I am an engineering leader who steps into difficult situations and builds them into successful teams. I specialize in taking on organizations in flux, rebuilding products, establishing process and growing engineers into their next level. My foundation is deep technical work in web development, SaaS products and open source, and I bring that context to every leadership decision. My approach to leadership is shaped by my background as a teacher and an airline captain, where discipline, process and accountability are non-negotiable.
Fingerprint - September, 2026 - Present
Fingerprint - August 2025 - August, 2026
I joined Fingerprint deliberately, drawn by strong leadership, an established product with a clear growth trajectory and the return to fully remote work. I took over a team in name only — its oldest engineer had just 6 months of tenure — and have since expanded to lead three teams covering our core APIs, JS Agent and Backoffice.
- Built teams to guide our core technology; taking my teams from a low of 2 engineers and building them up to a planned 17 engineers across 3 distinct teams.
- Led efforts to streamline our operations and processes; introducing process to the teams to ensure predictability and transparency as the organization itself transitions from a small start-up to a mature SaaS provider.
- Mentored and coached team members to ensure alignment with organizational and team goals. This includes building tools to assist teams throughout the org in guiding engineers through our career ladder.
SuperFile - October 2024 - August 2025
After joining SuperFile, leadership quickly realized that my strategic vision for the engineering department warranted a title change to reflect the work to be done. As VP of Engineering I built the teams and redirected the tech stacks to ensure that SuperFile’s engineering efforts met the expectations of our stakeholders and investors.
- Built teams for product development and R&D; more than doubled the size of our engineering teams and those supporting them across a range of technologies.
- Transformed our tech stack from Go microservices to Laravel; improved velocity and scalability to better meet the goals of stakeholders.
- Selected and integrated vendors and products such as Vercel, Jira, 15Five and more; ensuring our tech and team are moving at maximum efficiency.
- Guided compliance efforts to achieve SOC-2, ISO27001 and other frameworks, thereby meeting the needs of our investors and future users.
- Mentored and trained team members to ensure alignment with an evolving product and tech stack.
- Led our internal IT buildout; guiding the implementation of SSO, SCIM and other tools for compliance and to better meet the needs of a growing organization.
SuperFile - July 2024 - October 2024
As SuperFile’s first Engineering Manager, I was hired to bring process and predictability to a growing team. In my short tenure before being promoted to VP of Engineering, I introduced Agile processes, developed team norms and worked on strategic plans to build the teams and technology at a pace that would fulfill the needs of our stakeholders.
- Introduced Agile tooling and process; ensuring predictable and purposeful development across a growing portfolio of pre-release products.
- Created the first iteration of an R&D team; this team ensured a rapid pace of iteration while providing space for a traditional engineering team to build ideas into scalable products.
- Developed a culture of professional development by implementing processes including regular 1:1s, mentoring and continuing education.
WP Engine - Apr 2024 - July 2024
Led the responsible wind-down of Faust.js following an org restructuring.
- Developed and implemented a sunsetting plan for Faust.js with a focus on ensuring continued support for existing users and projects.
WP Engine - Dec 2021 - Apr 2024
I was brought in to take over an unsupported team that had launched the wrong product and it was up to me to rebuild Faust.js and the vision behind it, while also building a team to develop the product and support our users in as little time as possible.
- Performed dual roles of Engineering Manager and Product Manager; ensured quality engineering products and guided product development and improvement.
- Launched the Faust product within 10 months; received excellent reviews from its predecessor’s biggest critics. Enabled WordPress features to be used in a headless environment and quickly ramped up to powering approximately 80% of the sites hosted on WP Engine’s Atlas headless platform.
- Steered Faust.js and WPGraphQL teams into creating innovative solutions that increased accessibility and ease of headless WordPress development.
- Transformed Faust.js into the definitive standard for headless WordPress development by leading a mission and technology overhaul.
- Balanced technical and strategic needs, leveraging metrics-driven insights to streamline processes and accelerate team growth.
- Spearheaded a diverse team of seven in the development of a free, open-source product leveraging experience from building one of the largest security plugins in WordPress.
- Boosted user base and community engagement around our open source efforts to build a market around headless WordPress.
- Led our summer internship program; recruited software engineering interns, set up educational programs and conducted weekly presentations to support students; ensured interns were matched with appropriate teams, managers and projects aligned with their interests.
- Led our engineering hackathon, engaging cross-functional teams to innovate freely for two days; enhanced project ideation and developed successful innovations.
- Revived the hackathon spirit after the transition from in-person to remote, by keeping teams engaged; had 100+ people and dozens of teams participating in developing novel solutions.
- Stewarded the transition of multiple teams from Scrum to Kanban, enhancing team performance and enabling teams to meet customer goals.
- Trained and mentored new and existing team members to ensure professional development with ~40% of reports achieving promotion within my tenure.
WP Engine - Sep 2018 - Nov 2021
My time as an individual contributor at WP Engine was spent developing new products for developers and e-commerce, while also working with various teams to ensure everyone was pushing forward. In my first 3 years I was rotated between more than a dozen managers and 3 products all while ensuring the products were a success for both their users and our stakeholders.
