
Partner ⋅ Parent ⋅ Engineering Leader
inspiring women to have a life in tech
I have decades of experience navigating family, fitness, and career, and I can show you how to achieve more balance in life, with joy and confidence and while shedding the guilt.
Turn It Up
Articles & Musings
I write about leading engineering teams and departments, figuring out how to have fun at work, finding my sanity, and more. I occasionally talk about it, too.
Turn It Up
Articles & Musings
I write about leading engineering teams and departments, figuring out how to have fun at work, finding my sanity, and more. I occasionally talk about it, too.
Taking a Turn
Because of my own personal reaction (usually shock and worry) every time I see a female engineering leader go through a reduction in scope, a non-promotion-releated role change, or an outright departure, and because of my own desire to make it easier to support each other with changes and growth, I shared [...]
Living Your Ultimate Dev Life
The real story here is spending time with the revered and adored Ms. Avery - my youngest son's third-grade teacher several years ago, who made a career change into software engineering a few years ago. She and Chris contacted me about speaking about my experiences in the industry and currently at GitHub, [...]
Grace in the Workplace
I remember my first office job. I don't remember my boss's name anymore, but I remember his face distinctly. I remember his loud, booming voice, especially when he was upset about something, which wasn't infrequent. I remember him slamming his office door which was across and diagonal from my cubicle, and then [...]
Hacking the Org Podcast
I love when I get to talk about my work, and recording this episode was such a great time. Check out Pausing Feature Development to Focus on Tech Debt and DX, and hear more about how GitHub made time to focus on engineering fundamentals.
LeadDev Together Module Session
Check out this LeadDev module, 5 investments for a sustainable, high-performing team, going live next week, 20 Sep 2022. Meet short term hiring goals or invest in building a sustainable, high-performing team? These are the questions that plague every hiring manager’s mind. Learn how to build a healthy, self-sustaining ecosystem within your team [...]
Essential Roles for Planning a Technical Project
Before coding anything, make sure you've involved a decision maker, the person doing the work, someone with context, someone with fresh perspective, and whoever is going to be maintaining it. These are the five essential roles for planning a technical project. One person can cover all of these things with one exception: [...]
Aiming for the trifecta of work-fun-fitness
In almost 30 years of working in tech, I’ve gone through the steps of getting interested in engineering, finding work, figuring out how to advance, and navigating an industry that thrives on growth and disruption. I’ve looked for guidance and then gained my own experience, doing this all as a cis white female, and observing as others from even more underrepresented backgrounds try to do the same. I’ve tried numerous patterns that absolutely do not help me achieve progression and balance, and made it a lifelong objective to discover and share ones I find that do.

My Story
Aloha from Big Island! I live in Kona, Hawaii with my husband, two sons, and their Gramma Brown. We moved here in 2018, and we spend a good amount of time at the beach or looking out at the ocean. I love all sorts of things that I’m no expert in but find enjoyment from doing. I’m not a fan of cooking, and I only eat chocolate if there are enough other flavors to overpower it. I’ve spent significant parts of my life in various parts of NY—upstate and down—and Salt Lake City.
Another change in 2018 was my joining GitHub. I’m a Director of Engineering with a consulting background. I like working on databases more than user interfaces, and I love to lead teams to plan and prioritize work to delight our users and customers, delivering value quickly and expanding on it over time. Over my career, I keep navigating towards work that enables engineers to really have fun at work while they’re maximizing how effective they are. You can typically find me focusing in software developer life cycle related (SDLC) areas like CICD, internal tooling, and automation.
Opinions are my own.
My Story
Aloha from Big Island! I live in Kona, Hawaii with my husband, two sons, and their Gramma Brown. We moved here in 2018, and we spend a good amount of time at the beach or looking out at the ocean. I love all sorts of things that I’m no expert in but find enjoyment from doing. I’m not a fan of cooking, and I only eat chocolate if there are enough other flavors to overpower it. I’ve spent significant parts of my life in various parts of NY—upstate and down—and Salt Lake City.
Another change in 2018 was my joining GitHub. I’m a Director of Engineering with a consulting background. I like working on databases more than user interfaces, and I love to lead teams to plan and prioritize work to delight our users and customers, delivering value quickly and expanding on it over time. Over my career, I keep navigating towards work that enables engineers to really have fun at work while they’re maximizing how effective they are. You can typically find me focusing in software developer life cycle related (SDLC) areas like CICD, internal tooling, and automation.
I’m passionate about finding and keeping faith, and using it at home and at work. I want to help everyone take their turn deciding what’s best, with love and understanding. I aim to help women figure out how to become the best version of themselves in every one of their roles. For women in tech or interested in working in tech, I want to make it possible for them to contribute, and help tech contribute back to our families.
Opinions are my own.
