Seth Sakamoto

“I've collaborated closely with Seth over the past year while leading and scaling an early-stage enterprise SaaS business as a first-time Founder. Seth's guidance, steeped in decades of hands-on expertise, has been instrumental in tackling various challenges I've encountered along the way. Moreover, his presence extends to our entire team, fostering an environment where each individual, myself included, can contribute their best work.”

“I've been working with Seth for over 6 months now, and he has helped us significantly improve the culture & quality of our engineering team over a short time period. When we first started working together, we were rebuilding our engineering team and practices, and he was able to come in, embed himself within the team to gather context, and effectively guide me in making the best decisions for the company. He greatly accelerated the team's ability to work collaboratively and make velocity improvements. He was so good for engineering that we asked him to also help us with our product function, and he quickly made an impact there as well. Working with Seth has been one of the most valuable experiences for our company and me personally!”

“Seth was a great choice during our transition between CTOs. He is practical, on the point, and cost conscious. Not all start-ups can afford a full-time CTO, and may prefer tentative solutions to address the initial business needs. Seth is the great person to help at the most difficult time of a start-up to reduce the unnecessary tech debt down in the road.”

“I’ve been working with Seth for 6-7 years now, allowing us to leverage is wide range of experience and knowledge. - Seth has helped mentor Engineering leaders on our team, providing guidance and insight on their professional development. - Seth helped us in a Fractional VP of Engineering role, helping us diagnose several organizational pathologies early in our growth. - Seth has also worked as an advisor to me personally, helping me refine strategy, messaging, and prioritization. He brings a wealth of skills, and a pragmatic viewpoint from his years working a variety of startups. I’d recommend him unreservedly.”

“Seth is a big part of why I joined TeamSnap. It is clear from the first moment you meet him that he is an exceptionally kind, empathetic and wise leader. I strive to report to people I want to emulate and Seth is no exception. Seth is a skilled listener and mentor, he consistently provides valuable guidance and creates an environment to challenge his perspective. Seth was a catalyst for me to succeed and grow as a leader. At TeamSnap he gave me the guidance to help me succeed and created the space to let me lead. Seth is an amazing leader, I would love to work with him again.”

“Seth is a compassionate leader who helped build other leaders at TeamSnap. I worked with Seth mostly indirectly but our 1:1s provided a ton on insight into how I could help lead at TeamSnap. Mentorship sessions with Seth were always productive and Seth is particularly good at getting to the root of concerns and then working with you to figure out how to address them. Seth is a solid leader, teacher and mentor and I hope to work with him again sometime.”

“I count myself lucky to have Seth as a mentor! I had the pleasure of reporting to Seth during our time at TeamSnap. Seth is a champion of quality for the entire organization. He supported and encouraged the quality mindset of engineering and helped to transform and strengthen our quality practices. What really impressed me is his ability to create and implement frameworks for objectivity in places like hiring and retention and create a culture of learning from metrics we gathered. I would jump at the opportunity to work with Seth again in the future.”

“Seth is a truly empathetic leader. He's well respected by his teams, and an effective cross functional coach. He helped me grow a lot as a leader. Thanks for everything Seth!”

“Seth brought a deep level of gravitas, experience, and insight during a time at Mixmax when we were growing out of our scrappy startup stage. Seth was instrumental in scaling our engineering team and bringing rigor to our technical capabilities. In addition, Seth collaborated with me on a number of HR and Recruiting initiatives, particularly around performance management and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). Seth was a pleasure to work with and I highly recommend him as a manager, leader, and collaborator.”

“During his tenure at Mixmax, Seth impressed me with his empathetic approach to leadership, while simultaneously providing consistent, practical direction for both the engineering department and the company overall. Personally, Seth helped me develop as both a manager and a leader, always providing me with the space to make my own mistakes and to grow in ways that were important to me. If you've worked with Seth, you know his penchant for making steady, continued forward progress while bringing everyone along with him, what surprised me, and something that I came to rely on, was his compassionate focus on everyone he interacted with. Seth is a highly effective leader, I can't thank him enough for how he helped us to develop as an organization, and I expect to see him again somewhere down the road.”

