum Lovable Product testing with potential clients.”

“Engineering leader with hands-on architecture depth who has managed offshore teams up to ~30 engineers across mobile, web, backend, and Roku. Particularly strong in applying AI pragmatically—driving code-generation and review workflows, tailoring model usage by tech stack, and building internal LLM/RAG tools—while also improving operational KPIs through automation, cost optimization, and workflow redesign in content/media environments.”

Kevin West

Screened

Executive engineering leader specializing in AI, cloud architecture, and startup product delivery

Phoenix, AZ15y exp

“Founding/backend engineering leader who built an AI product for car enthusiasts, recruited and managed cross-functional/offshore teams, and helped drive an $8M Series A after scaling a viral launch of 40k+ users in a weekend. Also built a sophisticated human-in-the-loop AI brand platform with agent orchestration and led a major AWS Step Functions migration that reduced platform costs from $30k/month to roughly $900/month.”

Josh Rhoades

Screened

Executive Technology Leader (CTO) specializing in AI-enabled SaaS and regulated platforms

Los Angeles, CA30y exp

“Senior engineering leader with experience at Disney and BlackLine who drives business-aligned technology roadmaps through deep Product/Engineering partnership (two-in-a-box) and pragmatic prioritization frameworks. Has led major modernization initiatives—private-to-public cloud migration to GCP with multi-cloud evolution, data-layer performance improvements (Mongo/Redis, caching/query optimization), and tooling upgrades (VSS to GitHub)—while scaling teams with strong quality and accountability culture.”

Kevin Hoffman

Screened

Director-level product and engineering leader specializing in distributed systems and cloud platforms

Windsor, CT16y exp

“Former CTO and co-founder of Cosmonic who led technology vision, roadmap, and team building while also serving as the technical lead in investor and VC meetings. Has hands-on experience supporting seed and Series A rounds, plus strategic exposure to later-stage fundraising at Synadia, combining startup-building depth with a pragmatic view of risk and business viability.”