Davy Stevenson

Supercharging Startups

About Me

I believe that happy people build great things.

I’m an experienced engineering leader with nearly 20 years of experience in software engineering and management in highly technical B2B industries. I have experienced a combined 4 successful exits, including 3 acquisitions and 1 IPO. A proponent of remote work since 2015, I’m an expert in building and leading highly effective remote-first and globally distributed engineering teams. I've worked across a wide variety of technical fields such as aeronautics, video transcoding, mapping and location intelligence, caching, databases, API development and more.In addition to my strong technical background, I’m a follower of the servant-leader style of management, and am particularly skilled at growing and coaching others to become strong and empathetic leaders. I have a track record of building high performing, diverse, and happy teams of engineers, and identifying and nurturing the leadership talent within everyone.

Quick Stats

Engineering Management Coach

Management is a fundamentally different job than software engineering and requires a whole new suite of skills. Managing other managers can be another challenging step, as learning how to lead indirectly without hands-on engagement can feel like a loss of control.Leadership coaching can help you grow more quickly in your management career, expand your experience, and solve your problems more quickly. Ask about whether a custom coaching engagement could qualify under your company’s existing Learning and Development program.Stronger One-on-OnesAre you finding it difficult to connect with some of your direct reports? Are you not getting the information you need from people? Do you struggle with how to coach or grow some of your reports? I can help you build high trust relationships with your entire team. I can workshop specific solutions for you to implement if you are experiencing management challenges with specific reports.Difficult ConversationsAre you nervous about how to approach a difficult conversation? Ignoring problematic behavior from a particular person on your team undermines your trust with high-performing individuals and can weaken team bonds. Learn how to approach these challenges with compassion. Gain the skills to turn difficult conversations into a valuable experience for your reports.Effective DelegationAre you struggling to keep your hands out of tasks that should no longer be your responsibility? Are you a manager of managers that struggles with knowing if your managers are doing their jobs effectively and whether your teams are functioning well? Learn techniques to help you better support your reports with their tasks while also keeping yourself informed.Team “Building”Does your team have skills gaps that need to be filled? Are you struggling to hire people that will be a value-add to your team? The strongest teams have people with a wide variety of skills and interests, so that strengths overlap and cover for each others’ weaknesses. Learn how to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your team and how to better identify a candidate’s potential impact during the hiring process.

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Startup Advisor

Startups encounter numerous and constant challenges as they grow and evolve. Let me bring my experience to help you tackle challenges and gain visibility into your team, technology and company.I provide founders and technical leaders with personalized solutions depending on the problems they are hoping to address, budget and engagement length.Growing as a LeaderDo you want to learn how to better communicate to your team, co-founders and investors? Do you want to gain confidence in your decisions? Do you want to learn how to excite and energize your team? I can provide personalized coaching to help you navigate the landscape of challenges before you.Assisting with Technical StrategyAre you close to finishing your MVP but unsure of how to capture product market fit? Are you unsure about your strategy for introducing your product to the market? I can help you hone your technical strategy that focuses on how to capture the right set of initial customers and identifies specific and measurable attributes to track in order to evaluate growth and adoption.Improving Engineering DeliveryWas your engineering team delivering quickly at first, but now velocity is slowing down and you don’t understand why? Is there a lack of visibility in what the engineers are working on? Are you unsure if the team is focusing on the right tasks? I can help you implement and streamline team processes and improve communication around roadmap progress, delivery and challenges the engineering team is facing.Strengthening Engineering ManagementDo you have an engineering team that has management organically emerging from the team, but lacks any seasoned managers? Do your existing team and leadership meetings lack value? I love helping grow leadership talent from within and can coach and advise existing talent so that they avoid costly leadership mistakes.

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Service Packages

Bespoke Startup Advisor PlansYou are a CEO, VP of Engineering or CTO that is looking for holistic advice on how to tackle the current challenges faced by your company. Reach out for a free introductory call where we can discuss more.Satisfaction GuaranteeAll engagements will begin with a three-month initial commitment and will be open to continued month-to-month sessions afterwards. If at any time you are unsatisfied with the result you can cancel the engagement and receive the prior month’s payment back, no questions asked.