Engineering leadership
I made complex technical decisions clear to the wider organization and connected product direction, team ownership, and delivery.
ABOUT / RICK GETZ
Close to
the team.
Close to
the work.
My career connected hands-on engineering, product strategy, and executive leadership. Across intelligence work at the CIA and roles as CTO, CPO, and VP of Engineering, I built systems and teams that turned ambitious goals into practical outcomes.
That work included modernizing complex platforms, engineering systems at massive scale, and delivering substantial cost savings. I worked across business priorities, architecture, and implementation to turn difficult problems into products that shipped.
01 / WHAT I BROUGHT
Systems and delivery
I worked across service code, infrastructure, dependencies, and validation, and kept the operational details in the conversation.
AI and developer tooling
I built retrieval and processing workflows and the tools engineers used to work with them, with attention to evidence, failure handling, and local control.
Product & business advisory
I helped organizations turn goals into practical priorities, connecting product, technology, and business decisions.
02 / HOW I WORKED
Made the decision clear.
I stated the problem, the constraints, and what would count as a useful result.
Stayed close enough to help.
I stayed close enough to the implementation to review a difficult change, test an assumption, or contribute code.
Left something maintainable.
I included the tests, operating details, and context the next person would need.
03 / BACKGROUND
Hands-on
delivery
I worked across complex platforms and systems at massive scale, and found substantial cost efficiencies through better engineering.
Executive
leadership
I worked as a VP of Engineering, CTO, and CPO, connecting product direction with architecture, teams, and delivery.
In CIA operations, I automated a research workflow that saved hundreds of thousands of hours of human effort. I also gave presentations within the agency on navigating bureaucracy, overcoming organizational hurdles, and building the tools people needed.
The next conversation.
I’m interested in engineering leadership roles, focused consulting, and ongoing product and business advisory.
Get in touch