There’s a famous, unattributed quote that says, “Leaders instill in their people a hope for success and a belief in themselves. Positive leaders empower people to accomplish their goals.”
Comparably’s Best Engineering Leaders 2019 prove that to be true. These are 25 of the most inspiring department leaders in the country. Each of them heads up one of the engineering departments that recently won one of Comparably’s Best Engineering Departments 2019 awards. We wanted to tip our hat and mention them all by name, as truly inspiring leaders are hard to find, and these CTOs and VPs of Engineering run the departments that their employees voted as the nation’s best.
Shak Patel – Co-founder & Head of Engineering at AgileCraft (acquired by Atlassian)
Bio: Shak Patel is Co-Founder and Development Lead of AgileCraft, LLC. Mr. Patel is a results-oriented leader with 10 years of experience in building top-performing products. He has deep experience in developing Web applications, Web services and client/server applications. He has many years of experience working on Agile teams and building products to help facilitate rapid Agile adoption.
From AgileCraft Engineering employees: “I moved along with my family half way across the country to be in headquarters with this executive team. This is how much I respect them and want to be a part of the daily interaction with this team.”
See AgileCraft’s award-winning engineering scores
Werner Vogels – CTO & VP at Amazon
Bio: Werner Vogels is the Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Amazon.com in Seattle, Washington. In charge of driving technology innovation within the company, Vogels has broad internal and external responsibilities. He joined Amazon in September of 2004 as the Director of Systems Research. He was named Chief Technology Officer in January of 2005 and Vice President, World-wide Architecture in March of that year. Vogels received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
From Amazon Engineering employees: “The leadership principles are not just words on the wall – we live them every day.”
See Amazon’s award-winning engineering scores
Kunal Verma – Co-Founder & CTO at AppZen
Bio: Kunal Verma is an entrepreneur and a technology executive, and is currently the CTO of AppZen. Before founding AppZen, Verma worked at Accenture Technology Labs, where he led several global teams to develop tools that leverage AI technologies. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science with a focus on Semantic Technologies and Artificial Intelligence.
From AppZen Engineering employees: “Doing an awesome job, creating a large number of sales. In addition, leadership are creating an excellent work environment, and working hard to maintain the already excellent close-knit environment.”
See Appzen’s award-winning engineering scores
Jay Reitz – SVP of Software, Services, and Security at Axon
Bio: Jay Reitz’ career includes 10+ years of experience in startup and mature environments as a co-founder of HubPages.com and a development manager with Microsoft Corporation. His knowledge of emerging technologies and ability to optimize the performance and capabilities of products and related systems, tools, and infrastructure has been a driving factor for success and expansion. Reitz held a central role in the development and launch of HubPages.com, an online space for user-generated content, publishing, and sharing.
From Axon Engineering employees: “What I like best about the leadership team is being respected and valued as a key contributor to the success of the company.”
See Axon’s award-winning engineering scores
Elias Torres – Founder & CTO at Drift
Bio: Elias Torres is CTO and co-founder of Drift, a conversational marketing and sales platform. Torres is a serial entrepreneur and community activist passionate about supporting LatinX entrepreneurs across the U.S. He previously served as VP of engineering at HubSpot.
From Drift Engineering employees: “Never met more humble yet fiercely intelligent leadership. Always adapting to new situations and helping steer the course of the company in the right direction.”
See Drift’s award-winning engineering scores
Michael Khait – CTO at EdCast
Bio: Michael Khait is CTO as well as VP of Engineering for EdCast. Michael has spent the last 20 years helping large and small companies to reach their full potential in technology. Prior to EdCast, Michael was the Founder of Turbo.ai as well as Vice President of Engineering for GetGoing, Inc. and a Sr. Software Engineer for eBay, Inc.
From EdCast Engineering employees: “Leadership team is the best I have ever worked in my past 10 years in tech industry. Visionary, cooperative, very experienced and easy to work with.”
See EdCast’s award-winning engineering scores
Matt Madrigal – CTO at Fanatics
Bio: Matt Madrigal is the Chief Technology and Product Officer at Fanatics. His specialties include eCommerce product development, in-house Internet Marketing & Advertising system development, closed-loop dataoptimization, SEM, SEO, Affiliate marketing, and graphical advertising. He holds a degree from the University of California at Berkeley.
From Fanatics Engineering employees: “Leadership is always working for the overall improvement of the team and the employees who work here.”
See Fanatics’ award-winning engineering scores
Guibert Englebienne – CTO at Globant
Bio: Guibert is one of the 4 founders of Globant and its current CTO. His strong focus on technology, innovation, and creativity allowed Globant to become an expert in next-generation practices, such as Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, IoT, UX, Cloud and more, while at the same time allowing the construction of a culture based on innovation. Guibert is passionate about the digital and cognitive transformation of companies. He developed and launched a social operating system for organizations of the future, called StarMeUp OS.
Guibert is president of Endeavor Argentina, co-founder of the Llao Llao Forum and Member of the Argentina 2030 Council. He was included in the Powerful 25 list of Globalization Today, a recognition that positions him as one of the most influential leaders in the industry, and he is a frequent speaker on innovation topics at several events around the world.
