About
Hi, I’m Cj.
I’m a VP of Engineering with more than fifteen years building the organizational and technical foundations high-growth companies need to scale, from the world’s largest retailer to seed-stage startups.
Echelon 9 is how I bring that experience to founders directly: as a fractional CTO, VP of Engineering, or trusted advisor when you need one.
What I actually do
My core principle is simple, and it has held up across every company I’ve worked in: build high-performing, motivated teams that enable your product counterpart to deliver the roadmap with speed and predictability. Get the culture, morale, and engagement right, and productivity follows.
I specialize in the messy, high-stakes moments: operational turnarounds, strategic pivots, and acquisitions. I’ve restructured organizations to turn engineering from a cost center into a strategic partner, built fully-costed scaling models alongside Finance and People, and led platform work that held up under real load and real audits.
“I repeatedly build high-performing, motivated teams, and I believe it’s my job to build them for my product counterpart, so they can deliver against the roadmap.”
I came up through site reliability and infrastructure, so I care a great deal about the unglamorous things that decide whether a company can scale: developer productivity, cost discipline, and systems that are available, reliable, maintainable, observable, and scalable. But the real work is always people. Tools change; good leadership doesn’t.
Where I’ve done the work
Productiv
VP of Engineering
Executed a global restructure that generated $350K in annualized savings, drove a 60% reduction in cloud spend saving $1M a year, built AI and Infrastructure functions from the ground up, and partnered with Finance and People to make engineering a predictable, de-risked business partner.
Scoop · acquired by Spacer Technologies
Head of Engineering, Security & IT
Led software, mobile, and platform engineering for a global commute platform powering 10M+ trips for partners like Microsoft and Amazon. Scaled velocity 40%, passed multiple SOC2, GDPR, and CCPA audits with zero exceptions, and oversaw the engineering transition to Spacer Technologies through the acquisition.
Cruise Automation
Manager, DevOps / SRE / Data Centers
Grew the team 60% through a hyper-growth phase while leading capacity planning, business continuity, and a re-architecture of observability.
Splunk
Sr. Engineering Manager, Cloud SRE & NOC
Ran Splunk Cloud SRE on a 24/7 follow-the-sun model and stood up a Network Operations Center that gave the SRE team back 30% of its week.
Walmart eCommerce
Engineering Manager
Promoted through three leadership tiers to run technical operations for six eCommerce sites across four countries, driving $2M in annualized vendor savings and leading the move to a new cloud and SOA platform.
Asda · Wrong Speed
Where it started
Service management and infrastructure at Asda in the UK, after co-founding Wrong Speed. The grounding in keeping real systems running that still shapes how I lead.
Beyond the work
I’m originally from the UK and now based in Fairfax, California. I have three kids; all three are swimmers, which means a lot of early mornings poolside, good practice for the calm-under-pressure thing.
When I’m not leading engineering teams, I write these field notes on leadership, and Sip & Stir Chronicles, where I create and write about cocktails. I’m a big believer that small gestures and a sense of fun are leadership tools, not distractions from them.
- Based inFairfax, California
- FromUnited Kingdom
- EducationBSc Computer Science, Open University
- FocusPeople, process, and execution
- Also writesSip & Stir Chronicles
- FamilyMarried, three kids
Let’s talk about where you’re headed.
Tell me what you’re building and where it hurts. A short conversation is the best place to start.
Currently taking a limited number of new clients.