- Provided scalable and reliable code on teams building products for both WordPress and hosting.
- Built Live Cart, a unique WordPress plugin to better leverage our hosting infrastructure to improve WooCommerce store capacity from 25-60%.
- Collaborated with a team of 5-6 team members in developing the Atlas Content Modeler (ACM); enhanced the content-editing experience for headless WordPress.
- Leveraged a clear understanding of user needs and Agile development methodologies to design high-performing features that met user demands.
- Built WP Engine’s Devkit local development environment to serve the needs of advanced developers on our platform.
- Spearheaded design and implementation of a scalable microservices architecture and WordPress plugins using PHP, GoLang, Python, Ruby and JavaScript.
- Managed project build pipelines and workflow with technologies such as Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Helm, Jenkins, Google and Amazon cloud services; increased team efficiency and reduced processing time from 3 hours to half an hour.
- Mentored and supported new team members.
University of Florida - Sep 2016 - Sep 2018
As a senior web developer, I developed tools to improve the developer workflow of developers on both my team and beyond UF. I supported the team’s mission by taking ownership of our WordPress intranet, improving performance by more than 80%.
- Improved website performance for multiple organizational sites on WordPress and Drupal platforms by implementing CI and automated tools, reducing site loading times and improving user experience.
- Engineered and deployed multiple tools using Laravel and other technologies, boosting team efficiency across the organization. I also scaled team workflows with solutions such as CI/CD and other automated tools to improve security and performance of all web properties.
10up - Feb 2015 - Sep 2016
At 10up I was part of a unique team that worked on product solutions such as ElasticPress as well as client products such as the Brightcove Video Connect plugin.
- Devised enterprise-level WordPress solutions such as ElasticPress for internal and client use, improving search functionality and enhancing site scalability and reliability.
- Orchestrated detailed project estimates and documentation, driving efficient planning and execution of client projects; minimized project timelines.
iThemes.com - Dec 2013 - Feb 2015
As the lead developer of iThemes Security I built the plugin’s first “pro” version, allowing for monetization of the plugin while also leading the effort to rebrand the plugin from Better WP Security.
- Built the “pro” version of iThemes Security; allowing for monetization of the plugin.
- Executed the rebrand of iThemes Security from Better WP Security.
- Guided the development of iThemes Security’s roadmap and customer support.
St. Edward's University - Aug 2012 - Dec 2013
At St. Edward’s University I taught 3 semesters of computer science including an introductory course as well as a security course I was awarded and asked to design after my first semester.
- Taught undergraduate courses from the introductory level to advanced security for computer science students.
- Developed a first-of-its-kind course on computer security for undergraduate computer science students.
Springbox - Apr 2013 - Nov 2013
At Springbox I served as a developer on award-winning customer sites, internal projects and processes. My work focused on improving the developer experience for our team and the accessibility and performance of our clients.
- Developed websites for national brands such as Nestle, The Air Force Academy and others.
- Built internal infrastructure including development and production servers, deployment systems and supporting systems.
Bit51 - May 2003 - Nov 2013
What started as a side-project was built into a small company of about 6 people where I built websites for various clients, as well as products including our flagship product, Better WP Security, for approximately 250,000 active users.
- Developed the Better WP Security plugin which, at the time of its sale, was the most popular security plugin for WordPress.
- Engineered websites, WordPress plugins, Chrome Extensions and other software.
- Built and managed a team to provide customer service to users of Better WP Security.
- Protected our IP with proper trademarks to help ensure a product that would endure.
St. Edward's University - Jan 2012 - Apr 2013
At St. Edward’s University I worked with a small but talented team to further the university’s mission and image by building and contributing to projects in Drupal and WordPress.
- Developed university websites in Drupal, WordPress and other technologies.
- Participated in and led projects ranging from marketing to identity management.
Southern Illinois University - Aug 1998 - Jan 2012
I began my work at SIU in a department of over 50 faculty with little web presence and a single 1mb internet connection powering a handful of desktop computers. I left SIU with over 200 users supported, from students to faculty, multiple websites containing over 10,000 pages, flight simulation labs, servers and infrastructure, including a small team, fit for a top-tier program at a large university.
- Built and managed a team to support our technology and users.
- Took SIU Aviation into the internet age with a range of technology supporting faculty, staff and students.
- Developed the departmental web presence in Drupal and WordPress serving external and internal audiences.
- Supported and built our efforts to increase flight simulation for student training by repairing existing equipment and building a new simulation lab.
- Navigated a restrictive budget to ensure the needs of all our users were met, even in light of severely limited resources.
Pacific Wings Airlines - Nov 2005 - Nov 2006
At Pacific Wings I served as a captain moving people and cargo throughout the Hawaiian islands. Within a few months I also served as a training captain where I trained new pilots on how to operate our aircraft in the Hawaiian islands and mentored new captains through their 100 hours of initial operating experience.
- Lead my crew and aircraft in transporting passengers and cargo throughout the Hawaiian islands.
- Trained and mentored new pilots on procedures relating to the Cessna 208 aircraft utilized by the company.