“Seth was a fantastic colleague and business partner. He is very knowledgeable and understanding of how all the different functions need to succeed together for a company to perform. He puts the company first in all of his decisions. I would welcome the chance to work with Seth again.”

“Seth was an excellent manager on both the large and small scales. Organizationally, he identified the right priorities and helped to guide our leadership team towards them, building out product and quality roadmaps with clear justifications and driving critical hires. On a smaller scale, while I reported to him, he consistently looked out for my well-being and gave me opportunities to learn and grow while providing useful advice on things like how to hire, how to mentor, and how to communicate with other departments. I'd be very happy to work with Seth again!”

“I had the pleasure of working very closely with Seth during our time at Mixmax - and it was awesome. Seth's a strong, no-nonsense, yet-empathetic engineering leader with a great sense of humor. He was admired by his team and sought out within the exec team, for his strong leadership, perspective and the insights that he brought into any situation. During his time, the Mixmax engineering team evolved into a well-rounded, cohesive unit that kept shipping awesome products, even with all uncertainty created by Covid-19. Seth created a culture of transparency, inclusivity and accountability that was a model for all other teams at Mixmax. He will be missed. I definitely hope to have the privilege of working with Seth once again in the future!”

“I was lucky to work with Seth at Mixmax. While setting the foundation for growth with our engineering team, he was also a fantastic cross-functional partner. He actively worked with our Success team to understand product priorities, work directly with customers, and generally position us to make a positive impact with our book of business. He built a lot of respect with our team through his always level headed approach no matter the situation and his honest and direct communication style. He's also genuinely a nice person to hang around to boot. It was great working together.”

“Seth took us from inexperienced team with nascent people and process management to the mature scalable engineering organization we are now. I can't thank him enough! He demonstrated a deep personal commitment to the growth of everyone on the team. Also, he's a pretty fun guy to have around the office too :).”

“When we worked together at Envoy both of us had to run organizations that were outside of our comfort zone. This required us to rely on each other for feedback as well as making decisions with no context. During this time I learned that Seth is a true people leader who puts the person and the company first. He never wavered. I learned a lot about the Engineering mindset and he always had a natural curiosity for revenue and success. He wanted to make sure that we were aligned which is not normal in my past experience between these two organizations. I look forward to working with Seth again and he is already a trusted advisor as I start my own company. ”

“I wholeheartedly endorse Seth Sakamoto and will work with him again and again. Seth joined Envoy to bring structure and organization to engineering and product. Within a short time, he revamped and grew Envoy’s engineering and product teams and expertly managed a large remote engineering infrastructure. Seth not only leads with impressive expertise in his domain; he guides his team with integrity and mindfulness. He champions radical candor, has growth-mindset, and embodies an intense intellectual curiosity. He nurtures and supports these values with all who interact with him. You can talk to him about anything - from diversity in tech recruiting and management nuances to how humans evolved over the millenniums. He’s one of a kind and a real asset to any organization.”

“Seth is a strong engineering leader, one who keeps himself current with tools and technologies. I worked with Seth at TuneIn and reported directly to him. There are many things I learned from Seth that I have incorporated into my workings as a leader in the software field. While at TuneIn, Seth introduced OKRs, made a change from traditional DevOps to SREs, and encouraged the Org to think outside the box. He was instrumental in reinstating the hack week and improving engineering practices across the board thus improving morale. Seth believes in moving fast, whether that be related to a change in tools, languages or practices. As a VP he believes in empowering every manager and engineer to make decisions. He encouraged everyone to have a growth mindset and learn from mistakes. Even though Seth was a VP at TuneIn he was very much an engineer at heart and this was very much appreciated by the engineers across the Org. ”

“I had the unique experience of knowing about Seth through mutual friends and former colleagues well before meeting him. I was happy to learn that all I’d heard about him was true, and he was a major reason why I joined Envoy. I’ve worked with many engineering leads over the past 15+ years, and Seth stands out as a true leader who is thoughtful, transparent, and cares about the recruitment and development of talent across the company. He grew and transformed the engineering team into a functioning, execution-focused organization, and he helped my product team do the same. I certainly hope that we get a chance to work together again!”

