Innovative technology leader with 20+ years of experience driving digital transformation, building scalable commerce and enterprise platforms while leading high-performance engineering teams. My expertise spans artificial intelligence, full-stack development, cloud infrastructure, and enterprise architecture, with a proven track record of delivering cutting-edge solutions that enhance user experiences and drive business growth.

I have led cross-functional teams in both startup and enterprise environments, focusing on cloud migration, ERP systems, and microservices architecture. As a leader, I believe in leading by example and mentoring teams to reach their full potential. I am passionate about leveraging technology to solve complex challenges and creating high-impact digital products.

Let’s connect if you’re looking for a forward-thinking, results-driven leader who can transform digital platforms and foster innovation across engineering teams.

I’m doing my personal annual review right now.
Not just my performance review.
A full personal review.

Because if you only review your year at work… 
you’re letting everything else drift.

This is something I learned from one of my oldest friends Grant Zaccaria.
He and his wife sit down every year to review the past year and plan the next year together.
That detail matters, because it’s not just goal setting, it’s alignment.

Business, relationships, health, parenting, money, identity, habits, energy.
All of it compounds, whether you track it or not.

This week I’m doing both my own review and my team reviews.
And it’s making one thing obvious: gratitude is a strategy.

I’m genuinely thankful for my team. For the work they carried, the problems they solved, the fires they put out, and the patience they had when things got messy. A lot of wins don’t happen without people doing unglamorous work consistently.

Here’s the simplest structure I’ve found:
- What worked (and why did it work?)
- What didn’t work (and what was I avoiding?)
- What did I spend time on that didn’t move anything forward?
- What do I want more of next year (specifically)?
- What needs to change immediately (not someday)?

The hardest part is being honest about the trade-offs.
The most valuable part is deciding what you’re going to stop doing.
If you don’t choose your priorities, your calendar will choose them for you.

Do you do a yearly review, personally and professionally, or do you just roll into the next year and hope it’s better?

Nick Woodhead

Founder @ TranslateTech | CTO | Full Stack Engineer | Helping people make better decisions about complex technology

Some of the smartest engineers I know, struggle to explain the simplest things.

Including myself still...

There’s a name for it: the Curse of Knowledge.

When you’ve lived inside a system for months, what feels obvious to you is invisible to everyone else. You assume people are a step behind, when they’re actually ten steps behind.

So when someone asks, “How does this work?” we either freeze…
or we dive seven layers deep into the architecture.

Here’s the fix:
- Start from their context, not yours.
- Use a metaphor before a diagram.
- Ask: “Which part matters most to you?” Then explain that part first.

Because leadership isn’t about knowing more. 
It’s about translating better.

That’s how you Translate Geek2Speak. Follow me for more.

#TranslateTech #Geek2Speak #EngineeringLeadership #TechnicalCommunication #LeadershipCommunication #TechLeadership #CrossFunctional #CareerGrowth

As I wrap up my annual personal review for 2025 (see yesterdays post in the comments) and cement in plans for 2026 I wanted to share some of the things I took from last year.

Your life doesn’t change when you learn a new tactic.
It changes when you choose an identity.

At some point in 2025 I listened to a behavioral expert explain why people join cults, change careers, stick to habits, or break them and this one line continues to stick with me:
"If I can get you to make one public agreement about the kind of person you are, I’ve already changed your behavior."

Most of my real breakthroughs, in leadership, marriage, health, and how I think, didn’t come from better strategies. They came from choosing who I was willing to be, so this is what I'm taking into 2026 with me again.

 “I’m the kind of leader who simplifies.”
 “I’m the kind of father who creates memorable, not perfect, moments.”
 “I’m the kind of husband who shows up with honesty and calm.”
 “I’m the kind of engineer who communicates clearly.”
 “I’m the kind of founder who finishes what he starts.”

Last year, once I opened up publicly through my content and Translate Tech videos, my behavior had to follow.

Your brain hates cognitive dissonance.
Declare who you are, and it will push you to act accordingly.

The only constant in life is change.
The best leaders don’t resist it. 
They navigate it by staying rooted in their chosen identity.

What do you stand for?
What do you care about?
What will you no longer tolerate?

When everything moves fast, inner clarity becomes your anchor and, over time, your greatest advantage. You can’t stop change. But when you know who you’ve chosen to be, you can adapt with intention and lead through uncertainty.

