Mike Moon

About Mike Moon

Managing technical teams at scale is a fine art. Each leader has their own methods and mediums and there are dozens of books on the subject. My preferred style is a balance between providing a technical vision and setting high level objectives while enabling and supporting the independence of thought necessary for teams to propose their own designs and projects to meet said objectives.I find most tech leaders fail by either 1. Being too \"tops down\" and micromanaging decisions they don\'t have sufficient detail and context to make or 2. Providing so little guidance that their teams are frustrated by a lack of clear direction.I come from a project management background, where the golden triangle is resources, scope, and time. You must manage each carefully to ensure your project is successful. Technical leadership has its own golden triangle: People, Process, and Technology.PeopleAs leaders we must be laser focused on hiring, developing, and performance managing talent. Many leaders fail because they’re so focused on the business or the technology that they forget it’s the people that transform ideas into products. We must partner with our recruiting and HR teams to ensure we’re attracting and onboarding the best talent we can afford. Then we need to provide consistent and objective support and feedback for our people so they can evolve and do their best work.ProcessSome think process is a dirty word, but the reality is spending time planning OKRs, deciding on a developer pipeline, or setting a communications strategy are all critical to enabling tech teams to be well-directed and productive. As companies scale, this becomes the most difficult side of the triangle to manage because, as you add people and technology, the processes to govern it all must evolve to deal with the exponential growth. I find it critical to constantly improve existing processes to avoid wasted effort and confusion.TechnologyProviding technical vision isn’t about buying the latest software your former colleagues are raving about or contributing to every Apache software project. It’s about taking the time to identify which problems are truly unique to your business and require a custom solution. You can then unleash your teams’ creativity and focus on that set of problems. The remaining common business needs can be met by adopting efficient industry proven software.I am constantly driven to bring order to chaos while supporting and serving my teams as their leader. Let me know if you’re interested in working with me on the next chapter of your career.

Experience

1. Head of Ml Platform

   Faire

   Jan 2025 — Present · San Francisco, CA, US

Education

• UCLA

  Bachelor's Degree, History

• UCLA

  Bachelor's Degree, Political Science