- Maintained documentation and currency requirements as laid out in appropriate Federal Aviation Regulations.
Northern Illinois Flight Center - Aug 2004 - Oct 2005
I started at Northern Illinois Flight Center as a flight instructor teaching individuals from student pilot through their instrument rating and commercial license. Throughout my tenure I transitioned to the company’s jet charters as a first officer and assisted in the dispatch office for charter logistics and operations.
- Transported passengers on Citation and Falcon business jets operating under FAR parts 91 and 135.
- Taught students how to fly in pursuit of their private through commercial pilot's license and instrument rating.
- Helped new aircraft owners transition to their planes for the company's Cessna dealership.
- Planned and executed on logistics and operations in the charter operations office.
Southern Illinois University - Sep 2001 - May 2003
At SIU I started as a part-time flight instructor and moved to full-time faculty where I taught flight students from private pilot through their certified flight instructor rating.
- Taught and mentored students of the university's aviation program from private pilot to certified flight instructor.
Better Google Tasks - Project archived
Better Google Tasks was a Google Chrome extension that made managing Google Tasks easy with notifications and full task management from the Google Chrome toolbar.
iThemes Security (Better WP Security) - Sold to iThemes
Better WP Security was a WordPress security plugin designed to help site owners ensure they are enforcing the best security practices possible to keep their site safe. Upon its sale to iThemes in 2013 it already had over 2 million downloads on WordPress.org and it lives on today as iThemes Security and iThemes Security Pro.
Kana is a simple WordPress development environment, written in Go, that focuses on plugin and theme development. It offers a zero-config, complete WordPress development environment based on Docker.
Primary Vagrant - Project archived
Primary Vagrant was a WordPress development environment based on Vagrant and Virtualbox that allowed WordPress developers to spin up highly customizable WordPress development sites quickly for plugin, theme or site development.
WP Engine’s Atlas Content Modeler - Project replaced by ACF
Atlas Content Modeler was WP Engine's answer to creating more structured content for headless WordPress developers. It allowed the creation of custom post types, fields and more. Upon WP Engine's purchase of Delicious Brains and ACF, the development of Atlas Content Modeler was ended in order to focus on ACF.
WP Engine’s DevKit - Project replaced by Local by Flywheel
DevKit was a WordPress development environment, based on Docker, designed for advanced WordPress developers. It was sunsetted in favor of the more mature, Local, product upon WP Engine's purchase of Flywheel and Local.
WP Engine’s Faust.js headless WordPress framework
Faust.js is a JavaScript framework that aims to make headless development easier for WordPress developers by bringing forth the full power of WordPress to headless apps. Currently it offers features such as authentication, post previews, the WordPress template hierarchy, the WordPress Toolbar and support for Gutenberg blocks.
Live Cart is a WordPress plugin for WP Engine customers that solves the cart fragments problem faced by WooCommerce store owners in a novel way. Instead of simply disabling cart fragments it shows them only if needed when there is a project in the cart and it also makes use of WP Engine's cache to cache popular cart fragments. In my testing it could make stores with Cart Fragments perform as well as stores without them, especially in smaller stores.
- Certified ScrumMaster® (CSM®) - since Jan 2021
- FAA Certified Flight Instructor, Instrument (CFI-I) - since Aug 2001
- FAA Commercial Pilot - ASEL, AMEL - since Jun 2001
- A+ Certified - since Jul 1997
- WordCamp Seattle 2019 | full talk
- WordCamp US 2019 | full talk
- WordCamp Orlando 2019
- WordCamp Ottawa 2019
- WordCamp Atlanta 2019 | full talk
- WordCamp Miami 2019
- WordCamp Orlando 2018
- WordCamp Utrecht 2018 (Keynote speaker) | full talk
- WordCamp St Louis 2018 (Keynote speaker)
- SXSW Interactive 2018
- WordCamp Orlando 2017 | full talk
- HighEdWeb 2017
- WordCamp Miami 2017
- WordCamp London 2017 | full talk
- WordCamp US 2015 | full talk
- WordCamp Orlando 2015 | full talk
- WordCamp Tampa 2015
- Web Conference at Penn State
- WordCamp Miami 2015 | full talk
- Loopconf
- WordCamp San Diego 2015
- WordCamp DFW 2014
- WordCamp Providence 2014 | full talk
- WordCamp Maine 2014 | full talk
- MyNAMS 12
- WordCamp Miami 2014 | full talk
- WordCamp Austin 2014
- SXSW Interactive
- Organizer for Devopsdays Chicago
- Speaker Deputy for WordFest Live 2022
- Volunteer organizer for WordCamp US 2020
- Volunteer organizer for WordCamp US 2018
- Co-organizer of WordCamp Utrecht 2018
- Moderator of jobs.wordpress.net (2013-2024)
- Co-organizer of the Sarasota WordPress Meetup (2015-2016)
- Co-organizer of the Austin WordPress Meetup Group (2012-2015)
- Organizing committee member for WordCamp Austin (2012-2014)
- Admin of the Advanced WordPress (AWP) Facebook group (2015-2016)