“Seth was one of the reasons I decided to join Envoy. He's a very experienced Engineering leader so I was hoping to learn a lot from him, and I did. Seth focuses his energy on building the team, and setting the right values such as Growth mindset and transparent communication. He takes the lead on key company challenges (like building our Product team) while enabling others rather than fix everything himself.”

“Seth is an empathetic and scalable leader. I was impressed by the scopes and ranges of challenges Seth could effectively tackle, all while keeping the team happy, healthy, and moving in the right direction. As our team grew it was clear that Seth had aptitude and experience at many different levels of startups. As my manager, Seth challenged me and helped me grow. He carries my high recommendation. ”

“It was a real pleasure working with Seth. Seth is a great manager! He is fun to work with, and at the same time, runs a tight ship. He has a clear communication and expectations, a good technical understanding, is open to suggestions and ideas, and also puts his focus on helping individuals grow and be happy. All of this would be great for any engineering team and I’d love to work with him again sometime!”

“Seth's attitude and clear communication style was a big reason I chose to join his team over other opportunities I had available. Working with him has always been a pleasure. His honesty earned my trust and his technical depth earned my respect.”

“Seth has built a fantastic engineering team here at Hipmunk. His serene and thoughtful Zen-like approach instilled a culture that defined by collaboration, creativity, transparency, accountability, pragmatism, efficiency and focus. He achieved something very rare in the industry: assembling an engineering team that is not only highly functional, very focused on deliverables and extremely effective but also free of politics, harmonious and happy. What's more, under his leadership, the engineering team not only became bigger and stronger, but also much more diverse across gender, age, ethnicity and professional/educational background. It was a great pleasure to work with Seth and I'm looking forward to work with him again in the future. ”

“Seth's down-to-earth, open and honest approach to managing quickly infected the engineering department at Hipmunk. He's built a culture where egos, politics, or personal agendas have no place in discussions, and people focus on tackling the problems at hand. Additionally, Seth shielded engineering from the downward pressure of other parts of the company, filtering out the real engineering tasks from the asks and keeping all that from falling onto engineers' laps. Under his leadership, developer creativity and happiness flourished. When I became engineering manager at Hipmunk, Seth acted as a mentor to me. He guided me on strategies for solving the complex and continuing issues the frontend team faced as well as handling personnel with care and empathy. The things I learned from him will be invaluable to me for the rest of my life. I'd be very lucky to get to work with him again.”

“Seth is not only a great leader but also a great person. He built a top-notch engineering team at Hipmunk, with very talented engineers and an awesome culture. He cares deeply about people and the product. Because of his experience, he brings a great perspective to his leadership role and takes pride in mentoring others. Seth was a pleasure to work with and I'd love to work with him again!”

“There's an adage about two types of army quartermasters that applies to managers: The one who tells you why you can't get what you've earned, and the one who does his best to get you what you need to do your job. Seth is firmly in the latter camp. He makes being an engineer a highly enjoyable job, with as few roadblocks and as many tools as he can get you. The Engineering culture he has built is incredible. As a direct result of Seth's diligence - the teams that he created and molded are the most productive - and happiest - that I have ever worked with. I hope to someday work with him again.”

“Seth is a VP of Engineering who is responsible, people-focused, creative, and passionate about customers. He knows the importance of building a customer-focused product. He’s excellent at working with people, and pretty amazing at hiring engineers! As VP of Engineering at Hipmunk, I saw him come up with an approach to give engineers more time for creativity and growth. Moreover, he found ways improve communications across the company with Friday demos. He also implemented new systems to report on site downtime, and worked tirelessly to improve site up time so that customers would have a great experience. I would happily work with Seth again and recommend him with enthusiasm.”

“Seth did a great job managing Engineering at Constant Contact. When we started up the mobile team, he was always there to support and help grow the team to what it is today. I also valued his insight into getting teams working together and sharing relevant information. I'd be more than happy working with him again if the opportunity arose.”

