About Me

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Hey, I am Zach! 👋

I’m a Principal Architect with 20+ years of experience building and fixing systems. While I currently focus on M&A technology integration, I’ve worked on everything from startup scaling problems to enterprise infrastructure headaches.

I help organizations figure out their technical problems—whether that’s merging two companies’ tech stacks, modernizing legacy systems, or just keeping things running reliably. What I’ve learned is that the hardest part isn’t usually the technology; it’s helping people navigate the changes that come with it.

Current Focus: M&A Integration

Right now, most of my work involves helping companies merge their technology when they acquire each other:

Due Diligence

  • Figuring out what you’re actually buying from a tech perspective
  • Identifying the technical risks before they become expensive problems
  • Assessing whether the systems can actually work together

Integration Planning & Execution

  • Building roadmaps for combining different technology stacks
  • Migrating from legacy systems without breaking everything
  • Getting teams from different companies to work together effectively

Making It All Work

  • Standardizing infrastructure and processes across merged entities
  • Ensuring data consistency when combining systems
  • Optimizing performance once everything is integrated

The Human Side

Here’s what I’ve learned: every time you change technology, you’re changing people’s jobs, workflows, and sometimes their entire career path. M&A is especially tough because not everyone survives the integration, and those who do often have to learn entirely new systems and processes.

I try to approach these situations with some basic human decency:

  • Don’t dismiss people’s work - That “legacy system” someone built might be holding the business together
  • Be honest about what’s happening - People can handle bad news better than uncertainty and lies
  • Help people see a path forward - Even if their current role is changing, show them how they can contribute
  • Treat everyone with respect - Regardless of which company they came from or which systems are staying

The best technical solutions fall apart if people don’t buy into them. My job is to make sure the technology serves the people, not the other way around.

Technical Background

I’ve worked across most areas of enterprise technology:

Architecture & Strategy

  • Designing systems that don’t fall over when they get big
  • Planning technical roadmaps that actually make business sense
  • Figuring out how to scale from startup to enterprise

Infrastructure & Operations

  • Cloud architecture (multi-cloud when it makes sense, not just because it’s trendy)
  • Kubernetes and containerization
  • Infrastructure as Code and automation
  • Keeping systems running reliably

Development & Integration

  • API design and microservices (when appropriate)
  • Data pipelines and integration patterns
  • Monitoring and performance optimization
  • Programming in Go and Python

Team & Process

  • DevOps culture and process improvement
  • Security frameworks that people actually follow
  • Mentoring engineers and technical teams
  • Getting different teams to work together
Meme

How I Approach Things

Work Principles

  • Fix the people problem first - Most technical problems are actually people problems in disguise
  • Be clear about trade-offs - Every technical decision has pros and cons; pretending otherwise is dishonest
  • Build things people can maintain - Clever solutions that nobody understands are just future technical debt
  • Don’t be the hero - Sustainable solutions work without relying on any one person

Life Approach

  • Stay curious - There’s always something to learn from every situation and person
  • Be real with people - Authenticity is more valuable than trying to impress everyone
  • Help others succeed - The best outcomes happen when everyone wins
  • Adapt to change - Fighting change is exhausting; it’s better to figure out how to work with it

Good technology work is about solving actual problems for real people, not building impressive technical monuments that nobody uses.

Beyond Work

When I’m not dealing with technical problems, I stay current with trends, write about lessons learned, and participate in the tech community. I’m always learning something new, usually because some problem forced me to figure it out.

Let’s Connect

If you want to talk about technology challenges, share war stories, or just discuss how to make tech work better for people: