TL;DR: My job is to do everything necessary for a SW organization to get from Point 0 to Point Value, often over tricky terrain.

In more words:

When I’m given: an ability to task a team of 2-5 reasonable eople - whether by being their direct manager or by having a cooperating manager, and a basic degree of managerial tact (i.e., not giving my people tasks over my head)

I give: Crushing business problems which would have otherwise required 10 or 20 people.

Through: being able to make very precise and economical choices about product, operations, selecting appropriate technologies and programming techniques, taking care of operations and business scaling and a hefty amount of fighting spirit.

FAQ

Q: What kind of challenges do you undertake?

A: There are 3 necessary aspects:

  • Outcome-orientation: A major transformation is necessary (like 0→1 or 1→100 - not 7→9/”feature factory” scenarios).
  • Leadership: it’s not just me alone doing things. I’m highly experienced in and attentive to hands-on execution, but it takes a team to build value that lasts; I know how to take out a team, and I know how to make them shine.
  • Engineering novelty: not doing cookie-cutting.
    • A positive example: building a new product that requires some kind of technology that is not available for purchase
    • A negative example: you know you need a CRUD API, and just lack the working hands

Q: So you code for money, right? (Ignoring everything else written here)

A: I do not, and am not going to work with people who think that.

Q: Could you mentor me?

A: I will happily mentor anyone at any time. I love my profession, and mentorship is the cherry on top,

Q: I am a recruiter, can I interest you in <anything job-related>?

A: No. See the next point.

Q: Who are the ONLY people with whom you talk about jobs?

A: Stakeholders at the director/VP/founder-level who would consider retaining me as something that contributes significantly to their own success.

Q: Why no recruiters?

A: Diamonds burn as well as coal, but are rarer than coal and more useful than coal. Recruiters’ job is feeding furnaces. I’d served as a diamond enough times in my career to know that my added value is not through combustion.

Q: What grinds your gears?

A: People trying to project how shiny they or their organization are. Hint: preoccupiation with anything except the success of your team and its members is an adverse flag in my eyes.

Q: How do you measure yourself?

A: By my ability to enact change: in the business (impact), in myself (learning), in colleagues (mentoring/growth)

Q: How do you treat your subordinates/mentees/charges = what do you expect from your superiors/mentors/patrons?

A: I am responsible for the professional well-being of everyone in my zone of influence. I expect the same.

Q: Can you do Technology X ⊆ Sp({“NLP”, “big data”, “cloud”, “large systems scaling”, “networking”, “security design”, …}) ⊕ Sp({Python, Spark, Java, …})

A: I’m a generalist; I did all of the above well and had fun too. However, I do not believe in being an “X person”, and if you have a spreadsheet with a name blank next to “X”, I’m not your guy.

In the domain of complex SW, I have experience with:

  • Engineering (from product negotiations through API design to writing to debugging),
  • Project planning/product roadmapping,
  • Building teams, mentoring, promoting team members’ individual growth paths, up to and including formal management.
  • Analyzing and modelling complex quantitative questions around its design and operation,
  • Carrying out and guiding research,
  • Writing and collaborating with writers (of descriptions, manuals, operating procedures)