Three of the questions I considered during my review yesterday:
 - Who am I beneath my title?
 - What actually matters to me?
 - What kind of impact do I want to make?

Change is inevitable.
But when your choices come from values instead of noise, you don’t just survive it, you shape it.

So here’s the question I’m still sitting with today:
What identity am I willing to claim next?
And what behavior will naturally follow?

#TranslateTech #Leadership #Identity #Communication #Behavior #LifeChangeJourney

What if the way I organize my time 
is optimized for an individual contributor… 
not a leader?

My calendar is full of tasks.
Deep work blocks.
Execution time.
Things I can finish and check off.
That’s a great setup for an IC.

But leadership isn’t about completing more work myself.
It’s about creating clarity, making decisions, removing friction, 
and building leverage through other people.

The uncomfortable realization that took me a while to see:
My schedule can look productive while my impact stayed capped.

So I encourage you to test different question before you say yes to anything:
Does this create leverage or just output?
Is this a decision, a system, or a task?
If I do it myself, what am I teaching the team?

If you’re moving from "doer" to "leader", the shift isn’t working harder.
It’s rebuilding your time around leverage, not tasks.

#Leadership #TimeManagement #DecisionMaking #Leverage #EngineeringLeadership

Mentorship is one of the highest-leverage investments we underuse.

Talent doesn’t grow in isolation.
It grows faster when paired with people who’ve already navigated the decisions, trade-offs, and mistakes that don’t show up in books or tutorials.

Mentorship isn’t about telling people what to do.
It’s about transferring judgment.
That’s why I started the Pay It Forward Mentor Campaign.

No program.
No pitch.
No personal branding play.
Just experienced people helping those coming up behind them.

If you’re further along, this is a low-cost way to compound impact.
Mentorship is also a high-return investment for you: staying close to new ideas and trends, practicing leadership, and getting the kind of "this mattered" feeling that doesn’t come from metrics.

If you’re earlier in your career, this is permission to ask.

If it helps even one person, it’s working.

👉 Full context here:
https://lnkd.in/g8igSrGr

#Mentorship #Leadership #Tech

Earlier this week, I shared a Speak2Geek video on how leaders should give more specific feedback than just "nice job".
This video is the flip side, for tech teams.

Because when a business leader says "nice job", 
that’s not the end of the conversation.
It’s actually your cue.

"Nice job" feels good, but it keeps your impact invisible.
So instead of just saying "thanks", translate it.

You can and should ask for clarity:

"Thanks, I appreciate that, AND 
I’d love to understand what stood out so I can repeat it next time".

Or, if they stay vague, help them see the value:

"I think the biggest impact was simplifying the checkout flow. It reduced customer drop-off and made the release easier to support".

That’s not bragging.
That’s making impact visible.
If you want your work recognized, don’t just share what you did.
Explain what changed because of it.

That’s how effort turns into trust and trust turns into influence.
That’s how you Translate Geek2Speak.

#TranslateTech #Geek2Speak #TechLeadership #EngineeringLeadership #CareerGrowth #ProfessionalCommunication #DeveloperExperience #HighPerformingTeams

Budget cuts don’t just cut spend.
They spike threat.
And when a team feels threatened, you get cognitive dissonance:

Leaders say “focus shift.” 
Engineers hear “risk and uncertainty.”

So here’s the framework I use to keep trust intact during budget cuts:
Why. Change. Protect. Decide.

Why: say the truth without oversharing.
Change: cut redundancy first, not outcomes (give a real example).
Protect: name what stays funded (reliability, security, revenue workflows).
Decide: publish simple rules so it doesn’t feel arbitrary.

Then make it a partnership:
“Bring me the top 3 cuts you’d make to reduce cost without increasing risk.”

If you’re a leader navigating constraints right now, this structure lowers panic and raises clarity.

#TranslateTech #Speak2Geek #EngineeringLeadership #LeadershipCommunication #TechLeadership #EngineeringManagement #ChangeManagement #OrgTrust #Productivity #Management

An interesting experiment you can replicate...

Over the last year, I’ve been building memory-driven agent systems. Part of my research has been how to improve today’s "AI memory" so it can form an implicit user model over time from conversational traces, preference signals, and repeated behavioral patterns.

I ran a test you can replicate to level up your self-reflection.