“Seth is a manager that not only "gets" recruiting, but understands it's an integral part of being a strong manager. As it pertains to recruiting, he is proactive, networks and focuses on the strengths of a candidate, not on the skills they don't have. Seth also recognizes the importance of culture and the impact it has on a team, he played a large role in changing the environment of his office and in turn had a high performing team. Seth is one of the best hiring managers I've had the pleasure of working with, and I hope to have the opportunity to work with him again in the future.”

“Seth is a gifted leader who has a natural talent for inspiring engineering teams and building great organizational culture. On top of that, he's a solid technologist who knows how to guide good technology and process decisions to get things done. I enjoyed working with Seth to build an innovation-focused, high performing team at Constant Contact SF, and would do so again in a heartbeat.”

“I had the good fortune to work with Seth here at Constant Contact over the past year. Seth came in to manage our SF development office and build a solid presence for CTCT in SF. He nailed that and more. Seth brought a great sense of passion and drive to the SF office. He is a thoughtful, innovate leader with a really strong business sense. Would welcome the opportunity to work with Seth again.”

“Seth is one of the best managers I've worked with. He helped build our SF office culture, hiring, helped bridge communication between teams and broke down obstacles. His ability to understand people and how best to help them work effectively while being hands-free created a fun and exciting environment. No question, I would definitely work with Seth in the future.”

“Seth is a very senior technologist and manager. He is one of the rare individuals that can really take an organization to the next level. Seth is passionate, smart, respectful, experienced and very level-headed. I always appreciated his insights and his continuous strive for getting better and everything. He leads and manages with exactly the right combination of hands-on and hands-off and builds high-performing teams with stunning aptitude and ease.”

“Seth is a great enabler. As the Director of Engineering in our San Francisco office, he made sure that the people around him had everything they needed to be successful regardless of the challenge. His positive attitude, humbleness, and objective approach to problem solving makes him a pleasure to work with. I would definitely work with Seth again in the future.”

“Seth is one of the best engineering leaders I have worked with. He is a great listener and motivator. Seth can quickly understand complicated problems and offers insights on how to approach to resolve the problems. He is a “hands-free” leader and builds strong teams and culture and always inspires the teams to do their best. Seth always encourages collaborations across different organizations and he works really well to break down obstacles and leads the teams to deliver high quality products in timely fashion. It is a great pleasure working with Seth and I would not hesitate to work with him again in the future.”

“Seth is a talented engineering leader with a great eye for talent. He took point on building out Constant Contact's west-coast design and development center, and pulled together a team with outstanding expertise, culture and values. Seth and I worked together as part of a geographically distributed dev team, and his leadership has set the team up beautifully for future success.”

“As a peer, I enjoyed collaborating with Seth. He is a strong thought leader who challenges the status quo, spawning discussions that lead to vision for change. Seth inspires his teams to do their best work, and drives initiatives for cultural growth and process efficiencies. He champions getting things done quickly. I recommend and welcome the opportunity to work with Seth again in the future.”

“Seth is an action oriented technology leader who simply "gets it". As a humble servant leader, Seth adds meaningful value to the teams he serves thru facilitative leadership. He is an excellent team builder who focuses on building a specific culture that touches every aspect of the team, from recruiting to performance management to process improvement. I would highly recommend the opportunity to serve alongside Seth.”

“I had a opportunity to work directly as under Seth while he was leading the Platform team at Rearden. To start with Seth is a very hard working, sincere, transparent and honest individual. He is a great leader who always strives to build new leaders in the organization. Seth is a great mentor, He constantly gives feedback, motivation and provides opportunities for growth. He was instrumental in starting Rearden offshore team at Bangalore-India, His past experience in building global teams as well as careful planning with clear goals made the offshore strategy at Rearden very successful. I have seen Seth perform at best when is pressure, He always comes up with clear mitigation plans with careful analysis based on priorities. Seth while at Rearden took various initiatives to improves the processes and software systems which were not just limited to Platform team but were adapted across the organization, Few examples like his initiatives with the Platform Quality, Stability, Performance and availability which resulted in high percentage of code coverage, QA automation, pro active monitoring and alerting of software services. Seth's methodical approach and clear communication is well respected at higher levels in organization. I highly recommend Seth for a senior management position for any team in any organization.”

