Engineering Leader
The programmer,
like the poet,
works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff.
He builds his castles in the air,
from air,
creating by exertion of the imagination.
-- Frederick P. Brooks
Marcus Waldman
People First
Fostering People-First Cultures through Empathy and Active Listening.
Building Teams Founded on Trust and Mutual Respect.
A software engineering leader with a senior engineering technical background.
Focused on building cultures of personal and team empowerment that drive technical excellence.
Expert in the full software development life cycle, empathic leadership, and technical strategy.
Career Journey
A technically strong departmental leader and software engineering manager with a proven history of successfully leading both small and large full-stack teams.
Teem Ventures
Engineering Director
Jan 2024 - Present
Manage engineering teams. Technology strategist. Collaborate with Product on project roadmap. Platform architect. Product quality owner.
Digital Reasoning
Software Service Engineer
Nov 2015 - May 2018
Technical lead and liaison for Asset Management client. Maintained ETL codebase and database.
S44
Senior Engineering Manager
Nov 2021 - Sept 2023
Managed six fullstack engineering teams with 40+ reports. Led Engineering department and provided technical long and short term strategy.
Mana Health
Backend Developer
Feb 2014 - Nov 2015
Backend Java/Spring software engineer developing web services for a medical portal.
Allstate Identity Protection
Team Lead
May 2018 - Nov 2021
Hands on platform architect and technical team lead of two fullstack engineering teams.
Staten Island University Hospital
Supervisor of Program Applications
Nov 1997 - Feb 2014
Hands on supervisor of the in-house cross-functional team of Java/Spring developers.
A love of innovation and solving novel problems has always been a strong part of my core values. Early in my career, I worked at a primarily mainframe "green screen" shop. There was a need for our users to have access to modern word processing functionality. Starting from scratch with a second-generation language, not known for its GUI capabilities, I built an IBM mainframe native word processor. Next, correctly predicting that web applications were the future, I taught myself Java and web server technologies. At a company that used nothing but dummy terminal interfaces, I established the Client Application department. I built, from the ground up, an employee web portal and web GUI interfaces for the underlying mainframe applications, eventually becoming the Supervisor of the Client Application team. I moved on from my in-house Supervisor role and became an Individual Contributor once again at a product-focused company to learn the ropes of working in the software development industry. After several years, I felt ready to take on leadership roles once again. I led a couple of teams of developers focused on migrating a monolithic application to an event-driven microservice platform, optimizing for scalability. The next step in my career led me organically to the role of Senior Management, where I led the engineering managers in transforming the engineering department into truly cross-functional teams, maximizing budget, resources, and knowledge coverage. As always, I look forward to the adventures that life and my career will bring next. I am eager to embrace the new knowledge and experiences that lie on the horizon.
Expertise
Technical Skills
Java
Spring
Python
Django
Platform Architecture
AWS
SQL
NoSQL
JavaScript
Testing
Soft Skills
Leadership
Mentoring
Career Development
Recruitment
Organizational Restructuring
Agile Scrum
Budgeting
Project Management
“I worked with Marcus at S44. During that time, I found him to be a friendly, dedicated and reliable Engineering Manager. His direct reports found him helpful and caring. He came prepared to every conversation, be it about a growth plan for him or for his direct reports. Sharing feedback with him, or soliciting feedback from him, was always an honest and exploratory conversation for improvement.
In my department, I always found Marcus willing and able to take on any project and carry it through to completion, and it made my life much easier. I highly recommend working with him."
"Marcus is empathetic, hard-working and very technically knowledgeable. It was a pleasure to work with him and I would recommend him in any technical leadership position."
“I started working with Marcus in December 2019 when he was my team lead and SME for the system I now support. His patience and attention to detail are exceptional. He can communicate complex business rules/concepts/requirements simply and with complete clarity. His skill as a developer is, without question, first rate.”
“Marcus was my direct manager for over a year. I had the absolute pleasure of working with someone who was so encouraging, so inquisitive, and always advocated for my best interests as a leader should. I would recommend him highly for any management or leadership based role he aims to pursue next.”
Mission Statement
Elevate myself and others through acts of honesty, kindness, empathy, fairness and patience.
Industry Perspectives
Suggested Reading
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Sean Covey
I highly recommend picking up a copy of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Sean Covey. Though not strictly a book on management, it lays out a foundation of behaviors and techniques I have found valuable in both my career and in my personal life. As a refresher, I reread it about once a year.
I found “The Manager's Path - A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change” by Camille Fournier to be a great resource. This book, specifically geared towards engineering management, chronicles the author’s career from individual contributor to CTO. Providing along the way insightful advice she learned at each stage of her career.
I suggest reading, “Permission to Screw Up: How I Learned to Lead by Doing (Almost) Everything Wrong” by Kristen Hadeed. Told through entertaining stories of the mistakes she made along the way. It demonstrates the hard-won lessons the author learned from those trials.
About Me
Born and raised in New Jersey, I currently live in the New York City Metro area with my wife and two Labradoodles. I am an avid reader which feeds my unquenchable thirst for knowledge and learning new things. I enjoy creative writing, long walks with my dogs, biking the hills of Montclair and neighboring towns, and spending time with friends and family.
