Thoughts on Engineering Leadership, Technical Growth, Organizational Structure, Code, and Everything In Between
Thoughts on Engineering Leadership, Technical Growth, Organizational Dynamics, and Code.
As AI and LLM tools transform software development, teams that integrate these technologies will move faster than their competition. This post explores how the decreasing complexity of writing code shifts focus to critical areas like thoughtful design, user research, CI/CD infrastructure, code reviews, and strategic team composition. Learn how to prepare your engineering organization for the accelerated pace of 2026 and beyond.
In this blogpost we delve into the essential daily practices that distinguish effective engineering leaders from merely busy managers. This post navigates through challenging leadership transitions, offering insights into difficult conversations, systematic problem-solving, and staying technical in an AI-driven world. From "fish on the table" discussions to prioritizing hard tasks first, it shares valuable lessons on building authentic relationships and creating compounding effects that transform both leaders and their teams.
This post outlines six essential traits of exceptional software engineers consistent delivery, influential collaboration, upward management, pragmatic decision-making, complexity reduction, and growth mindset. Moving beyond technical skills, these characteristics form the foundation of engineering excellence and can be developed through conscious practice.
In my journey into management, I've found that self-awareness and clear communication are key. Tools like the 'Working with Me' document really help set expectations and make collaboration smoother without micromanaging. Regular check-ins, open feedback, and balancing data-driven insights with gut feelings support both personal and team growth. This post also includes my own 'Working with Me' document as an example, but also to give you a better idea of how I operate.
In this blog post, I share six key lessons I've learned from my journey into management. You'll discover the challenges of transitioning from hands-on work to leading a team, the importance of avoiding micromanagement, and how to prioritize team outcomes.
In this blogpost we delve into the challenges and resilience required in leadership during the tech industry's fluctuating landscape. This post navigates through personal layoffs experiences, offering insights into maintaining team spirit, navigating change, and learning from adversity. From Costa Rica to Berlin, it shares valuable lessons on empathy, resilience, and the continuous journey of growth amidst uncertainty.
I've led high-performing engineering teams across Europe, the United States, and Latin America for over 15 years. My passion lies in mentoring future engineering leaders and cultivating supportive, thriving communities
I'm deeply committed to helping engineers seamlessly transition into leadership roles, all while fostering an environment of growth and support within organizations. I'm an active contributor to open-source projects and a strong advocate for collaboration and knowledge-sharing in the developer community.
I also advise and mentor startups and engineering leaders, partnering with founders and engineering executives on org design, scaling teams, platform and AI strategy, and the day-to-day craft of leading engineering well.
Outside of work, I spearhead non-profit initiatives focused on wildlife conservation in Latin America. In my free time, I enjoy photography, running, and cycling—often mixing these hobbies for added fun.
Director of Platform Engineering
Zenjob, Berlin, Germany
May 2022 - Present
I was recruited to broaden my executive scope beyond traditional platform engineering. I now lead Platform, Security, AI Operations, and Corporate IT as a single integrated engineering function, reporting into the Engineering Leadership Team.
I oversee a diverse team of over 20 engineers, ranging from junior engineers to staff engineers, along with engineering managers. My teams spearhead Zenjob's core engineering infrastructure, focusing on advanced tooling and platform engineering initiatives.
I founded and now run the AI Operations function as a strategic, company-wide capability. We automate manual processes, anticipate operational issues before they hit production, and give every department a shared AI delivery partner that fuels innovation across the board.
I introduced AI-augmented development practices across engineering so the team compounds its output, and I partner with peers across product, security, and IT to decide which problems AI should solve, where humans stay in the loop, and how those investments translate into measurable business outcomes.
I helm our security operations with a particular emphasis on application security and data compliance, elevating security into an engineering-grade discipline embedded in every team's workflow.
I reframed Corporate IT as an integrated engineering team that adopts engineering-centric practices, shifting IT from a ticket queue into a force multiplier for the whole company.
As a member of the Engineering Leadership Team, I collaborate with other leaders to shape our engineering strategy, hiring direction, technology bets, and culture. I also continue to ship code alongside the team, which keeps my judgement sharp and strategy grounded in delivery reality.
VP of Engineering, Core Platforms
SoundCloud, Berlin, Germany
March 2016 - March 2022
I built and led the engineering organization at the heart of SoundCloud. My org owned the platforms, frameworks, APIs, and security layers that every product team depended on to serve millions of listeners and creators worldwide.
I scaled the org to 65+ multi-platform engineers across 7 Engineering Managers and 4 Platform Leads, spanning multiple offices and continents.
My org owned tooling, frameworks, APIs, backend systems, authorization frameworks, and security layers, the connective tissue powering every product surface at SoundCloud.
I developed the engineering best practices and platform contracts that supported all engineering efforts at SoundCloud, enabling operational excellence across every product team and unlocking faster, safer delivery at company scale.
I hired, coached, and promoted a deep bench of engineering managers and senior ICs, several of whom went on to lead organizations of their own at SoundCloud and beyond.
I partnered with peer VPs across Product, Data, and Infrastructure to set the multi-year platform strategy that supported global growth and a user base in the hundreds of millions, while staying close to the work by leading architecture reviews, joining incident calls, and shipping code where it mattered.
Engineering Manager & Tech Lead, Soin Labs
Grupo Soin, San Jose, Costa Rica
December 2011 - December 2016
As the most senior engineering leader at the company, I led Soin Labs, a 25-person cross-platform engineering team. I owned long-term technical strategy, organizational scaling, and team culture.
I grew the org from a small team into a 25-engineer multi-platform group, restructuring squads as the product portfolio expanded into new platforms.
I built the mobile engineering practice from scratch and shipped iOS and Android apps that reached hundreds of thousands of users in production.
I partnered with our recruiting team to reimagine the engineering hiring process end-to-end. We raised the bar on quality, made the loop more humane, and made it possible to hire competitively from a non-traditional market.
I helped foster a remote-first, inclusive, growth-first engineering culture well before remote was the norm. It became a model later adopted across the wider company and a hiring magnet for senior engineers in the region.
Senior Software Developer & Tech Lead, Voxox
Telcentris, San Diego, California
January 2006 - November 2011
I led the Voxox client team distributed between San Diego and Costa Rica, in charge of award-winning multi-platform Voice-over-IP software.
I re-architected and simplified the Voxox client applications, paying down years of complexity, and led the redesign and relaunch of voxox.com to align web, desktop, and mobile clients under a single product identity.
I laid the technical foundation for Voxox's iOS and Android apps. This was my first taste of running distributed teams across continents, with engineers in both the US and Costa Rica.
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