Building High-Performing Global Engineering Teams
I have built and led high-performing global engineering organizations across onshore, nearshore, and offshore locations - teams of 175+ engineers operating across multiple time zones, delivering platform services that move the business forward.
When I say "high-performing", I mean more than feature velocity. I mean platform resilience, deployment confidence, operational excellence, and an AI-native culture where engineers are relentlessly productive. That does not happen by accident.
12 Principles for High-Performing Teams
Clear Goals, Full Autonomy
I define clear objectives and metrics for success, then empower my teams with the autonomy to deliver. My philosophy is simple: autonomy with accountability.
Unified Global Teams
I build unified global teams where every member - onshore, offshore, or contract - is a fully-integrated peer. This fosters a culture of ownership that accelerates delivery.
Platform Engineering as a Discipline
I establish internal developer platforms (IDPs) where CI/CD, observability, and AI agent tooling are first-class products - not bolted-on afterthoughts.
Infrastructure at the Table
Infrastructure and SREs are key strategic partners. Their expertise in cost, cloud strategy, and reliability is integral to our technical and product roadmap.
Invest in Developer Experience
I champion investment in AI-augmented toolchains, observability, and agent-assisted workflows. Reducing developer toil is a direct investment in velocity, quality, and retention.
Hire for Attitude & Aptitude
I hire for curiosity, collaboration, and a drive to own outcomes. Technical skills can be taught; a growth mindset and team-first attitude are essential from day one.
Relentless Coaching
I invest heavily in mentorship and 1:1s to unblock challenges, align work with the big picture, and accelerate career growth from junior to leadership roles.
Create Psychological Safety
I cultivate an environment where it is safe to challenge ideas, admit mistakes, and ask questions. Trust is the foundation of high-velocity, low-drama teams.
SLOs, Error Budgets & AI Reliability
I drive teams to define SLOs, error budgets, and AI agent reliability metrics. In 2026, "done" includes AI-assisted work that meets the same quality bar as human-authored code.
Align Around Shared Goals
I establish tight collaboration rhythms between Product, QA, and Engineering to ensure dependencies are managed proactively and everyone is aligned on the mission.
Celebrate Wins, Learn from Losses
We celebrate individual and team achievements. We conduct blameless retrospectives to learn and improve. This commitment to continuous improvement is our engine for transformation.
Sustainable Performance
High-performing is not just fast delivery - it is sustainable speed, high engagement, and a culture of trust that outlasts any single roadmap cycle.
My Approach to Success
Technical & Collaborative
Technically adept and able to provide strategic engineering direction, I embrace the value of diverse expertise. The best solutions come from collaboration - I leverage the insights and innovation of talented engineers to drive successful outcomes.
Platform Engineering & AI-Native SDLC
I champion the cultural and organizational shifts needed to build a platform engineering discipline with AI-native tooling embedded throughout the SDLC. Agents handle routine work; engineers handle high-value problems.
Innovative
I implement production-ready agentic AI using MCP, A2A protocols, and multi-agent orchestration. Not AI experiments - AI that ships with the same rigor as any other production system.
Stakeholder Management
I effectively communicate technical strategies, trade-offs, risks, and project milestones across diverse audiences - translating complex technical details into clear, actionable insights for non-technical stakeholders.
Goal Alignment
I collaborate with senior leadership to align technology initiatives with organizational objectives, ensuring technical strategies drive business growth, operational efficiency, and long-term success.
Accountability & Transparency
I cultivate a culture of transparency, purpose, and ownership within teams by establishing clear roles, responsibilities, and measurable outcomes. My belief: Autonomy with Accountability.
Organizational Leadership
I lead large-scale global development organizations, managing all aspects of application development and delivery across multiple functions, business units, and product lines.
Strategic Vision
I define and articulate a strategic vision for application development and delivery, ensuring alignment with overarching business objectives while positioning the organization for sustainable growth.
Guiding Scalable, Impactful Solutions
I build and lead engineering organizations that deliver scalable, high-impact software. My role is to empower teams, remove obstacles, and align technology with business outcomes.
- Empower, Don't Micromanage
I hire great engineers and trust them to execute. My role is to provide context and direction, then get out of the way.
- One Team, One Mission
I eliminate distinctions between onshore, offshore, and contract talent. Everyone is a fully empowered team member, accountable for quality and impact.
- Technically Grounded Leadership
My deep technical background allows me to guide architectural decisions, challenge assumptions, and optimize for performance and scale. I still code - explore RJL.codes.
Engineering Velocity Metrics
High-performing teams are not just fast - they are measurably fast, with data that proves it. I implement DORA metrics and AI velocity tracking that give engineering leaders and business stakeholders a shared language for performance.
Elite teams deploy multiple times per day. I build the CI/CD and IDP infrastructure that makes high-frequency deployment safe and routine.
Time from commit to production. Elite teams achieve under one hour. I optimize the pipeline and remove the approval gates that create lead time drag.
Mean Time to Recovery from incidents. AI-assisted incident triage and automated rollback capabilities drive MTTR from hours to minutes.
Percentage of deployments causing incidents. AI-assisted PR review and automated testing drive change failure rates below 5% consistently.