Okta

Leading the Developer Velocity project (#1 engineering initiative) to break down our monolith to improve speed for all developers. I also formed and now lead an architecture committee comprised of chief and principal architects, allowing us to promote long term technical excellence and decision making for the organization.

Engineering Principal Technical Program Manager

Edgio

Completed the merger of Yahoo + Limelight to form Edgio which now serves nearly 20% of the world's internet traffic.

Manager, Technical Program Management, CTO Org

Yahoo

Managed, mentored, and led a team of 10 Technical Project Managers. Orchestrated company wide planning events for 22 teams and 142+ engineering/product people across multiple locations and time zones.

Manager, Strategic Programs, Technical Program Management

Built out the global platform at scale and reduced business exposure to disaster scenarios within Yahoo Edgecast. I additionally built and led the innovation labs arm within the company from the ground up, producing unique forward looking projects that have earned patents.

Senior Technical Program Manager, Strategic Programs

Verizon Media

TechOps agile focused role where I led a team of 4 Technical Project Managers within the PMO. My team and I successfully completed agile transformations in operations.

Manager, Technical Project Management Office

Managed the strategic partner and infrastructure program around the world, building infrastructure at the edge of the internet in new and emerging markets.

Sr. Technical Project Manager

Planed and built datacenter infrastructure at the edge of the internet in major cities and markets across the globe to increase performance for end users “eyeballs” of the internet—from streaming video, images, applications, credit card transactions, and more.

Technical Project Manager

Southern California Edison (SCE)

A mix of engineering and project management: I was responsible for executing high voltage multi-million dollar substation projects that provide power for northern LA, eastern LA, and southern Orange counties. Worked with teams of 15-50 stakeholders regularly to complete engineering on 90+ substation projects to date. Work impacted millions of customers within the region. Fun fact: I had a big part in the effort to restore nationwide grid stability after San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station was shut down.

Project Engineer

I write about program management in an effort to challenge what we know about it. My goal is for you to make a bigger impact as a program and project leader. I write a newsletter that breaks down program tactics that you can use (link in bio).

Note: My direct message response time is slow on LinkedIn. Please email me for a faster response.

My work experience (the regular LinkedIn stuff):
12 years of leading infrastructure and software projects at scale. 3 years leading direct reports with the last team being 10 people. I lead organizational process creation, strategic programs, and implementation of right-sized agile frameworks appropriate for the organization's use case (agile as a tool, not a dogma).

Matt McDannel

TPM, Reality Labs - Metaverse Hardware Engineering and Operational Excellence

Stripe

• Helped launch automated revenue share for platforms. GA onboarded 25 platform customers worth $3B annually. Managed over 75 product and payment method integration projects like this.
• Drove projects fully remote using Jira, Confluence, Google Workspace, Slack, Zoom, and Github. System architectures include Kafka, Hadoop, Spark, MongoDB, MySQL, OracleDB, and Presto.

TPM, Monetization

Amazon

• Amazon Digital Goods: Onboarded Prime Gaming, Luna, and Amazon Game Studios, and Amazon Kids to our digital catalogs, ordering, transactions, and accounting. 
• Astro: Helped team of 9 Quality Assurance Analysts (QAAs) clear 10-month-long work intake and bug report backlogs, transition to a process-driven agile workflow, and exceed annual KPIs.

Sr. TPM, Devices and Monetization

Raytheon Technologies

• Rstar Award for TL and PM roles in migrating our business unit to Atlassian for its clearance and project management tools, which improved throughput by 11x for over 5,000 employees. 
• Systems engineering bidder and coordinator for 2 winning program proposals.

Senior Principal Systems Engineer

Space Exploration Technologies

• Kick-Ass Award recipient (<1% of company) for “superior contribution, personal commitment, ‘get it done’ mindset, and exceptional accomplishments contributing to EELV and NASA Certifications” for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles. 
• Partnered with cross-functional internal and external teams to protect engineering culture while meeting Space Force and NASA standards for reliability and mission assurance.
• Built collaborative tools in Excel, Jira, Confluence, SQL, Python, and PowerShell that integrated with proprietary ERP system to track status of over 2,500 deliverables and 30 avionics R&D projects.
• Supervised systems engineers with emphasis on performance management and improvement.
• Led the Avionics department through successful OIG and AS9100D audits.