“Seth is one of the stronger managers I've met in my career. He has a natural ability to inspire confidence in teams through calm, sensible problem solving. He enables teams to achieve their best. He is a multiplier in every sense of the term.”

“I was a peer to Seth as he managed and significantly expanded the engineering organization responsible for Rearden's core platform functionality. On his watch, the group expanded into personalization, relevancy, and a new development organization in India. Seth makes objectives clear, and listens to alternative points of view. He is also effective as a coach and provides his team with needed training. As a peer, I enjoyed collaborating with Seth, even when we were competing for resources. Seth and I would agree on the goals in common and create effective solutions to make best use of limited resources. I highly recommend Seth.”

“Seth Sakamoto had an incredible influence on the Platform team at Rearden. He built it into one of the most professionally run groups at the company by communicating a clear vision, by supporting teams' execution of the vision, and by driving initiatives in quality and performance. Seth also had big impacts across the company by proposing and helping institute better resource management processes, by setting up management training, and by helping create a better organizational structure to scale up partner projects. Seth values leadership, and invests time and energy in mentoring and coaching managers. I have benefited greatly from his direction and feedback.”

“I worked with Seth on a critical project to get our QA processes & environment up to production level standards. Seth was an excellent leader to tear down the walls between departments and accomplish the goals necessary. He provided me with the assistance and guidance to deliver the project on time. Seth was also instrumental in putting in a new process for standardizing how we deployed a consistent code base based on 200+ components. Seth is approachable and firm, great traits in any leader, to accomplish difficult goals. I enjoyed working with Seth and learned a lot from him. Would love the opportunity to work with him again.”

“Seth was one of the best Engineering Director that I worked for... He always empowers everybody in his organization, not just his direct reports. Seth is a natural leader who is proactive and puts contagious energy in his work for company's success. His initiative and passion to improve Rearden's platform scalability and performance was very impressive. He never dropped the ball and never backed-down in doing the right thing for the company. Seth is always well informed and creative in implementing new processes to improve execution and hence the ROI. We'll definitely miss him in Rearden and I wish Seth a great success in his new gig.”

“Seth is one of the very rare seasoned and wise leaders that make a lasting positive influence on the people they work with. With many years of management experience under my belt, I still learnt a lot under Seth's leadership. He has the knack of dissecting through a problem and evaluating it from a perspective that most of us miss while still, actively engaging others and helping them devise and own the solution. A great mentor and coach, Seth provides consistent feedback be it positive or constructive and backs them up with examples that allow the recipient to learn and grow. I was especially impressed how, in spite of the multifarious projects Seth was leading at Rearden, he could still stay on top of each with pretty deep technical insight and how he still managed to respond to his emails promptly be it day or night. While at Rearden, he was frequently sought out for addressing critical issues, be it leading a new team, resolving annoying environment problem or introducing and leading a change. Under his leadership, the Platform team made great strides in application performance, code quality, test coverage, technology enhancements and high availability. Seth planted the best practices that the platform team continues to build upon. I am glad I got to work with him and wish him the very best in his future endeavors.”

“Seth is a true leader in people management, technology and vision. He trusts, empowers and at the same time coaches, makes himself available to people in his organization; he thinks about and pushes forward strategic visions that takes the organization to the next level; he builds alliance with other organizations; he also has deep understanding of technology.”

“Our group at Rearden was put under Seth's purview during a re-org, and it turned out to be a great change for us. Seth is both results-oriented and people-oriented, balancing the fast-paced environment at Rearden with a genuine concern for his extended staff. His staff meetings, tho large, were actually interesting and useful (and I'm not one for big meetings), and always had a significant personal element that helped his diverse groups get to know each other and work together better. I was lucky to get transferred into his area!”

“While I only worked on Seth's platform team for a brief period of time, it was immediately apparent to me from the beginning that he is a extremely personable, dedicated and hard working director. Seth and his team greeted me warmly and immediately made me feel right at home. He has excellent rapport, works hard to support his team and was always available during release and crunch time. Seth is able to digest directives and goals and execute both strategically and tactically in a very dynamic environment. I would welcome the opportunity to work with Seth again in the future.”