From Globant Engineering employees: “Leadership allows for great autonomy while providing great guidance, framework and consistency for day to day chores.”
See Globant’s award-winning engineering scores
Bio: Benjamin Fried is the CIO at Google. Prior to Google, Fried was a managing director at Morgan Stanley’s Application Infrastructure group. In his most recent work at Morgan Stanley, Fried ran a wide swath of essential technology operations that are part of the Application Infrastructure group. Before joining Morgan Stanley, he did some work for Heuristicrats Research, helping to design Decision-Theoretic Scheduler technology.
From Google Engineering employees: “The leadership is accessible, empathetic, transparent, accountable, and intelligent.”
See Google’s award-winning engineering scores
Michael Boufford – CTO at Greenhouse Software, Inc.
Bio: Michael Boufford serves as the CTO of Greenhouse Software. Michael started at Greenhouse Software in May of 2012. Michael currently resides in the Greater New York City Area. Prior to his work with Greenhouse, Boufford served in advisory positions for BentoBox and Jumprope. He holds a Master of Science in Computer Engineering from the University of Oxford.
From Greenhouse Software Engineering employees: “Lots of people talk about transparency, but they’re actually transparent – giving time to the company wide for questions but also setting aside time for smaller team settings.”
See Greenhouse Software’s award-winning engineering scores
Dharmesh Shah – CTO & Co-founder at HubSpot
Bio: Dharmesh Shah is co-founder and CTO of HubSpot. Prior to founding HubSpot in 2006, Dharmesh was founder and CEO of Pyramid Digital Solutions, which was acquired by SunGard Data Systems in 2005. Dharmesh holds a BS in Computer Science from UAB and an MS in the Management of Technology from MIT.
From HubSpot Engineering employees: “Leadership is committed to company culture and retaining good employees, not just the bottom line.”
See Hubspot’s award-winning engineering scores
Amol Kher – VP Engineering at Life360
Bio: Prior to Life360, Kher was the CTO of Wello, a fitness startup (incubated at RockHealth) that was acquired by WeightWatchers in 2014. Before taking the leap to a startup, he worked at Netflix in the mobile team on Android, iOS and AppleTV products and helped them scale internationally. Kher was on the founding team at Google in the Chrome on Mobile team. Before that for several years he worked at Microsoft in different product teams.
From Life360 Engineering employees: “Leadership takes time to listen and work through any challenges that come up. They give you the freedom to have a big impact on the projects you’re involved with.”
See Life360’s award-winning engineering scores
Christine Spang – CTO at Nylas
Bio: Christine Spang started working on free software via the Debian project when she was 15. She previously worked as Principal Developer at Oracle and as a Software Engineer at Ksplice. Spang holds a BS in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
From Nylas Engineering employees: “The leadership team leads by example and makes sure to be on the same page about company goals and direction, and to lead with the same voice.”
See Nylas’ award-winning engineering scores
Erik Troan – CTO/Founder at Pendo
Bio: Troan was the first engineer at Red Hat who built and led the engineering team through the IPO. He later led product marketing at Red Hat before founding rPath, a venture backed company which created the virtual appliance concept and developed automation technology around virtual machine deployment and management.
From Pendo Engineering employees: “Transparent and always trying to do the right thing. Approachable. Smart, engaging, and driven.”
See Pendo’s award-winning engineering scores
Sergei Anikin – CTO at Pipedrive
Bio: As VP of Engineering at Pipedrive, Sergei Anikin is responsible for managing Pipedrive development and infrastructure departments. Prior to Pipedrive, Sergei worked at Skype for over 7 years, filling the roles of Billing Architect and Team Lead. Sergei’s career began at Hansabank where he started as an Internet Bank developer and moved his way up to become the manager of the development team.
From Pipedrive Engineering employees: “The leadership team is extremely transparent giving a monthly report about decisions and progress. In addition they publicly answer any available questions including some anonymously asked. Constantly the feedback is taken into an account as much as possible.”
See Pipedrive’s award-winning engineering scores
Pawan Nachnani – CTO at Salesforce
Bio: Pawan Nachnani serves as the Chief Technology Officer, Data.com of Salesforce. Pawan started at Salesforce in July of 2009. Pawan currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area. Prior to Salesforce, Nachnani served as CTO and Founder of Agile Catalyst. Nachnani holds a BE in Computer Science from Pune University.
From Salesforce Engineering employees: “They care. They really, really do. Corporatism being used for the common good.”
See Salesforce’s award-winning engineering scores
Craig Kaes – SVP of Engineering at SendGrid
Bio: Craig joined SendGrid in early 2015 from Cisco where as the Senior Engineering Director, he most recently grew the organization from a small co-located startup to a team of 150 distributed engineers. In his 7 years at Cisco, Craig held multiple Senior Engineering roles across Mobility, Platform, and Messaging. Prior to its acquisition by Cisco, Craig successfully grew from Technical Lead to VP of Engineering for Jabber.
From SendGrid Engineering employees: “The leadership team is incredibly accessible and humble. It makes for a great place to work.”
