As VP Engineering, you're often caught between technical reality and business expectations. Your team wants more time for quality; executives want faster delivery. Your engineers have strong opinions about architecture; you need to make decisions that stick. You're accountable for outcomes, but you can't dictate how every technical decision gets made.
I work with VPs of Engineering as an external thought partner... someone who understands the organizational dynamics you navigate daily but isn't enmeshed in your internal politics. When you need to challenge a senior engineer's recommendation, I provide independent perspective. When you need to explain technical constraints to the board, I help you craft the narrative. When you're evaluating whether your team structure is working, I bring patterns from other organizations at similar scale.
My approach is not to impose external best practices but to understand your specific context and help you think through options. What works at a 20-person engineering org doesn't work at 200, and what works in fintech doesn't work in healthcare. Generic advice is worse than no advice... I start from your constraints and work toward solutions that fit your reality.
I'm especially valuable for high-stakes decisions where you need independent validation. Major architecture changes, team reorganizations, build vs. buy decisions for core infrastructure... these are moments when external perspective pays for itself many times over. Not because you need someone smarter, but because you need someone without blind spots created by being inside the organization.
The goal of every engagement is to make you and your team more capable, not to create dependency on external consulting. I share frameworks, document decision processes, and build internal muscle for the kinds of challenges I help you navigate.