“I have worked with Seth for some time. I have seen him train, lead and mentor his team. He has grown his responsibility continually since we have worked together and is well respected in the organization. As a strategist, manager, mentor, leader and business manager, I would wholeheartedly recommend Seth and genuinely feel that he is a great asset to an organization.”

“I have worked very closely with Seth in the last one year as his offshore partner. Seth is a very experienced manager/leader and has enormous experience, including building and running offshore centers. His passion, energy levels and commitment are very infectious and it rubs positively on all his team members. He does the fine act of balancing the organization goals and people aspirations very well. He consistently pushes his team to raise the bar all the time. He is very approachable and is always available for anybody seeking his help. He has a very good blend of technical and managerial skills. I always admired his work ethics - transparency, honesty, respect for individuals and integrity. He is also a great mentor!! I was fortunate to have worked with Seth in the past one year and hopefully will get another opportunity in the future.”

“The value that Seth brought to our technology organization was as broad as it was deep. He structured a platform engineering organization that offered a wide arrange of products and (web) services, and kept his teams focused on important things like test coverage while delivering projects. He also encouraged the broader tech organization to get better at things like running meetings and giving employee feedback, and offered ideas from his experience on how to do so. And lastly, on a more personal level, he always took an interest in the efficiency work that my teams do, and I appreciated his support.”

“Seth is a fearless leader who embraces change and new ideas so that the team meets the organization goals and also has individual growth opportunities. He enables platform engineering team by obtaining resources that team members need to get the job done. He sponsors quality competition in the team and raises the bar for platform quality. Always the first to recognize other people's achievement and to root for excellence! I am inspired by his leadership and vast experience!”

“Seth is the kind of leader who makes everyone around him better. I believe Seth does an excellent job giving the proper amount of support, guidance and freedom to employees allowing them to make significant contributions to the company while at the same time not being too overbearing. Seth has also done a fantastic job in providing vision and focus to our division. Under Seth our division has established a clear identity with a set of well defined goals which has allowed us to operate at a greater rate of efficiency. As a result, engineers have had more time to develop higher quality code and also enhance existing architecture which has greatly improved our core platform. Overall, Seth has been a tremendous asset to the platform team and I feel very fortunate to have had the chance to work with him.”

“Seth is a seasoned professional with a balanced view on technology and business. He manages his team efficiently – with honesty, respect, integrity and a good sense of humor. Our teams have collaborated on solving many complex problems together, and at the end we always arrive at something tangible and actionable. On a personal level, I respect Seth for his intellectual honesty. He's sincere, and always able to motivate those around him to improve.”

“Seth is one of the strongest technical managers I have worked with in my career. He combines technical know how, business acumen and strong people skills make. In addition, he works very well across functional and geographic lines. I would welcome the opportunity to work with Seth again.”

“Seth's work ethics are commendable. He is able to absorb a lot of stress and still find direction in chaos. He manages to put a smile on your face and help you in any which way he can. He is personable and extremely professional who is loved by all.”

“I enjoyed working with Seth at Intuit. His passion for innovation and for keeping teams small and focused towards delivering results is great. Seth also played a key role in launching our new engineering team in India and making sure they became productive and up-to-speed rapidly.”

“Seth is a PD leader who thinks end-to-end and balances the needs of customers, shareholders and employees in his decision making. He is effective in aligning resources towards a common goal, and is highly skilled in colloraborating across geo / divisional boundaries. He brings an infectious 'can-do' attitude to the workplace, and encourages those around him to think outside of the box and have fun, all while delivering valuable growth for the businesses he manages.”

“Seth is the kind of director who somehow is able to maintain a level of engagement with developers. He is always providing encouragement, coaching and assistance to help his team along in their career paths, all the while maintaining a healthy sense of humour. Seth is always on the lookout for, and receptive to innovative ideas and processes that move the business forward and energize his team at the same time.”

