Joel Lawler

How I Lead

People I've had the privilege to lead—and what lights me up.

People I've Had the Privilege to Lead

Global engineering teams
20–200 engineers, onshore and offshore
  • Freightwise: Grew individual contributors into engineering managers through structured career ladders
  • Thriveworks: Mentored 20 distributed engineers building HIPAA-compliant SaaS
  • Kroll: Led cross-continent team delivering GDPR-compliant AI research platform
  • Nashville Software School: Mock interviews, capstone reviews, intern mentorship
What lights me up

Watching someone go from "I don't know where to start" → "I own this system."

Creating environments where people can take smart risks, learn from failures, and grow into roles they didn't think possible.

What shapes my thinking

Shane Parrish

Slow down just enough to see second-order effects. I push explicit assumptions, pre-mortems, and simple decision rules so we avoid thrashing.

Shane Parrish

Inversion, first principles, systems thinking for technical and organizational problems. Guides architecture decisions, migration planning, and team investments.

James Clear

Small, consistent improvements beat heroics. Lightweight rituals (PR hygiene, observability, prompt libraries) over big process overhauls.

Psychological Safety
Google's Project Aristotle

Dependability, Structure & Clarity, Meaning, Impact—Google's five characteristics of effective teams are non-negotiable. I build environments where people can admit mistakes, ask questions, and connect work to mission-critical outcomes like healthcare compliance.

Safety plus high standards. People challenge ideas fearlessly while owning outcomes with accountability.