About me

I’ve been an engineering leader since 2017, with a background in psychology, project management, website management and software engineering. While initially a “hands-on” manager, I’ve found myself to be most effective leveling up teams and managers rather than directly contributing to the codebase. While I’ve worked with a variety of teams, I find myself most satisfied working with critical, technically complex, backend teams. I’m currently a Director of Engineering at CircleCI, overseeing the On-Prem, Pipelines, and Data Reliability teams.

A few topics I’m super passionate about (and will likely write about at some point):

  • Diversity in engineering and engineering leadership

  • Inclusive hiring practices

  • Avoiding burnout

  • Using Scrum practices for good, and adapting them to meet the needs of the team

  • Transparency and clear communication

Fun facts

At CircleCI, introducing yourself to a group of people typically involves sharing a “fun fact” about yourself. Here are some of mine:

  • In 2011, I went from being unable to run a mile to running a full marathon (slowly) in 10 months, for charity.

  • I am a Girl Scout troop leader, and currently lead a troop of 18 fourth graders. I’d never been a Girl Scout, and had never gone camping before becoming a leader.

  • I built my first website at the age of 14 on Geocities, eventually writing all of my HTML and CSS from scratch in a text box. I learned the importance of backing up your data when my site was shut down by Yahoo several years later, due to excessive use of bandwidth. I was sharing .wav files from Sailor Moon.

  • I once lied about my age to be a featured Yahoo Expert on the topic of “the internet.” It mostly involved telling people how to clear their cookies.

  • In 2006, I was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal about my experience with “Wii elbow” and how my fiancé accidentally hit me and our dog with his Wiimote. The internet laughed. I still married him.

  • I used to have a blog about extreme couponing.

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