Dig deep
I lead with questions before judgment. When something breaks - a deadline, a relationship, a system - I want to understand the root before I respond to the symptom.
I knew I wanted to lead the moment I watched a Director debug automated tests with me.
It was my first job in tech, a QA internship, and he was someone who sat in rooms with the business one hour and sat beside an intern untangling a flaky test the next. He knew the system well enough to dig in with senior engineers when something was really broken - and he still made time for me. That balance, technical depth held alongside genuine presence with people, is what I've tried to build into every team I've led since.
A few years later, at Queen's, I asked a non-profit's CEO if I could open a Kingston chapter. She said I didn't have the experience. So I built my own path - founding Sudo Labs to teach women and gender minorities to code, from the ground up, with a team of volunteers I recruited myself.
When I got to Ratehub, I told my manager directly: I want your job. He believed me enough to start including me in interviews and hiring decisions, and in time, I had it.
How I lead
Lead with empathy
I treat my reports as experts and as humans. That means real autonomy to solve their own problems, and space held open for the conversations that are hard to start.
Take ownership
I measure my own success through my team's outcomes, not my own output. In practice, that means assigning a technical lead - usually a senior or staff engineer - to every project, even when they're not the ones executing. It decentralizes ownership, gives senior engineers real leadership reps, and means the work keeps moving without me as a bottleneck.
Stay pragmatic
I'm energized by systemic problems - the ones with a root cause worth finding. I'd rather build the process that prevents the fire than be praised for fighting it well.
What pragmatic leadership looks like in practice
At Ratehub, our front-end team was shipping more hotfixes than we could sustain. Rather than asking the team to simply move faster, I built a measurement framework first - setting clear SLIs and SLOs upfront so we could transform quality into something predictable and trackable.
Hotfixes per release
8-week rolling average, the methodology used for our SLI/SLO success criteria
12% → 2%
hotfix rate, peak to sustained low
2 weeks → 2.5 days
time to release
Success was defined upfront: eight consecutive weeks meeting the hotfix error budget (≤2%). First verified June 2024 - and the improvement held.
Prioritization, managed as a negotiation
Unplanned shifts in priority are inevitable, but they're protectable against. I treat prioritization as a negotiation between Engineering, Product, and business stakeholders - focusing on trade-offs, scope adjustments, and honest estimation updates rather than asking the team to absorb more. By managing pushback upstream, I keep engineers focused and sprint execution stable.
Planning, grounded in data
As our engineering organization grew, decentralized planning became critical to keeping teams moving. I evolved our estimation process from a single‑leader model into a transparent, shared framework. By introducing sprint‑level estimation with documented assumptions and rolling them up into quarterly and t‑shirt‑sized annual roadmaps, I established a predictable planning standard adopted across the entire engineering org.
Growth & Feedback, led by evidence
I eliminate surprises in performance reviews by treating feedback as a year‑round conversation, not an annual event. Using growth markers captured in regular 1:1s, engineers always know where they stand well before any formal review. Whether navigating a course correction or building a case for promotion, every conversation is grounded in evidence and shared expectations.
1:1s, designed as a sanctuary
I structure bi-weekly 1:1s around engineer‑led agendas - shared living documents that track action items, ongoing feedback, and a running record of each person's growth over time. The goal is simple: a space where nothing is a surprise and nothing is off the table.
Hiring, designed like a system
To ensure scaling teams maintained high technical and cultural standards, I built a repeatable three‑round hiring process for a QA Automation role from scratch. By implementing structured rubrics, value‑based interview guides, and a live technical assessment, I standardized the evaluation criteria across multiple engineering panels. This shifted recruitment from a subjective, instinct‑driven exercise into an objective, repeatable system, ensuring consistent talent acquisition no matter who was on the panel.
Leveling, made legible
To support our engineering team and provide new managers with clear guidance, I built upon our foundational competency matrix to enhance its operational clarity. I translated high‑level rubric criteria into an accessible framework using concrete examples and clear scope at each level - defining growth from executing pre‑scoped tasks to driving cross‑functional direction - ensuring our career progression pathways scaled smoothly with the team.
Sudo Labs
Founder & Executive Director, 2016–2020
After being told I didn't have the experience to run someone else's chapter, I started my own organization - teaching women and gender minorities to code, in Kingston, with volunteers I recruited and a curriculum we built together.
12+
workshops run
230
learners reached
90%
first-time attendees
87%
would recommend to a friend
Where I've worked
Software Development Manager
Lead Software Engineer, Front-End Infrastructure
Senior Software Engineer
Front-End Engineer II