Talk us through your career jumps and changes here at Dell.

I started at Dell in 2014 as a Senior Principal Software Engineer, working on a client device service and support program that is now deployed across every client system we produce—tens of millions of devices a year. In 2016, I was asked to join a team where I leveraged my industrial background as Dell delivered its first IoT devices. We developed and deployed an IoT software ecosystem that was eventually donated to the Linux Foundation as Edge X Foundry. That program still exists today and is thriving as the number one open-source edge platform in the market.

In 2018, I was inducted into Dell’s prestigious Technical Leadership Community as a Distinguished Engineer, which opened up access to the technical community across Dell, including our Services, Infrastructure Solutions, Edge, and Telecommunications divisions. During this time, I worked with our Precision line of products, pulling together solutions for the first Data Science Workstation. I then went on to build a number of innovative devices and experiences, including Concept UFO, the industry’s first Windows-based gaming handheld device. This was right around the time the pandemic hit; it was showcased at CES in 2020, and we all went remote just a few months later until quite recently.

In 2022, I was promoted to the position of Senior Distinguished Engineer, and about six months later, I assumed the role of AI solutions lead for CSG CTO, where I am today. We are working on creating the next generation of AI PCs and a client ecosystem that is robust and enables our customers to maximize their productivity.

How does Dell’s mission align with your personal engineering philosophy?

How does Dell’s mission align with your personal engineering philosophy? I’ve always believed that engineering at its core should be as simple as possible. Most of us use devices and software every day, either for personal purposes or in a professional setting, where they help to remove obstacles so that work gets done and ideas can surface. Engineering products and experiences like those align with Dell’s core mission: “to create technologies that drive human progress.” This reads like a heading from my own design notebook. It frames technology not as the destination but as the driving force that helps people accomplish their goals faster, better, and with less friction. I’ve seen tremendous change and watched technology evolve over the last decade, and it’s been amazing to see our core mission statement hold, especially as we push forward into the next era of AI and the enhancement and value that it will bring.

How does Dell’s emphasis on innovation shape the way you approach your work and career?​

At Dell, innovation doesn’t just influence my work—it sets the tempo. There’s usually not a moment to rest, and we’re often moving ahead of the business, as a CTO organization rightfully should be. We evaluate technology, look for opportunities, determine possibilities and outcomes, and then share findings and collaborate with various organizations to pipeline those into products. My team’s emphasis on innovation gives us a directive to treat curiosity as a job requirement and to build everything in a way that it might be absorbed by the business at any given moment, whether that’s stitching things into field pilots, taking customer feedback, or surfacing ideas in open standards forums. It’s a culture that enables us to thrive on ideas and has allowed me to chart my career as an amazing lattice of cross-disciplinary activities, where I can share my work early and often, both internally and externally, so that feedback shapes the next iteration before the paint is dry—quite literally sometimes.

You’ve seen Dell’s technology evolve over the years, walk us through it and tell us what you see in the pipeline from a high-level perspective.

Just a couple of years ago, that answer would probably have been different. These days, it’s all about Artificial Intelligence, both on the device and in the cloud. The business world has already started to take advantage of AI at scale. Many are finding it to be a practical tool in daily use as an assistive capability, whether through authoring content, writing code, designing products, or other purposes. The advancements are accelerating and improving monthly. As technology improves, both in hardware and software, we’re going to see continued distribution of intelligence from personal devices all the way to the cloud. These advancements will become more automated in some cases, doing things behind the scenes to help you day after day, and they’ll become more personalized, tailored to your preferences, your style, and adapting to your needs. At the same time, AI will take on new roles in the workplace and begin to allow companies to scale in ways they never could before. There’s a very real uncharted horizon unfolding before us at this moment, and it’s both exciting and admittedly a little intimidating to be innovating right now. But there’s no other company that has everything needed to deliver on AI like Dell.

What is one product you’ve worked on that you are the most proud of?

I’d call it a concept rather than a product because it defined an entirely new category of client products that exist today. That was Concept UFO, which we showcased at CES in 2020. It was the first-of-its-kind, Microsoft Windows-based handheld gaming platform that was truly revolutionary. We put tremendous effort into the experience, both in hardware and software, and delivered in a very big way. However, the timing was extremely poor as the pandemic was just around the corner, and there was a tremendous amount of uncertainty in the market. I’m extremely proud to have been a part of that program and have several colleagues with whom I’m still good friends today, thanks to the travel, late nights, and weekends it took to pull it off.

What are some skills you’ve developed along the way at Dell? How has Dell fostered your upskilling?

There are always technical skills that you can tout, but I feel like the most valuable skills I’ve picked up at Dell have all been around leadership, collaboration, and professional growth. I’ve had amazing opportunities, from building high-performance teams to working with customers and partners—both large-scale and small—and to really stepping up and out into the industry at conferences and trade shows. I must give huge credit to my leadership and mentors who often push me along because these aren’t things that come naturally to me, especially public speaking. Rather, they’re skills that must be learned and honed. The encouragement and strong nudges I’ve received have evolved me from a classical heads-down technologist and engineer into a solution-focused leader and turned those formerly uncomfortable skills into natural reflexes that I now exercise almost daily. Like anything else, they take a little practice and willingness to step outside your comfort zone.

What is the key skill an engineer of your level needs to be successful?

What is the key skill an engineer of your level needs to be successful? At this stage, the single most decisive skill is synthesizing technology while maintaining an open-minded perspective. There’s always something new arriving on your doorstep, and with the pace of AI, that is almost a daily occurrence. It’s important to synthesize what you need from the information you get and think about how that might be useful in solving a particular problem or enabling an amazing experience. Often, it won’t just stop at your door but extend to other organizations and solutions as well, so you have some responsibility to ensure that you’re sharing information, progress, and opportunities with colleagues from around the company. Then, it all has to translate into reality, meaning that you’ve got to provide concrete guidance that engineers, product managers, and executives can all act upon. This enables an ability to stitch different options into solutions whose impact can ripple across teams and portfolios rather than just stopping at an organizational boundary. Given that real impact lands with our customers, we’re always looking to maximize the potential for any new innovative idea.