“In working with Seth over the last several years, I have noted he consistently pushes the team to look for ways to improve. By always questioning the status quo he has helped us deliver better results for our customers. Additionally he was resourceful in removing obstacles that have allowed the team to execute.”

“I really enjoy working with Seth. He combines a calm, thoughtful, unflappable demeanor with a extremely strong ability to plan and execute. This helps to create an environment where plans get created and communicated, things get done, and everyone feels productive. As a leader, Seth is authentic and inclusive. He is always willing share his knowledge with others, either by teaching leadership classes or coaching others. He is also very skilled at framing issues, and this makes him an excellent thought partner.”

“Seth and his team were internal customers of the technology solutions my team was providing. He was a tremendous partner in a complex federated development model and as a consumer of our technology he was dedicated to providing strong leadership with an emphasis on communication, collaboration, and team motivation. I was especially impressed with his flexibility and ability to adapt to our changing priorities as strategies evolved. This leadership resulted in bottom-line savings, a true partnership among the joint team members, and inspired a great mindset of collaboration.”

“Seth is an action-oriented product development leader with a clear focus on creating customer value while delivering on the bottom line. He sets a great example as an advocate for the customer's point of view and encourages this in his teams as they develop new solutions. Achieving this across diverse priorities can be challenging, but Seth rises to the occasion by empowering his teams to balance customer outcomes with business results.”

“Seth is an outstanding engineering director at Intuit. He is very collaborative with other leaders and groups. He is also very knowledgeable of the technology and the Payroll application domain. It is truely a pleasure to work with him.”

“Seth is a goals driven product development leader with great ability to understand the bigger picture and manage teams to great results. He is exceptional in his skill at managing large and complex organizations with geographically dispersed teams. Great outcomes and high performing teams are some of the hallmarks of Seth's leadership. I personally, and the teams, find Seth a pleasure to work with.”

“Seth has a deep understanding of customer needs and successfully translates those needs into well thought out strategic plans and tactical initiatives. He is an objective thinker who remains calm and focused during stressful situations. To top it off he is an excellent leader who motivates his team to excel. I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with Seth.”

“Seth is a terrific director of a software team. He supports the engineering staff always, and I love the balance he creates between short and long term planning.”

“Seth is a collaborator in the true spirit of the word -- he looks out for the interests of all stakeholders so that everyone's objectives are for the better. That is hard to do in a large company. It is more art than science. He is also generous with his time and advice to help others succeed, even if they are not directly on his team. I respect and enjoy working with him. Go Seth!”

“I have seen Seth grow from a consultant and individual contributor in Intuit's Intellectual Property/patent group, to a Director of Product Development for the $400M Payroll business. He has become a strong people-manager - able to motivate and "connect" with his team, formulate strategies, and then drive to results. He is well-liked and respected by his team; and regarded as a team-player and good collaborator by other groups he works with. He is a source of calm, focus and stability when things get hectic. I recommend Seth as a solid PD leader.”

“Seth has always been an example to me. When we first started working together in the Payroll project, he was the Initiative Manager. He impressed me from the first with his thorough subject-matter understanding, combined with his forward-looking vision and shrewd analysis of the bottom-line. Seth has a calm and pleasant demeanor, and maintains his objectivity and business sense in all circumstances, without losing his sense of humor and proportion. Seth has a passion for delivering the best, and he carries that quality in all the projects in which he takes part.”

“It's a pleasure to work with Seth on multiple levels. As a business leader, Seth successfully manages a complex engineering and operations organization that spans multiple locations, multiple offerings, and is responsible for a significant portion of our overall business revenue. As a people manager, Seth invests a significant amount of energy into recognizing and growing great engineering talent. Seth is a highly talented leader and I am grateful to have had chance to work with him.”

“Seth is a very pragmatic leader with bias towards action, purposeful change, speed and results. Seth asks thought-provoking questions and frames his view points with the big picture in mind. He demonstrates very good business acumen. He manages a sizeable software product development team that has consistently delivered business value. He works effectively across organizations. Its a pleasure to work with Seth.”

