What originally brought you to GoDaddy, and what has convinced you to stay for nearly two decades?
I feel like I’ve had many different lives during my 18 years at GoDaddy.
It all started when I was sitting in a college class listening to a presentation about the company. I was immediately intrigued. At the time, I was only 18 years old and was taking college courses while still finishing high school. I actually remember having to leave work early one day to attend my high school graduation after already being hired on at GoDaddy.
I started in Sales and Support, known as C3 at the time, where many people began their GoDaddy journey. I spent about a year and a half there, but I’ve never really been someone who stays comfortable in one place for too long. I’m always looking for the next challenge and trying to figure out what my “next step” is.
That mindset led me into the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) department. After spending time there, I once again found myself looking for the next opportunity and eventually moved into Domain Services, working in domain legal disputes. I spent several years there and eventually worked my way up to becoming one of the department’s three Subject Matter Experts.
Eventually, I found myself at another crossroads. I had always been interested in software development, but I hadn’t finished college yet and didn’t really have formal engineering experience or training. I decided to go back to school while continuing to work in Domain Services and eventually completed my degree.
After graduating, the biggest question became: how do I actually make the leap into engineering?
At the time, there really wasn’t a clear internal pathway for someone already working at GoDaddy to transition into Software Engineering without prior experience. GoDaddy internships were typically designed for external students or recent graduates. But because of my unique situation, I was able to work closely with my managers, and the internship team to find a path forward. I was ultimately accepted into the internship program, even though I was already a GoDaddy employee.
I learned an incredible amount during that internship. At the end of the program, they decide whether to extend a full-time engineering offer. While I had grown a lot, I wasn’t quite ready yet. I needed a little more time to learn.
I wasn’t offered a permanent position at the time and returned to Domain Services, but I never let that discourage me. I was determined to make the transition into engineering one way or another.
Again, with the support of my managers, I was able to work alongside a small Internal Tools Engineering team that had been building software for us. They essentially allowed me to do an unofficial internship with the team so I could continue learning, contribute to tasks, and gain more hands-on experience. After about a year working with them, I officially applied, interviewed, and was hired onto the team permanently.
I’ve now been with that team for the past several years.
Honestly, my journey is exactly why I’ve stayed at GoDaddy for nearly two decades. There’s so much opportunity for growth here if you’re willing to pursue it. I’ve been fortunate to work with leaders and teams who genuinely wanted to see me succeed and were willing to help me carve out my own path, even when that path didn’t already exist.
The people and culture here have made all the difference. Because of that, I’ve never really felt the need to look anywhere outside of GoDaddy for what was next.
What accomplishment are you most proud of across your 18-year journey?
One of the accomplishments I’m most proud of is successfully making the transition into Software Engineering and officially being hired onto the engineering side of the company.
It’s an incredibly competitive field, and even getting your foot in the door can be difficult. For me, it wasn’t a traditional path either. I went back to school later than most, finished my degree in my late 20s while still working full time, and was surrounded by interns and new graduates who were often much younger and coming directly out of college.
There were definitely moments where I questioned whether I was too late or whether I could realistically make the transition. But I kept pushing forward because it was something I genuinely wanted.
What makes it even more meaningful to me is that the journey didn’t happen overnight. I wasn’t immediately hired into engineering after my internship, and I had to continue learning, growing, and proving myself over time. Looking back now, I’m proud that I stayed persistent and didn’t let setbacks discourage me.
Eventually being officially hired onto the engineering team felt like the payoff for years of hard work, growth, and determination. It’s something I’ll always be proud of because I know how much effort it took to get there.
What’s one thing you wish more engineers understood about long-term collaboration?
I think one of the biggest things is patience and understanding.
Being on the engineering side now, I completely understand how busy engineers can be and how quickly priorities can pile up. But sometimes, taking just an extra minute to help someone who may not understand something yet can make all the difference in the world.
Throughout my career, I’ve experienced both sides of that. I’ve worked with people who were willing to take the time to help and mentor others, and I’ve also experienced situations where people weren’t as willing to slow down or explain things. The reality is that we all have to start somewhere, and nobody knows everything on day one.
One thing I’m really grateful for is that before becoming an engineer, I spent many years on the customer-facing side of the business. I know what it’s like to work directly with customers, understand their frustrations, hear their feedback, and experience their pain points firsthand.
That experience gave me a lot of empathy, and I think it’s helped shape the way I approach engineering work today. It allows me to understand both worlds, the technical side and the customer side, and I think that perspective has made me a stronger collaborator and engineer overall.
How do you create space for experimentation within the constraints of deadlines and priorities?
I think with the shift toward AI, experimentation has honestly become part of everyday work.
We’re constantly exploring new ways to use AI to become more productive, move faster, and work more efficiently. At the same time, we’re also testing its limits and trying to better understand what it’s truly capable of. In many ways, the experimentation is happening alongside the work itself rather than being completely separate from it.
For me, it’s about finding practical ways to integrate new technology into everyday workflows while still staying focused on priorities and deadlines. Sometimes that means testing a small idea, automating part of a process, or seeing if AI can help solve a problem more efficiently than before.
Technology is evolving so quickly right now that staying curious and continuing to experiment has become incredibly important.
A lot of the innovation is happening in real time, and I think engineers today have a unique opportunity to continuously learn while actively building and delivering at the same time.
What emerging technologies or trends excite you the most right now?
AI has definitely been a bit of a love/hate relationship for me as one of the biggest emerging technologies right now.
At first, it honestly made me less productive because I was spending so much time trying to figure it out, retrain it, reword prompts, and get it to actually do what I was asking. There was definitely a learning curve, and in the beginning, it sometimes felt more frustrating than helpful.
But it has improved tremendously from where it started, even though I still think there’s a long way to go.
At this point, AI has become integrated into a lot of my everyday life, both at work and outside of work. Some of the more tedious tasks that used to take a significant amount of time can now be completed much faster, which creates more room to focus on bigger ideas and problem solving.
What excites me the most is seeing where it all goes from here. The technology is evolving incredibly quickly, and I find myself using AI more and more as time goes on. Ironically, I was actually very hesitant to jump on the AI train in the beginning.
I think it really takes an open mind and a willingness to experiment in order to start seeing the potential and benefits of it. Once you do, it becomes exciting to imagine how much further the technology can still evolve.
What do you enjoy doing outside of work?
Outside of work, I recently launched a small side business called Broroma, where I create hand-poured candles and wax melts made with clean-burning coconut apricot wax and modern, wood-forward scent profiles.
It has definitely been taking up a lot of my free time lately, but it has also been incredibly rewarding. I’ve really enjoyed developing every part of the process, from creating the company and building the website to developing the scents and actually pouring the candles and wax melts myself.
As someone who spends a lot of time in the technical world, it’s been a really fulfilling creative outlet for me. Being able to build something completely from scratch and share it with people has been an amazing experience.
I also love traveling and experiencing new places and food. Mexico definitely has my heart, so I find myself going there often, but I’ve been working on expanding my travels to more international destinations as well.
And of course, a huge part of my life outside of work is my Frenchie, Theo. He’s basically my baby and has a huge personality. Honestly, he’s like having another full-time job sometimes, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
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