Bio

I grew up in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, with frequent visits to extended family in New York. I studied Cognitive Science at UMass Amherst, where I began teaching (Philosophy, Rhetoric, Programming with Python, and coaching Mock Trial) at NorthStar. I also served on the board for a year. While at UMass, I jumped into the open source world with a python editor and ran my first project with a few students from the University of Toronto as my first reports.

Since then I’ve taught teachers across the US how to teach philosophy to children (primarily focused on grades 1-8), worked at a wide range of tech companies in a number of roles (software engineering, engineering management, and consulting), spoken at PyCon’s EduSummit, performed improv and clown (in NY, across New England, and beyond), and taught improv (fear and habits, accessing emotions, improv fundamentals as independent courses in NYC, as well as corporate improv for engineers). I’ve helped write and direct short films, edited/wrote marketing copy and performed it for an advertisement, and worked closely with C-Suite executives and non technical stakeholders at company after company.

I’ve lived in Virgnia near DC, New York City (Manhattan and Queens), and now reside in Massachusetts northwest of Boston.

I work in software engineering full time, and do some tech recruiting, interview prep, and career coaching on the side.

Want to hire me as a software engineering leader (individual contributor or management)? Check out my LinkedIn profile.

Recommendations

Andrew Haisely - Director at Wayfair

I had the pleasure of working with Dan as a Senior Staff / Principal Engineer and Architect and I can confidently recommend him for any similar position. He is a true asset to any team, as he is not only highly skilled in the technical aspects of his role, but also excels at communicating complex ideas to both engineers and senior stakeholders. He led our architecture review process with great success, bringing coherence to how we solve complex technical problems. Dan is a problem-solver at all levels of complexity and always approaches his work with a great sense of humour and level-headedness.

Jonathan Penny - Engineering Manager at Google

I worked with Dan while he led our department’s migration to the cloud. He accurately scoped the project, created the plan, and identified risks. He then led the multi-quarter initiative involving several dozen engineers across multiple teams. Dan was great about generating excitement around the project and motivating the team. He was able to identify areas of the project that were deviating from the plan and reassigned engineers to keep all of the work flowing smoothly. The project was delivered on time and on budget. Dan is incredibly fun to work with and is an excellent leader.

Jacob Zinn - Senior Engineer at Datadog

I had the pleasure of working closely with Dan Pozmanter for some time, and I can confidently say that they are an outstanding leader, mentor and role model. Dan has a great sense of humor as well as an exceptional ability to motivate and inspire their team, while also providing them with the necessary guidance and support to define and achieve their goals. They question the status quo and enable the team to act at their best, beyond limitations they may not even know they had. Dan has a wealth of experience and knowledge that they are always willing to share. They are incredibly approachable and always make time to listen to their team members. Dan’s insights and perspectives have been invaluable to me, and I am grateful for the impact they have had on my career growth. In their capacity as a senior engineering leader, Dan has a strong technical background and is always up to date with the latest industry trends and best practices. On numerous occasions they have demonstrated a deep understanding of the software engineering process and consistently delivered high-quality results. They are able to quickly evaluate multiple technologies and facets of a problem and adeptly measure tradeoffs to help guide the team towards the right technical and product decisions. In summary, I cannot recommend Dan enough. They are an exceptional leader, mentor, and any organisation would be fortunate to have them on their team.

Pradyut Bansal - Senior Software Engineer at Divvy Homes

Dan was a great manager, mentor and friend. He worked tirelessly to provide transparency, level up the team’s communication skills and work to unblock the team where he could. Dan is not afraid to acknowledge gaps in his knowledge and works hard to fill them once identified.

As my manager, Dan worked with me to create and execute on an action plan with the goal of getting me promoted. We created measurable goals and checked in on them periodically to track progress. Dan did not micromanage me at all which is something I appreciated very much. He encouraged me to be a free thinker and come up with out of the box solutions to problems. He brought a lot of positive energy to the team and was a pleasure to learn and work with.

Alex Voskuil - Engineer at Spotify

I had the absolute pleasure to have worked under Dan during my time within the Pricing department at Wayfair. As a manager, Dan was an incredibly knowledgeable technical resource, as well as a fun, welcoming person who cared deeply and holistically about his reports' personal and career development. I led my first major technical project as a Senior Engineer under Dan, whose mentorship fundamentally influenced my own approach to distributed microservice system design and project management. Dan is an invaluable source of software engineering knowledge and a sincerely empathetic teacher.

Janhavi Patel - Engineer at Wayfair

I worked under Dan’s supervision at Wayfair while working on the Pricing team. He is focused, goal oriented and has a strong technical background. He possesses excellent interpersonal skills and had a strong relationship with all the engineers on the team. As a manager he was thorough, insightful and led multiple teams. He was instrumental in guiding me in my professional development and helped me learn new skills. He was also available to debug or pair program with junior engineers.

Dave Pavdano - Head of Engineering at Max Retail, CTO at Backflip

I worked with Dan at Reelio before it was acquired by Fullscreen. Dan lead several efforts to reduce our technical debt and improve developer efficiency while contributing to the core product. In addition to that he was consistently a thought leader within the team, he would pitch and implement emerging technologies to the engineering & product teams during our time working together. Dan was also a valuable resource in mentoring other junior engineers, he would take the initiative to organizing pair programming sessions and would coach with a high level of patience. Any engineering team would be lucky to have Dan.

Khaleda Khan - Engineer at Teampay

Dan is incredibly courteous and approachable person. As a junior developer at Reelio/Fullscreen, I considered him to be an invaluable mentor and resource. I could always ask him for help with complex bugs or even basic things like best practices. In addition, Dan always provided me with valuable feedback on my work which contributed to the advancement of my career.

Leslie Poortman - Industry Solutions at Houzz

Dan is most amazing, to say the very least. Dan’s ability to articulate complex concepts and be clearly understood by a multitude of audiences are what set him apart from others. In my time working with Dan, despite operating in different departments, ease of communication and his contribution to team understanding were tremendously beneficial at a company level. His ability to be reliable and technical, yet personable and creative make him an indispensable team resource on the tech team. Despite the seriousness he takes in his work, he also has a sense of humor. Well rounded is the best term to describe him and I would recommend his work freely. Please contact me for more information.

skills

Software Engineering & Management

  • Drive multi-department initiatives.
  • Influence company wide decisions, negotiations, and tech stack.
  • Look ahead quarters to years and work to balance risk and velocity.
  • Design and build reliable, available, maintainable, and scalable backend services and processes.
  • Staff, cultivate, and inspire teams.
  • Mentor junior - principal level engineers and engineering managers.
  • Rapidly onboard to new tech stacks.
  • Write stable, maintainable production ready code, quickly.
  • Research and analysis of third party offerings.

Tech Recruiting

  • Sourcing high quality candidates with thoroughly aligned backgrounds.
  • Interview prep for software engineering positions, both individual and management.
  • Career coaching for software engineers and management.

Creative & Theatrical

  • Long Form Improv Comedy
  • Voiceover Acting
  • Theatrical Clown and Bouffon
  • Acting
  • Writing (tv, sketch, short film)
  • Directing (theater, short film)
  • Theatrical Hosting & Producing
  • Ad Copy and Marketing Materials

Education & Training

For Children

  • Philosophy for Kids
  • Rhetoric for Kids
  • Programming Python
  • Mock Trial

For Co-Workers and Reports

  • Improv for Engineers
  • Rhetoric for Engineers
  • Domain Driven Design
  • Troubleshooting & Root Cause Analysis
  • System Design