RJ Beers
Director of Engineering at Netlify
I am an experienced manager of distributed teams with a history of leading platform development teams through architectural evolutions and continuous product delivery. I have been drawn to web development platforms, but am always expanding my reach to other areas.
At Netlify, I am the Director of Engineering for our Edge Runtime group. I am responsible for the happiness, productivity, and growth of a dozen developers that are distributed around the world. Together, we are responsible for serving over 100 billion web requests per month to sites created by our 2 million developer users.
What I love about Netlify:
- Netlify has industry leading diversity numbers. The different backgounds and experiences lead to diverse ideas which, combined with strong collaboration, results in great product development.
- At Netlify, ideas and execution come from anywhere. When I see problems, I'm empowered to propose and execute on solutions. I'm supported by the organization, and so are others.
Experience
Director of Engineering, Edge Runtime
Netlify
- Collaborate with peer directors to define, communicate, and rollout a scalable engineering organizational structure
- Hire and support multiple managers in order to continue scaling the engineering organization
- Define an engineering roadmap that delivers on company goals
January 2022 – Present
Senior Software Engineering Manager, Development Platform
Netlify
- Manage multiple development teams with over a dozen headcount
- Act as Frontend guild liasion to the management team for consistency and coordination
- Drive business proposals for additional scrum team and process improvements
June 2021 – December 2021
Software Engineering Manager, Runtime and Integrated Applications
Netlify
- Iteratively ship an innovative Content Delivery Network that evolves the Jamstack
- Increase the visibility into critical project timelines and status
- Collaborate with Product Management and senior leadership on vision and strategy
- Define recruiting practices for diverse and scalable hiring
January 2021 – May 2021
Senior Software Engineering Manager, Application Platform
Oracle
- Responsible for progressive planning and management of nine engineers
- Balance capacity and delivery of critical features across competing priorities
- Drive new innovative methods of software delivery
- Reduced implementation and setup costs by 50%
- Communicate evolving enterprise configuration engineering roadmap
June 2019 – January 2021
Software Engineering Manager, Web Platform
Oracle
- Responsible for progressive planning and scrum activities for six engineers
- Responsible for hiring and growing backend, web-focused engineers
- Deliver a NodeJS and React based SaaS web platform including a CI/CD pipeline, KoaJS based web server, and client facing configuration interface
- Directly contribute to a NodeJS, React, Chef, and Docker codebase
- Experienced as a remotely based manager with direct reports in the United States and Ukraine
- Organize monthly manager and technical lead gatherings for information and feedback sharing
October 2016 – May 2019
Implementation Engineering Manager, Web
Opower (acquired by Oracle)
- Managed a team of three engineers customizing a NodeJS and AngularJS based web platform
- Contributed heavily to cross functional team planning of web platform use cases and future roadmap
- Managed delivery of 6-10 concurrent website implementations and triaged escalated blockers
January 2016 – September 2016
Implementation Engineer 3
Opower (acquired by Oracle)
- Delivered customized AngularJS based web applications for clients backed by a NodeJS based server
- Designed many web site integrations, proposed to clients, and implemented with success using HTML/SCSS/JavaScript to seamlessly join multiple content providers into unified sites
- Internal and client facing subject matter expert on SAML based Single Sign On integrations
- Defined Beta and GA product operational requirements for Opower's newest web products and platform
April 2015 – January 2016
Implementation Engineer 2
Opower (acquired by Oracle)
- Led data acquisition efforts with third party IT teams, to create automated data feeds into enterprise data stores including MySQL and Hadoop
- Drove web product improvement through collaboration with agile product scrum teams
- Developed robust tooling while improving processes, increasing employee efficiency, and reducing error
- Specialized in international client implementations
April 2014 – April 2015
Senior Consultant
Booz Allen Hamilton
- Lead developer for a centralized enterprise authentication and authorization system
- Forked an open source (C based) project to fit a government agency’s needs, saving licensing costs
- Developed system enhancements and defect solutions using Java (JSP, EJB, Struts) and PL/SQL
- Successfully managed responsibilities and schedules with multiple concurrent projects and managers
- Primary author for new user story requirements and detailed design documentation
July 2013 – April 2014
Consultant
Booz Allen Hamilton
- Acted as lead Java developer and agile Scrum Master for an enterprise web application using Spring MVC, JSP, EJB, JavaScript (Ext JS), and SCSS
- Led testing efforts from unit testing through user acceptance testing with clients and 3rd party contractors
- Designed and developed over 150 XML based test files for a backend data validation service
June 2012 – June 2013
Education
Johns Hopkins University
M.S. in Information Systems Engineering (incomplete)
Relevant Courses: Big Data Processing Using Hadoop, Agile development with Ruby on Rails
GPA 4.00
September 2012 – May 2014
EC-Council
Certified Ethical Hacker
November 2012
The Pennsylvania State University – University Park
B.S. in Computer Science from the College of Engineering
August 2008 – May 2012
Skills
Programming Languages & Tools
Work Style
- Experience leading and growing distributed teams (AMER/EMEA)
- Comfortable communicating async through Slack messages, JIRA tickets, GitHub comments, Notion documents, etc.
- Appreciates inclusive Zoom etiquette
- Capable and comfortable playing many roles such as technical lead, scrum master, career manager, and product owner