Jeffrey Chonko

About Jeffrey Chonko

With over 20 years of experience at big tech companies and within government, including a distinguished career as a retired Commander in the United States Coast Guard, I have honed a robust set of skills in managing large-scale technical projects and cross-functional teams. My recent experience is in engineering and program leadership at Meta & Amazon, where I led the development of next-generation technology products used by billions globally. This includes end-to-end encrypted messaging and compliance with the EU\'s ePrivacy Directive at Meta, and a multi-factor authentication program for all of Amazon\'s digital subscription payments.My technical background at big tech companies is complemented with my experience leading high-stakes missions in shipboard law enforcement and wartime defense, along with 8 years managing engineering teams to develop critical software and hardware systems for the Coast Guard\'s fleet of ships. I excel in setting strategic visions for teams, guiding them to achieve objectives effectively while ensuring product excellence and operational efficiency. My approach integrates strong soft skills, a keen ability to develop technology roadmaps, and a methodical management of resources to navigate complex challenges and deliver high-quality, timely, and budget-conscious results.

Experience

1. Technical Program Manager & Engineering Leader

   Meta

   Jan 2020 — Present · Seattle, WA, US

   Head of Technical Program Management and Engineering Leader for the Messenger Product Group. This includes Messenger Mobile, Messenger Web, Messenger Desktop, and Instagram Direct.Lead TPM: Led a 3.5 year program to deliver end-to-end encrypted messaging across the Meta family of applications. This required a transformation of the messaging architecture from open to encrypted messaging. All features across Messenger Mobile (Android & iOS), Messenger Web, Messenger Desktop, and Facebook Messaging were rewritten on the new encrypted tech stack. In addition to this technical migration, we seamlessly transitioned 2B users to this new user experience. This involved the coordination of ~400 engineers and ~300 XFN team members.Lead TPM: Coordinated the efforts of engineers across Meta to come into compliance with the European Union’s ePrivacy Directive (ePD). This directive required Meta to stop using messaging data for any reason other than providing a messaging service. Led 78 releases (weekly cycle) of the Messenger Mobile iOS application. Ensured release was timely and done without quality regressions. Worked with Apple to ensure new features were approved for release.Led the improvement of the performance, reliability, and efficiency (PRE) health of the Messenger mobile application. This included mitigating application crashes, developing ways to improve application startup time, and reducing battery consumption.

Education

• Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

  MBA, Business Administration and Management, General

  2010 — 2013

• US Coast Guard Academy

  BS, Electrical Engineering

  1999 — 2003

• Carnegie Mellon University

  MS, Electrical and Computer Engineering

  2008 — 2009

Skills

• Agile Methodologies
• Leadership
• U.s. Department of Defense
• Systems Engineering
• C++
• Government
• Shiphandling
• Federal Law Enforcement
• Military Experience
• X86 Assembly
• Java
• Security Clearance
• Military
• Program Management
• Command
• Electrical Engineering
• Project Management
• Vhdl
• Strategic Planning
• Scrum
• Command
• Dod
• National Security
• Operational Planning
• Security
• Navigation
• Veterans
• Military Operations
• Computer Engineering
• Defense
• Arm 9
• Software Development Life Cycle (Sdlc)