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.
Creating a Contributor Experience for Humans
In preparation for the wonderful Open Source 101, I wanted to challenge my assumptions on what makes a great contributor experience by asking.
Community Metrics: Share of Voice
One of the dark arts of measurement This is part three on a series exploring metrics that can position a Community program as a successful business investment.
Community Metrics: What’s the ROI of Stickers?
To start this series on metrics off right, an aside is needed.
The Value of Community Metrics
What does it look like for Community to be a quantifiable value to a company?
How to Use Markdown Everywhere
I haven’t always loved plain text syntax. Once I embraced git as the langua franca of IT Operations, I knew that made Markdown required knowledge.
Lessons in Culture from KubeCon 2017
The themes that left me thinking how this community will change our industry.
Dev and Ops Personas for Open Source Documentation
In a previous role, I wore a few different hats throughout my day as a Developer Advocate.
Dev and Ops Personas for Open Source Documentation
In a previous role, I wore a few different hats throughout my day as a Developer Advocate.
I Have a Maiden Name
An exploration of surnames, beliefs and actions. I married my wife on May 29th, 2016.
The Open Source Monitoring Stack at Staples
Snap has led to a collaboration with the Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) team at Staples.