Technical Product Manager | Solutions Architect · Tech Lead · Product Engineer

Most people stop at the plan. I carry it through.

Most people who decide what should get built have to hand it off and hope. I don't have to. Across SaaS platforms and cloud software, I've scoped a project, written the spec, and built it myself from the ground up when that was the fastest path, managed a team when it needed more hands, and handed it to someone else entirely when that was the right call. Same decision every time, who's the customer, why does this need to exist, what's it actually worth, just a different answer to who builds it.

Led product direction for cloud platforms at Apple and multiple startups, including a client warranty system I scoped, specified, and delivered myself with a small team. INSEAD MBA.

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8 → 1systems consolidated

50M+records in production

0downtime on cutover

$7K/mohosting costs cut

Selected outcomes

Outcome 01

Consolidated 8 systems into one multi-tenant platform

Saw a budget quietly draining across 8 overlapping systems that were easy to keep patching and hard to justify, and made the case to consolidate them into one platform instead.

Business problemEight systems with significant overlap were each maintained separately, turning routine maintenance into a major, recurring cost.

What I didDecided the real cost wasn't any one of the 8 systems, it was maintaining all of them separately: steady, comfortable work for the team, but a budget draining slowly with every dollar spent re-solving the same problem. Made the case to consolidate rather than keep patching each one, then led the build of the backend on Laravel as the single source of truth and the frontend in React and TypeScript, working with contractors on parts of the delivery, with load-balanced infrastructure and CI/CD so the platform could actually scale afterward.

Result
Replaced 8 systems with one, eliminated redundant maintenance costs, and completed the switchover with zero downtime. The consolidated platform now handles more than 50 million product records and thousands of daily requests.

LaravelReactTypeScriptMantineJWTOAuthAWSCloudFrontCI/CDGitHub Actions

Outcome 02

Reduced a day-long report to about 10 minutes

Automated a client's reporting process that was costing them a full day each month. Once that was settled, came back with a second idea: using the same data to show them where they were underserved.

Business problemA recurring customer report required a product manager to spend nearly an entire day assembling data, with additional manual work from the content team.

What I didWrote the spec and built an automated ETL and reporting pipeline on Athena, since the reports ran once or twice a month and never justified the cost of an always-on warehouse. That fix shipped and settled in as the new normal. Later, revisited the same dataset and proposed a second phase: cross-referencing vehicle coverage against population data to show the client which vehicles were underserved, and built that in as additional value on the contract.

Result
Reduced the reporting process to roughly 10 minutes, then, in a separate follow-on, gave the client a coverage-by-population view they hadn't originally asked for.

AWSETLData PipelinesReporting DashboardsAPIsReact

Outcome 03

Turned a support bottleneck into a self-service product

As Head of Technology, sat in on client calls and site visits, watched clients call in just to set up a campaign, and pitched a self-service portal to the CEO instead of adding more support staff.

Business problemThe platform ran in a costly, self-hosted datacenter, and clients had to call in for every discount campaign change. That created ongoing support load and gave clients no way to see their own stats.

What I didAs Head of Technology, went along on client visits and saw firsthand how much of the relationship was clients calling in just to set up or check a campaign. Proposed a self-service portal instead of adding more support staff, and pitched it to the CEO. Migrated the platform to AWS to make it possible, then worked alongside one other developer to build the portal, jumping in myself when the timeline needed more hands, and added new features to the existing iOS and Android apps to match.

Result
Cut hosting costs by $7,000 per month and replaced a recurring support workflow with a self-service product clients managed themselves.

AWSREST APIsiOSAndroidCloud Migration

How I work

From customer problem to shipped system

Start with the customer

Who's the customer, how will they actually use it, and why does this need to exist at all, before any spec gets written.

Make the tradeoffs explicit

Choose an approach that fits the team, budget, and risk tolerance, and lay out what you're trading off, not just what you're building.

Get people on board

Turn the plan into something leadership and stakeholders can say yes to, whether that's a CEO and investors or an engineering team.

Build it, in whatever form the problem needs

Solo when that's the fastest path, with a small team when it needs more hands, or handed off entirely when that's the right call, and technical enough to know the difference.

Experience

Independent Product & Technology Consultant2025-Present

Built four working AI tools myself and modernized client applications hands-on, while advising other teams on architecture and product direction, whichever the problem called for.

Senior Software Engineer, Harbor Compliance2024-2025

Diagnosed and fixed a database performance issue that was about to force an Azure tier upgrade, and ran pre-certification security testing for a government compliance SaaS platform, working within a strict, security-conscious environment.

Technical Product Manager, dPivot2018-2024

Owned product and technical direction for a data and media SaaS platform: consolidated 8 systems by making the case and building it, scoped and delivered a client system solo, and led a small team when the work called for more hands.

Head of Technology, Trust Payments / Mobilize Systems2014-2018

Pitched a self-service client portal to the CEO, then built it with one other developer in four months, alongside migrating the company off a legacy datacenter to AWS.

Earlier experience: Apple, Oracle, and startups

Worked across reporting systems, enterprise data integration, education technology, product delivery, and software development.

The roles where I do my best work

I do my best work when the problem is real but nobody's agreed on what to do about it yet, and the answer requires understanding both the customer and the system well enough to make the call.

Technical Product LeadSolutions ArchitectProduct & Technology LeadProduct-minded Engineering LeadStaff Product Engineer

Get in touchrobert@entwistle.tv