Gary Saunders
Engineering Leadership
Engineering team builder with a bias for action, accountability and impact. 20+ years transforming organizations through technology strategy, culture development, and scalable system architecture.
Leadership
Technology
Business
Engineering Philosophy
My leadership approach centers on three core principles that drive sustainable team performance and culture transformation:
Gratitude
Engineering is hard - celebrate success. Find meaning in the work and acknowledge the remarkable feat of delivering software that impacts real people.
Performance
Focus on velocity, fast feedback loops, and team-first collaboration. Performance isn't about going faster - it's about relative optimization of all the things.
Learning
Aggressive humility as a key enabler. Question assumptions, embrace being wrong, and maintain objectivity about solutions built years ago.
Professional Journey
Jaine AI - Freelance
Brought on with mandate to ship MVP for collaborative research platform leveraging AI and infinite canvas. Product now in Beta.
NBC SportsNext - Sr. Director of Engineering
Led two divisions spanning 50 engineers across 5 teams (100+ engineers developed career-wide). Stabilized FinTech systems and delivered $6M+ eCommerce integration.
NBC SportsNext - Director of Engineering
Led agile transformation, scaled engineering team, and decommissioned legacy platforms. Hired 30+ engineers and introduced organizational hierarchy.
NBC SportsNext - Engineering Manager
Led NBC acquisition integration and promoted serverless adoption for seasonal workloads with "scale to near-zero" architecture.
SportsEngine - Lead Software Engineer
Launched multi-tenant CMS, migrated finance systems from NetSuite to in-house solutions, and led Developer Experience improvements.
Let's Build Something Great
Currently seeking VP Engineering or Sr. Director opportunities where I can drive technical strategy, build exceptional teams, and create lasting cultural impact.