“Seth's teams execute effectively in delivering many high quality software releases on schedule. But, what distinguishes Seth from others is that Seth is a consumate professional leader who is always looking for ways to improve himself as well as his entire organization. Seth is keenly focused on developing his engineers and managers by giving them job opporunities that grow and stretch the individuals and along the way, he provides mentoring. His organization knows that he cares about their future and hence he has a highly engaged workforce. Net-net...he does a very good job at developing and growing his team. Seth has also demonstrated that he leads change with courage, such as being an early adopter of an agile software development process or establishing a very good partnership with another business unit to develop a reusable e-filing engine for mutual use. Net-net, I would gladly work with Seth again in the future.”

“Seth was a great business partner in working to get marketing's needs resourced in engineering. When faced with resource constraints, Seth worked hard to develop innovative solutions to get us the output, results & quality we needed. He has excellent business acumen and looks at issues from a total business perspective, not just an engineering perspective. Overall, I really enjoy working with Seth and consider him to be a very talented PD leader.”

“Seth worked indirectly for me on QuickBooks (QB) Payroll. We gave him some of the toughest, most important, highest profile projects, and Seth consistently delivered strong results. Seth has strong technical skills, but his people skills are even better. Seth built outstanding relationships with other key parts of the organization to achieve results. Specifically, Seth's partnership with Product Management and his partnership with Product Development in Turbotax (a different division at Intuit that contributed key functionality to QB Payroll) were outstanding examples of "how to do it right." Seth delivered big projects on time and on budget. His pleasant, upbeat personality is the icing on the cake. I strongly recommend Seth.”

“Seth is a great driver, works well across organizations, and is very passionate about doing the right thing.”

“I've known Seth for over four years and have worked with him on several strategic efforts related to my role as a Chief Architect. Seth always impressed me with his sharp mind, ability to grasp seemingly diverse concepts and put them into context, and define a clear line of sight to corporate objectives.”

“I worked with Seth on a very critical component of the Quickbooks product at Intuit. Seth is thoughtful in his approach to designing solutions for products. He works collaboratively with people outside his discipline, and, as a manager, he is capable of understanding the bigger picture. Always a pleasure working with Seth.”

“Seth led a competitive strategy project with many participants. He was articulate and insightful, and a pleasure to work with.”

“You want Seth on your team if you need a top-notch strategist with deep functional expertise in technology, who knows how to rally a diverse cross-functional group, can lead a process to gather then prioritize the best ideas, and craft the pitch to convince CXO level leadership to take action. Seth was instrumental in developing our strategy to win against a major new competitor.”

“Seth helped my team in driving the technology roadmap when I setup a new business within Intuit (Intuit Developer Network). He did an excellent job and is a great business partner. Esther”

“Seth is one of the strongest driver who can work effectively across organizational boundaries. He has exceptional execution skills and can convert fuzzy chaotic goals into clearly focused ones resulting in teams ability to deliver on them”

“Seth is one of our strongest initiative managers in leading change and driving to action. We've worked together on hiring where he has been a leadership role model in his workforce planning and being proactive.”

“I've known Seth through a couple of roles at Intuit. He leads with confidence and brings a "can-do" attitude to his teams. He has a great blend of technological savvy and leadership.”

“Seth is a great PD partner. He leads the team well, lines up the resources, can work across multiple teams and locations and always keeps the customer in mind.”

“I've known Seth for approximately 3 years and know him to be a very knowledgeable technologist and product manager. I think Seth has a wide range of capabilities and experience to draw from. He's also very personable -- a great guy to have around.”

“Seth is great in managing multiple engineering teams deeloping complex products.”

“Seth is great at bringing multiple teams together to reach a common goal. As an initiative manager he has a great talent for reaching across organizational boundaries to create cross-functional teams.”

“Seth played an active role in helping me manage a summer Internship Program. In addition to providing guidance and mentorship for our Interns (and managers), he also helped to orchestrate educational briefings and even piloted an online tool to facilitate discussion and dialogue between hiring managers. Solid commitment and excellent follow-through.”

“Conscientious, hard worker who gets things done. Has a logical frame of mind but is flexible enough in his approach to allow for others eccentricities. A great team member who was a joy to work with.”