Note: This article was originally published in May 2018 on LinkedIn articles.
About a year ago, I joined Liberty Mutual. You may have read my post about it. My goals at Liberty were centered around becoming a technical leader.
Over the past 12 months, I…
1.) Led a team of 5 developers through evolving priorities with uncertain business requirements
2.) Gave tech talks at numerous conferences and meetups
3.) Helped grow a team from 8 engineers to close to 80
4.) Worked with product owners to create our roadmap and write stories for each sprint
5.) Mentored junior developers and peers
6.) Learned from a lot of smart people around me
I accomplished all of my personal goals at Liberty Mutual and I feel it’s time for me to take the next step in my journey. While I really enjoyed my time at Liberty and met a lot of great people, it’s time for me to take the next step in my career.
What’s next
With that being said, I am leaving Liberty Mutual to become the Lead Engineer at Fincura. I AM BEYOND EXCITED ABOUT THIS OPPORTUNITY!! I’m really looking forward to working with the Fincura team.
If you’re not familiar with Fincura, they’re a Boston based startup that recently finished Techstars. Their current product transforms manual entry in commercial lending into an automated workflow. This cuts the time commercial lending analysts spend doing their job in half. Fincura’s long term vision is incredibly compelling. While the product and vision is incredibly important, what really stood out was their leadership team.
Fincura was started by Max Blumenthal and Cody Putre. Cody and Max come from the commercial lending industry. They were both working at Silicon Valley Bank as analysts before starting Fincura. They noticed many tedious tasks in their day to day work that could be automated. This led to the creation of Fincura.
Of course, Max and Cody are extremely smart, driven, and talented. That’s obvious right away when you meet them. But as you spend more time with them, you realize the immense amount of emotional intelligence they possess. This is what really sets them apart.
Flavia Ibanez is the head of product and a seasoned startup veteran. She’s part UX designer, part product manager, and has seen incredible success in her previous spots at docTrackr and Intralinks. I’m really excited to work with her!
It saddens me to leave Liberty
While I’m extremely excited about joining Fincura, I’m really sad to be leaving so many fantastic colleagues at Liberty Mutual. When I think about my last few stops on my career journey, I like to believe that Eaton Vance taught me how to be a software developer, CoachUp taught me what really good software looked like, and Liberty Mutual transformed me into a technical leader. Every stop served a purpose and taught me invaluable lessons. I’m extremely grateful for all the opportunities I had at Liberty and there’s a few people in particular that I want to thank and highlight.
Thank you to Andric Libresinn for always standing up for what he thought was right. He always pushed back and made you think about your pull requests. He wasn’t always right ;-), but he always made you take a step back and think about your decision making.
Thank you to Jayson Alzate. Jayson is a hard worker and really stepped out of his comfort zone in the past year. He changed careers from a business systems analyst to a software developer in the last year. He’s already speaking at tech conferences. Jayson is a rising star.
Thank you to Bryant Molander. We first started as tech leads together on our “Journey team”. Bryant was always my sounding board and the person at Liberty I could talk to when I didn’t think anyone else would understand. He’s also a fantastic engineer.
Thank you to Andrei Oprisan. Andrei has done a fantastic job transforming his portfolio into one with a superb engineering culture. He has faced numerous hurdles, but he is succeeding. He is doing a better job in his position than I think anyone could.
Thank you to Brian Sodano. Brian is the definition of a fantastic mentor and a terrific manager. There’s a lot more great things I can say about Brian–he is quite possibly the best manager I ever had.
Thank you to Kevin Berry. Kevin is a true mentor and teacher. He is always able to explain complex concepts in a way you would understand without making you feel inferior. He is an excellent example of what a mentor and tech leader should be.
There are dozens of people from Liberty I wish I could mention here. Liberty was an awesome place. They did a fantastic job of moving away from a traditional insurance company and towards a modern technology company. I’m really excited for Liberty and what their future will look like.
Building a great team and an even better culture at Fincura
Now the hard work begins. I am working with the entire Fincura team, especially Matt Jakubowski, an insanely talented recruiter, to find the perfect people who fit the culture we are trying to build at Fincura.
We now have a solid engineering leadership team in place and we’re looking to hire our core group of engineers. You will want to be a part of this. Ping me if you want to talk.
Other thank yous
Also – there are a few people that I need to thank because, if it wasn’t for them, this opportunity may have never manifested itself. So a special thank you to Arian Radmand and Chetan Jhaveri.
And as always, a very special thank you to my wife, Lara Cavezza. You have always been the perfect sounding board. You give me excellent advice and always support me. Thank you.