Hi! I'm Matt. Nice to meet you!
I like to open things up and see how they work. Software has been a convenient way to vent this obsession because, unless you do something terribly tragic, you can't physically break anything.
Today, I'm an engineering manager and the site lead at Dropbox NYC. Since founding the office in March of 2014, we've grown to more than three dozen engineers owning a variety of high-impact areas. I work with an incredible group of people building the cultural and technical foundation for Dropbox's first engineering presence outside of headquarters, and it's been an amazing experience.
Previously, I built Hoot and a few other things with my partner Christina. Hoot was the first mobile app for both of us, and, as with any new technology, the victories were as glorious as the impasses were frustrating. Before that, I was at Hunch (later eBay via acquisition) and Meebo. I am constantly reminded of my gratitude for the mentorship I've received. Much of what I know has come from patient, talented coworkers.
At Stanford, I studied computer science and left with undergraduate and master's degrees. I did my best to exhaust the course catalogue's supply of systems courses, though I may have left a few behind.
As an individual contributor, most of my work has been in infrastructure and machine learning, architecting and building large-scale systems to make sense of lots of data. I spoke on these topics at PyCon 2011 and PyCon 2012. I've also explored the depths of Android development – there are some interesting fish at the bottom of that sea.
Enjoy your stay! If you'd like to subscribe to future updates, join the mailing list.
Ownership and quality
There’s a natural tension between quickness and quality in early-stage product development. The faster you build a product, the sooner you can get feedback and iterate towards what users want. If you move too quickly at first, you risk the maintainability of the code and can end up spending all...
Hiring for culture fit
A team’s culture is its most valuable asset, especially in a dynamic industry like tech. Values and traditions enable teammates to trust one another as they adapt to growth, looming competitors, and evolving strategies. Particularly for small teams, maintaining a high bar for culture is critical to its long-term success....
Perceiving progress
When I was purely an individual contributor, the results of my work were very real. I shipped products, fixed bugs, improved performance, moved numbers, and made stuff. It was great! As an engineering manager, my contributions are harder to quantify. Instead of writing code, I sit in meetings and talk...