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 3r​d ​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