Jesse PatokaEngineering at Scale.
Software engineering manager with 17+ years building high-performance teams and scalable platforms across retail & e-commerce.
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About.
I'm a software engineering manager who believes the best technology comes from empowered teams with clear purpose. Over 17 years I've built and scaled engineering organizations from the ground up — hiring founding teams, establishing engineering practices, and delivering products that millions of customers depend on.
My sweet spot is retail and e-commerce platforms where engineering decisions directly impact revenue, customer experience, and operational efficiency. I care deeply about technical excellence, developer experience, and creating environments where engineers do the best work of their careers.
Team Building
Scaling engineering orgs and mentoring top talent. Led technical talent acquisition, established autonomous interview protocols, and fostered continuous learning via book clubs and AI sessions.
Technical Strategy
Serving as the DRI for major architecture migrations (Atlassian Ops, Iterable). Drove adoption of Critical Incident SOPs, significantly improving cross-team communication and resolution times.
Delivery at Scale
Modernized release processes to support daily deployments, increasing release frequency by 29% and reducing hotfixes from 30% to 15% across a high-velocity e-commerce production pipeline.
Engineering Culture
Championed an AI-first engineering culture and enforced higher code quality standards by implementing strict 75% JaCoCo code coverage gates and maintaining "All A" SonarQube ratings.
Career Journey.
Over a decade of loyalty, continuous promotion, and platform scaling across two major retail enterprise brands.
Senior Software Engineer
Began as a junior Programmer and promoted 3 times over a decade. Architected core mobile applications handling 30,000+ devices across 1,100 stores nationwide.
Software Engineering Manager
Promoted from Senior Engineer up to Engineering Manager. Led digital transformation efforts, scaled engineering teams, and managed high-velocity e-commerce release pipelines.
Active Life
Tracking rides, runs, and adventures. Powered by Strava.
Zwift - TrainerRoad: Geiger
GPS Traced Route
Lab
Side projects, experiments, and things I'm building for fun.
Web Game
An interactive browser-based game experiment. Built with canvas APIs and real-time physics.
More experiments brewing…