About Me
I'm a technology leader and entrepreneur based in Chicago. I grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs, studied Computer Science at Marist College, and promptly moved to New York City to pursue the most stable career path I could find: improv comedy.
A half decade and a few thousand dollars of classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre later, it was clear that an SNL audition was not in my future. Still, those years gave me a creative toolkit I continue to pull from as an engineering leader. As fate would have it, a CS degree proved to be a reliable Plan B.
Through some combination of dumb luck and hard work, I've built and exited a startup, scaled engineering teams, and learned that the skills that make you a good improviser—listening, adapting, building on others' ideas—translate surprisingly well to building software and leading people.
Today I live in Chicago with my family. When I'm not working, you can find me following Philadelphia sports with the measured calm and quiet dignity that all Eagles fans are known for.
My Journey
I didn't set out to become an engineering leader. I was 24 and a comedy nerd who, through some dumb luck, found myself responsible for a funny t-shirt site doing $8M in revenue. Time after time, I was the one expected to "figure it out"—whether that was Apache Server configurations, AWS infrastructure, ImageMagick, Black Friday traffic, hiring a team, or implementing engineering processes.
With the good fortune to work alongside excellent owners and operators, that dumb luck became a real foundation. The experience carried through to scaling the organization, navigating an acquisition, and continuing to grow. I've been lucky to have colleagues and teams that challenged my assumptions and pushed our collective success forward.
I've been wrong a lot. But in being wrong, I've increased the odds ever so slightly that I'll be right the next time around.
My Philosophy
Improv taught me that the best scenes come from listening and building on what your scene partner gives you. Engineering leadership isn't that different. The "Yes, And" principle—accepting what's offered and adding to it—turns out to be a surprisingly effective framework for problem-solving, team dynamics, and building products.
Great engineering is about people before technology. The ability to translate between technical and non-technical stakeholders, to make the complex feel simple, to know when to dive deep and when to zoom out—these are the skills that separate good engineers from leaders. I spent years learning to read a room and find the game in an improv scene. Those instincts serve me every day in meetings, architecture discussions, and figuring out what a team actually needs versus what they're asking for.
And like any good improv set, sometimes you just have to commit and trust you'll pack the parachute on the way down. That's true for startups, for technical bets, and for careers. You can't plan your way to interesting.