I keep daily journals on:
Life and identity, business strategy and product ideas, leadership lessons, content ideas and frameworks, decisions I’m avoiding (and why).

As part of what I’m building, I’ve been feeding a private GPT model those patterns as a bigger experiment in self-reflection and alignment.

The question I wanted to test (and the part you can copy):
Do other people see me the way I see me?

** Quick disclaimer: This works best if you’ve given a model lots of context over time (memory on, or a long history of chats, *data not shared/use to train*). I ran this using my own private model, but you can still try it with ChatGPT or whatever model you use. I’m not advocating "AI knows you". I’m testing whether a model can summarize patterns when the data is user-provided and user-controlled.

The experiment:
Ask your model to answer "identity leverage" questions about you.
Not fluffy personality stuff. Strategic stuff:
Where should I focus?
What’s my real advantage?
What am I overinvesting in?
Then compare its answers to how you describe yourself in your own head.

Here’s the prompt (copy/paste)
************
Based on what you know about me from our conversations (and my patterns, not just my stated goals), answer:
If I had to pick one narrow niche to own for the next 2 years, what should it be and why?
What is my strongest unfair advantage (skill, experience, network, story, obsession)?
What do I consistently overvalue, and what do I undervalue?
Who is my ideal customer, specifically (job title, pain point, budget, buying trigger)?
What problem am I most clearly positioned to solve right now?
What is the 20% of actions that would drive 80% of results for me in the next 90 days?
What should I stop doing immediately because it’s high effort, low leverage?
If I hired contractors for everything except my core skill, what should I personally keep?
What leverage am I not using enough (capital, code, media, distribution, partnerships)?
************

The interesting part isn’t whether AI is smart or has sufficient memory capabilities currently.
It’s what the mismatch reveals.

After you read the output, ask yourself:
- Is the model wrong, missing context, or hallucinating?
- Is it reflecting the version of me I’ve been performing?
- Did I feed it the truth… or my coping strategies?
- Am I holding back the real goal because it would force a real decision?
- If the answer feels uncomfortable, what identity is it threatening?

If you try it: did the output feel like a mirror… or a stranger?
Let me know in the comments or just tell me what surprised you.

A quick note for anyone earlier in their career who’s been following this.

I’ve noticed something interesting with the Pay It Forward Mentor Campaign.

A lot of experienced people have reached out privately to offer help.
Very few people have publicly said they need it.

That’s not surprising.
Asking for help can feel risky.
It can feel like admitting you’re behind, unclear, or stuck.

Here’s the truth:
 Needing perspective is not a weakness. It’s a professional skill.
You don’t need the “perfect” question.
 You don’t need to be struggling.
 You don’t need permission.

If you’re unsure what to ask, start with context:
what you’re building
where you feel stuck
what decision you’re facing

That’s enough.
If you’re more comfortable reaching out privately, DMs are open.
Quiet conversations count just as much as public ones.

This initiative only works if people feel safe entering it.
If that’s you, this is your invitation.

I used to think "sales underperformance" meant we needed better coaching.

Then I sat in a forecast review that changed it for me.
We had a team full of good people. Smart. Hungry. Working hard.
And the numbers still looked… stuck.

So we did what most orgs do.
More enablement. More call reviews. More trainings. 
More "everyone gets equal attention".

But when I pulled the revenue apart, the pattern was almost embarrassingly consistent.
- It wasn't people being lazy.
- It was because processes were mis-allocating time, accounts, and incentives.

Time was being spent on the wrong accounts.
Incentives were rewarding the wrong behavior.
The best people were treated like "high performers" instead of the system’s growth engine.

That was a moment I stopped believing in "coach everyone equally".

Now, if I’m trying to fix the system, I start here:
- Protect your top performers like you would protect your core customers
- Pay them to multiply, not just produce
- Reward them on trainee outcomes
- Align incentives to profitable products and profitable accounts
- Move projects to the best owners, even if the org chart gets weird

If your structure rewards the wrong behavior, coaching doesn’t fix it.
You just get better at the wrong game.

Next week I’m pitching a big AI investment to a board.
My message is simple:

I understand your business, your constraints, 
and how your customers actually buy.
AI won’t fix an unfocused sales system.
It will amplify it.
If your structure rewards the wrong behavior,
AI will help you do the wrong thing faster.

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