TPM, Certification for Avionics Systems

Self

Actually 2013-2022. Changed date to change order in profile.
• Technical project manager at Pinterest (2022): led ads infrastructure org's launch preparation and incident management functions while improving operations processes and documentation.
• Consulting engineer at Second Order Effects (2018-2020): performed reliability, systems, and quality engineering for lunar lander and medical device projects resulting in follow-on contracts for the firm.
• Program, mission, and engineering manager at Terran Orbital (2018): managed 4 concurrent customer programs and led deliveries resulting in $3M in payments and a successful launch; managed cross-discipline team; created processes for purchasing, quality, reliability, and testing.
• Director of project management at Novasignal (2018): developed project and portfolio management, agile, engineering, and testing processes, resulting in a successful FDA submission and new government contract.
• Strategic engagement manager at Schott Primoceler (2014): Led a 5-person team to analyze startup's business environment and create a detailed US market entry strategy, research book, and pitch deck, leading to an acquisition by a vertical partner.
• App developer, pitcher, and finalist at Microsoft Developer's Context (2013): Co-built a working Android app offering live human-based translation services using JS, JSON, and Twilio.

TPM, Engineering, & Program Management Consultant

Medtronic

Top Technical Contributor (<1% of company) for engineering and project leadership.

New diabetes management hardware/software system, 2014
• As electronics core team lead and technical project manager, I owned the electronics function, managed a remote team of 5 engineers for design and testing, and coordinated with R&D, Marketing, Finance, Operations, and Program Management

Mass-market, value-segment medical device, 2014
• As sole electrical engineer, collaborated with R&D and Marketing to produce proof-of-concept prototype, BOM, and specs in 3 weeks, which re-imagined an existing design for a new $5B market and 30 million potential customers by reducing 80% of its cost while retaining 80% of its functionality
• Helped Program Management and R&D understand and mitigate technical risks, prioritize mitigation efforts, and stay on schedule 
• Managed NDA contracts with supplier candidates
• Designed focus group questionnaire and attended focus groups with potential customers

Wireless controller and development platform, 2013-2014
• As electronics lead, helped a small cross-functional R&D and Marketing team with no official resources implement agile practices to reduce design time by 50%, moving from concept to working prototype in 3 months 

Mobile insulin pump system, 2007-2013
• As an electrical engineer and project manager, earned a Top Technical Contributor award for work spanning system design to product launch
• Managed testing to meet IEC standards and UL and CE certifications; determined scope of work, wrote test plans and trace documents, scheduled and ran tests, and wrote reports for FDA submissions
• Organized and ran design reviews and reported changes to stakeholders
• Managed manufacturing with Chinese CM remotely and in-person, increasing yield from 80% to 97% with failure analysis and process improvement 
• Persuaded Program Management to change system architecture resulting in better customer experience, lower risk, and potential 40% cost reduction

Sr. Electronic Design Engineer and Electronics Project Lead

Cubic Defense Applications

• Translated product requirements into system specifications to exceed technical, schedule and cost objectives while upholding rigorous industry standards
• Cut costs by streamlining assembly, procurement and rework processes
• Partnered with diverse cross-functional teams on 11 simultaneous projects to support manufacturing, quality control, testing, inspection and deployment of cutting-edge communications systems
• Mediated and resolved vendor and customer issues, cultivating long term supplier partnerships

Associate Process Engineer

General Atomics Electronic Systems, Inc.

• Led team of 5 interns in creating and validating an 80,000-component eCAD database.
• Designed circuits and ran tests for radiation detectors.

Electrical Engineering Intern

UCSD School of Medicine

Senior design project.
• Designed a streaming video device (pre-smartphone era) to perform remote doctor visits for tuberculosis patients.
• Analyzed technology, generated specifications and selected components to meet system requirements.
• Held team meetings, set milestones and presented written and verbal briefings to mentors and professors.
• Recognized at UCSD poster sessions, conferences and Jacobs School of Engineering article.

UCSD BSEE, spent the 1st half of my career building stuff as an engineer (electrical, manufacturing, and systems).
UCLA MBA, spent the 2nd half of my career helping people build stuff as a technical leader (TPM, EM, TL).
Been chasing the high of SpaceX for the last 5 years, and finally found it at Meta Reality Labs helping teams build the next generation of the internet: the metaverse.
Husband to a great woman, dad to 2 great kids, officemate to 2 great cats.

taplio

The Battle

Matt McDannel

James Biskey

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?