Hey 👋. I’m Matt.
I help developer tools companies become the obvious choice.
I’ve spent 15+ years figuring out why some developer tools become beloved and others are avoided. Three things I’ve learned:
- Developers buy from people who understand their problems, not people who pitch solutions
- The best growth engine is a product operating model that understands its users, helping them look smart at work
- Community isn’t a marketing channel—it’s your product’s immune system
How I can help: Leading product and developer-oriented storytelling teams to scale developer experiences, design internal platform products, and improve how organizations build, ship, and operate software (especially in AI-augmented workflows). Currently open to Director/Principal/Head roles in product, growth, and developer relations teams.
Stories I’m telling
Unifying an Internal Developer Platform — At Target, I led a data-driven pivot from a 3-year ServiceNow-based “single pane of glass” to a unified internal developer platform (TAP). Using Kano surveys, GQM analysis, and SVPG’s four risks framework, I enabled VP/SVP decisions to EOL the failing initiative and focus 300+ engineers on a common vision. TAP scaled from pilot to 95%+ developer adoption, unified 1,200+ engineers across 3 SVP pyramids, and introduced “developer capacity unlocked” as a northstar metric that influenced how all developer experience value, including GenAI, was calculated.
Establishing Product Management Standards at Enterprise Scale — I built a cross-functional working group (Product, Engineering, HR, Finance, Legal) to define modern PM standards anchored in modern practices, retiring SAFe scrum thinking for SVPG’s strategic positioning. Over 2.5 years, we developed a new skills assessment, trained and aligned 700 PMs, 300+ leaders, and 30+ executives on a common definition of product, transforming how Target evaluated and developed PM talent.
Repositioning Communities as Growth Engines — At Red Hat, I led Digital Communities (Opensource.com, The Enterprisers Project, Enable Sysadmin, Enable Architect)—23 people driving traffic comparable to RedHat.com. I repositioned these sites from publishing for page views to strategic awareness and acquisition engines. Using SEO/persona analysis to focus on high-intent topics (Python + Ansible, infra/data stories), I redesigned four teams into a unified product-driven org, built a Salesforce integration POC connecting community behavior to pipeline signals, and influenced ~$25M in single-year bookings and grew it to ~2M community members.
Recent obsessions
AI Integration at Scale — Pioneering GenAI workflows (ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot, Cursor) across enterprise platforms, reducing deployment time by 60% and onboarding by 50% while balancing innovation with governance.
Product Operating Models — Transforming how platform teams work through better frameworks, value measurement, and systematic enablement. I love turning “we should explore AI” into shipped products with measurable ROI.
Growth & Experimentation for DevTools — Designing funnels, instrumentation, and A/B testing programs for developer tools and internal platforms; turning product usage and community signals into roadmap and go-to-market decisions.
Product domains I love
Platform Engineering & Internal Developer Platforms — Scaled internal developer platform from pilot to widely adopted internally and externally.
Observability & Incident Management Products — Building telemetry and incident workflows as products, not just toolchains, to reduce MTTR and major incidents while giving developers and executives the right signals.
AI-Augmented Workflows — Integrated GenAI tools (ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot, Cursor) across enterprise infrastructure and product management practices. Built my own AI-assisted documentation systems cutting planning time from 2 days to 3 hours.
Developer-Centric Educational Platforms — Grew technical content platform and technical advocacy programs across a wide range of enterprise technology organizations.
Influential open source frameworks — Led meaningful influence in observability, cloud infrastructure, and virtualization ecosystems through community-led growth and developer experience optimization.
Community leadership
Communities I’ve built — Co-founded DevRel Collective (2,000+ members). Co-hosted The Geek Whisperers podcast (140 episodes, 100K+ listeners). Designed Opensource.com Correspondent program, CHAOSScast, and Enable Architect. Led community programs for Sensu, Snap, EMC Elect, and Basho. I treat communities as part of the product surface, not a separate marketing channel.
Open source contributions — Led the Kubernetes SIG contributor experience product marketing sub-group. Defined CHAOSS value metrics. See my GitHub contributions for the many sprinkles of PRs I’ve shared across the internet.
Learning communities — Deep in systems thinking: Team Topologies, Wardley Maps, John Cutler. Product management: Melissa Perri, SVPG. Technology: Kubernetes, CNCF, DevOps, Python, Go.
Recent favorites
A few pieces that reflect how I think about platforms, growth, and product management:
When Platform Products Fail – About Maps, Domains, Topologies — Why internal platforms fail and how Wardley Maps, Domain-Driven Design, and Team Topologies help align them.
Platforms as Internal Products — On treating internal platforms as products that reduce cognitive load for stream-aligned teams.
Team Topologies: Map of Content — The exploration of Team Topologies and how I apply it to different domains.
Falling in Love with AI Coding Agents — Reflections on generative AI and how it changes developer workflows.
Stories in progress
I’m working on deeper dives into the stories above. If any of these resonate, let’s talk:
“Killing the SPOG: How to EOL a multi-year investment with data, not politics” — The story of using Kano surveys, NPS, and GQM analysis to prove a 3-year ServiceNow initiative wasn’t delivering ROI, and how we redirected 300+ engineers toward TAP. Lessons on data-driven deprecation, stakeholder alignment, and when to kill your darlings.
“Building the Job We Need: Establishing PM standards at Target” — Starting from PMs at risk for unwritten rules to creating enterprise-wide standards. The messy middle: navigating egos, building cross-functional coalitions, and turning craft work into organizational change.
“Community as Product Surface: Repositioning Digital Communities from cost center to growth engine” — How we turned Red Hat’s Digital Communities from “goodwill publishing” into a strategic funnel generating ~$25M in influenced pipeline. The SEO/persona insights, the Salesforce integration POC, and what I’d do differently to protect community investments.
“Developer Capacity Unlocked: Measuring platform value beyond feature parity” — How we moved from “replace ServiceNow” to a northstar metric backed by the business that VPs could rally around as a product vision. The framework later became the model for developer productivity and ultimately value assessment for GenAI enablement.
“When Your Sponsor Leaves: Building redundant advocacy for organizational change” — The hard lessons about overextending into missing leadership territory, building systems that depend on specific leaders sticking around, and what I’d do differently to make change persist beyond a reorg.
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