See SendGrid’s award-winning engineering scores
David Berk – CTO at Shipt
Bio: David Berk is a technology executive with over 15 years of experience in fast-paced, high-growth businesses. Prior to his role at Shipt he was a Sr. Engineering Manager for Apple and the Vice President of Operations for Topsy Labs. He holds an MBA from the Columbia University Business School.
From Shipt Engineering employees: “The leadership team does a fantastic job of balancing vision for the future with immediate needs and never falls prey to the sunken-cost fallacy.”
See Shipt’s award-winning engineering scores
Vivek Subramanian – VP of Product & Engineering at Sonder
Bio: Subramanian is a proven entrepreneurial executive with diverse experience across B2B and B2C systems. He has launched multi-million dollar B2B products at Siebel/Oracle, co-founded and grown a startup from inception to a successful exit, and ran product/engineering for a high-growth eCommerce company. He has worked across the US and Asia, and has grown teams from 60 to 600+.
From Sonder Engineering employees: “Leadership stays true to the core values centered around fierce execution and radical open mindedness.”
See Sonder’s award-winning engineering scores
Neville Ray – CTO at T-Mobile
Bio: Neville R. Ray serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of T-Mobile US Inc. Mr. Ray has more than 25 years of experience in the design, deployment and operational management of wireless networks in the United States and worldwide, and is recognized for his leadership in the telecommunications industry.
From T-Mobile Engineering employees: “The leadership team at T-Mobile is the best of the best. They not only support and emphasize company goals and objectives, but also support your personal goal and family matters.”
See T-Mobile’s award-winning engineering scores
Marius Tirca – CTO/Co-Founder at UiPath
Bio: Marius Tirca Co-Founded UiPath Inc in 2005 and serves as its Chief Technology Officer. Tirca bills himself as a pragmatic tech enthusiast, skilled in software development and engineering. He holds a BS in Computer Science from Politehnica University, Bucharest.
From UiPath Engineering employees: “They are willing to admit when they make mistakes, but they are also visionaries who have attracted the top tier VC firms and have built an extremely fast growing company.”
See UiPath’s award-winning engineering scores
Visar Nimani – CTO/Co-Founder at Upgrade
Bio: Visar brings 20+ years of technology experience building and running P2P/marketplace platforms. Visar was one of the founding members of Lending Club where he served as the Chief Architect responsible for the design of the platform and later as the Chief Technology Officer responsible for Lending Club’s overall technology strategy and execution. Visar started his career at Oracle Corporation.
From Upgrade Engineering employees: “It is impressive to see how leadership is so approachable. Their hands on experience is also inspiring and learning with them is amazing.”
See Upgrade’s award-winning engineering scores
Doron Cohen – VP of Engineering at WhiteSource
Bio: Cohen has over twenty five years of experience in information technology and enterprise security, leading the architecture, design and development of enterprise solutions. He held various leadership positions at global enterprise technology vendors, with focus and responsibility for the product architecture and technology strategy. Cohen’s special expertise is access control, identity management and information security .
From WhiteSource Engineering employees: “Leadership is professional and open minded. It seems that they know exactly where the company should be in the future and targeting to the correct path.”
See Whitesource’s award-winning engineering scores
Steven ZoBell – CPO & CTO at Workfront
Bio: Steven ZoBell brings more than 20 years of product development, software engineering and business management experience to the Workfront team. Prior to this, Steve was the Chief Product and Technology Officer at ADP AdvancedMD. During the course of his career, Steve has also been involved in the development of more than 25 critically acclaimed, award-winning, commercial software products.
From Workfront Engineering employees: “Leadership is open and they live by example. I have never once thought that the executive team or leadership were ‘above the law’ which is so prevalent in other companies.”
See Workfront’s award-winning engineering scores
Methodology
Comparably’s Best Engineering Managers are derived from the winners of the Best Engineering Departments award. To arrive at those, sentiment ratings provided by Marketing employees nationwide who anonymously rated their departments on Comparably.com between March 8, 2018 and March 8, 2019. There were no fees or costs associated with participating, nor was nomination required.
Winners were determined based on a series of 50+ structured and comprehensive workplace questions in core culture categories, including: Compensation, Leadership, Professional Development, Work-Life Balance, Perks & Benefits, to name a few (in Yes/No, True/False, 1-10 scale, and multiple choice formats). The answer to each question was given a numerical score and then compared to companies of similar size across the U.S. Additional weight was given to scores at companies with more participation from their employee base.
About Comparably
Comparably is an online career destination for compensation and workplace culture data with a mission to make work dramatically more transparent and rewarding. Employees can anonymously and publically rate their company culture and access salary data through the lens of specific demographics, including gender, ethnicity, age, location, years of experience, company size, title/department, and education. With the most comprehensive and structured data in the industry, it has accumulated 10 million ratings and hundreds of thousands of salary records by employees at 50,000 U.S. companies, from startups to Fortune 50 businesses. The company’s data-driven approach has quickly made it a trusted media resource for salary and workplace culture, and one of the fastest-growing SaaS solutions for employer branding. For more information, go to Comparably.com. For workplace culture and salary studies, including Comparably’s annual Best Places to Work and Best CEOs awards, go to Comparably.com/blog.
