On Engineering Leadership

When I went out on my own in June 2023, I was excited—and terrified.

Going into business for yourself is both exhilarating and daunting. There’s no safety net, no corporate structure to lean on—just you, your vision, and the uncertainty of whether it will all come together. But despite my doubts and the uncertainty, I landed a client almost immediately after stepping out on my own—a moment that I know wasn’t just luck. I’ve come to realize that this journey has required me to lean on God more than ever, trusting that He’s guiding me, even when the path ahead feels unclear. Each step has been a reminder that faith, more than anything, has kept me grounded and moving forward.

You might need to rethink the way you engage with your Gen X engineers.

I celebrated my birthday this week. My age ain’t your business, but Taylor and I were born on the same day—different years, of course—and you should know that I’m Gen X: the “Forgotten Generation”.

I’ve built websites with Macromedia Dreamweaver. I’ve used the WSC’s validation service on XHTML before FTP-ing it to Media Temple servers. I’ve driven to an office at 3:30am to manually deploy PHP code from my desktop, and paid for parking tickets because I forgot to move my car before 9am. I’ve waited days to have a Tomcat server provisioned. I can’t tell you how many unfinished web frameworks I’ve written—and checked into Subversion—but the number is high. I’ve wrestled with Oracle 10g, my friends, and I’m still alive.

If this time of year is typically slow for you, give your engineering team space to innovate.

During the holiday season, most organizations take their foot off the proverbial pedal. While there are several companies who see November and December as their busiest time of year, the rest of us see the next few weeks as a montage of empty (that is, emptier than usual) buildings, quiet Slack/Teams workspaces, and out-of-office messages.

(November 28, 2023, Chesapeake, VA) Kuzaa LLC announced today that it has joined Vanta, the leading trust management platform, Managed Service Provider (MSP) Partner Program, enabling partners to grow their business and deliver more value to their clients by transforming trust into a marketable advantage.

“We are delighted to announce our partnership with Vanta and their cutting-edge technology. Through this strategic collaboration, we will empower mission-driven organizations to quickly achieve their security compliance objectives at a more economical investment, showcasing their commitment to security,” said Guillermo Fisher, Principal & Co-founder of Kuzaa LLC.