Nick Spreitzer

Software Engineer. People Leader.

I’ve been passionate about software development since I wrote my first ‘Hello, world’ script in 2006 with VBA. Today, with the benefit of nearly 15 years of professional experience, I delight in providing the hands-on technical leadership that guides software engineering teams to continuously achieve success. I meticulously prescribe processes that enable engineers, testers, designers, and product owners to collaboratively perform their duties in the best possible manner with the least waste of time and effort. I press engineers to develop solutions commensurate in complexity to the problem they are solving. When I hire, I seek people with humility, aptitude, and passion. I build teams who deliver better software, faster.


Work Experience

Senior Software Development Manager

Helpsystems, Inc | 04.2021 - Current

Originally hired to manage a single engineering team, my role quickly broadened to encompass two distict email security products, their corresponding engineering teams, plus the Site Reliability team. In this extended role, I was responsible for up to 17 direct reports and paved the way for each team to stabilize, enhance, and improve their products. I streamlined processes, maximized efficiency, and incentivized developers to think beyond the immediate confines of their assigned work. I transformed dysfunctional team cultures with high rates of attrition into happy, productive enviromentments where developers want to stay for the long haul. My emphasis on stability and engineering simplification resulted in decreased after-hours disruptions and an increase in robust new feature development.

  • People Management: Hiring, performance reviews, coaching and mentoring, conflict resolution, policies and proceedures.
  • Technical Leadership: Developer education, code reviews, emergency response to production outages, SOC compliance, release management, CI/CD, versioning strategies.
  • Project Management: Ensured predictable output by maintainting a consistent average velocity. Ensured that staff are busy and engaged, but not overworked.

Senior Engineering Manager

Cylance | 01.2017 - 04.2021

Managed the development of the Multi-Tenant Console (MTC) from its earliest days as a pre-production greenfield project to its current state as a globally distributed, highly available, microservices + SPA application. The MTC enables bulk actions on managed tenants who employ BlackBerry software offerings. Originally hired as an individual contributor, I was promoted to Manager within 8 months, later rising to Senior Manager. Team sized ranged from 5 to 10 full-time and contract developers, spanning two time zones. Every aspect of the application’s development owned by the team, including frontend, backend, database, test automation, and release management. Implemented a sophisticated CI/CD pipeline with extensive automated testing and git workflows to facilitate rapid deployment of new features to staging and production environments. Led the development of a public API, documentation site, and status page. Introduced new tools, such as the AWS CDK and LaunchDarkly, improving our ability to deliver quality software faster. Cultivated a team culture where everyone likes and respects one another. 40% YoY revenue increase in FY2020; the only Cylance-suite product not to decline in revenue. Cylance was acquired by BlackBerry in 2019.

Lead Software Engineer

Compeat | 06.2016 - 12.2016

Principal Software Engineer

Clear Measure | 10.2014 - 05.2016

Senior Software Engineer

Clarity Ventures | 08.2014 - 10.2014

.NET Developer

ARGUS Software | 07.2012 - 08.2014

.NET Developer

Palantir Economic Solutions | 01.2011 - 05.2012