I have 20 years of engineering leadership experience.

I have lead a team of 13 engineers (DBA, QA, software) as well as project managers, business analysts, a director of client services and a director of engineering. I have also maintained the entire product line, code and servers on my own for a few months while hiring a new team from scratch after the company relocated to south California.

Team feedback on my management style is invariably excellent (see quotes at end of page). I greatly enjoy leading smart, motivated and talented engineers and managers.

MANAGEMENT PHILOSOPHY

For a manager, unquestioned integrity and outstanding ethics are fundamental. Lose your team's respect, and you lose your team. Lose your client's respect, and you might as well close shop.

I also have some guiding principles that have proved effective in managing teams of talented, highly-skilled managers and individual contributors/engineers.

MANAGE BY EXPECTATION

  • I immediately lay out clear expectations of my roles, my performance, my personal goals and objectives as assigned by my own supervisor.
  • Follows a translation into clear expectations of each person's roles and performance, including individual goals and objectives. These are reviewed and realigned at least quarterly. I use objective and agreed-upon performance metrics as much as possible.
  • Focus is on a person's many roles as part of well-defined processes, rather than on the person's generic operating function i.e. company title.
  • I am frank, intellectually honest, and deeply respect my team. I am direct without being antagonistic nor threatening, which is a very effective recipe for positive accomplishments and team morale.

LEAD BY EXAMPLE

  • I will always partake in or own a particularly tedious task if it's in the team's interest.
  • I credit my team for achievements and command individual contributors to the president when warranted.
  • I promote healthy business habits, such as always evaluating alternate low-cost solutions (vendor plugins, renegotiating software licenses, proactively communicating on requirements and scope of work)
  • I hold myself accountable on my team's deliverables and performance, and I am the ultimate responsibility point as fare as executive management and the client are concerned.

BE REDUNDANT

  • Redundancy of technical systems is important, but redundancy of roles is paramount. The sharing of knowledge is an attitude I highly value in my team. Each person must have a well-documented, up-to-date backup plan should they be run over by a bus, starting with myself.
  • The department is structured and documented for efficiency, so that management is both a communication point, an escalation point and a facilitator, but not a process bottleneck.

COMMUNICATE, COMMUNICATE

  • My role as department or division head includes aligning my staff's performance incentives with the company's. This requires proactive communication with all departments and a keen understanding of the business.
  • I require proper documentation, not too little and certainly not too much. I clearly state what type and level of documentation is required at any time as well as the purpose of the effort. Documentation must be saving time/cost in the long run.
  • I penalize hoarders of information. Division performance is more important than personal performance, and I evaluate individual contributions and promote accordingly.
  • Tasks are self-assigned based on priorities and time estimate. Management corroborates project progress with overall deadlines and milestones, but engineers are most effective with a sorted, prioritized task list. I typically run
    weekly structured department meetings
    .

TRUST AND VERIFY

  • I typically do not presume to know HOW my staff should implement new functionality. I communicate WHAT must be done on WHICH standards of quality, cost and speed of delivery, and entrust my staff with architecture decisions and best practices. I let them lay out the design and implementation plan.
  • But I VERIFY their proposal, cross-check with other experts in-house if needed. Each contributor is held accountable on their decisions. Once I approve, I am equally accountable.
  • I hold myself to the same standard and compile architecture documents that my staff can criticize freely before the client is exposed to the work.
"Mathieu is a committed manager with strong management skills and leadership. He creates a pleasant working environment so that everyone focuses on the work assigned and gets things done in quality. Mathieu also brings depth and breath of technical skills to engineering team."
Yonghua Wu, Software Engineer, Google Inc.
"Mathieu was a very effective and likable Director of Engineering who successfully let the Engineering organization through a difficult acquisition process while still maintaining an excellent service for our customers"
John Prout, Director Front End Applications Development, Acxiom Digital
"Mathieu is a very well-respected manager who is always very supportive, encouraging and dependable. He led by examples and gave his staff room to grow. Both his technical and leadership skills not only gained lots of respect from people who worked with him, but also challenged and helped them to improve in those areas as well."
Eunice Lin, PMP, Director, Professional Services, Ambassadors, LLC.
"In every aspects, [Mathieu]'s proven to be a strong and integrous leader and manager [with] his drive for personal and organizational improvement and his work ethics."
Chi Bui, Customer Account Manager, Satmetrix System
"Everybody would love to work with him, he has great management talents. I have always been amazed how he can get anything from anybody without frustration on any sides. Technically speaking, everything goes very fast in his mind."
Xavier Decombe, IT Project Manager, Carlson Wagonlit Travel
"I have been fortunate to work under Mathieu's caring and detailed direction here at Ambassadors. Mathieu has been particularly dedicated to encouraging and empowering good habits in his reports and within the company at large, resulting in a marked improvement in cross-departmental process management, communication, and efficiencies. I personally benefitted from Mathieu's dedication as the foundations he laid fostered personal growth and fulfillment within my department."
Chris Kausel, Product Developer & Manager