Senior Engineering Manager · Pittsburgh, PA

I build software teams that ship, and I still ship code with them.

I'm a hands-on engineering manager who pairs people leadership with real technical depth: architecture, code review, and full-stack implementation, while embedding AI into everyday development workflows.

Portrait of Timothy Wilson
19+ Years in Software Engineering
Up to 13 Engineers Led on One Team
Up to 6 Engineers Managed Directly
1st Place, Company-Wide Hackathon

How I lead

Stay close to the code

I don't manage from a distance. I'm in architecture discussions, code reviews, and, when it matters, the implementation itself, across React, React Native, C#, .NET, Vue, GraphQL, and cloud-native systems.

Make engineering visible

I build the internal tooling that gives teams and leadership a real view of how work is flowing: cycle time, defects, and throughput pulled directly from source systems like GitLab, not guesswork.

Put AI to work early

From an early ChatGPT-powered data-extraction PoC to leading Claude and Cursor adoption across engineering teams today, I look for practical ways AI can cut grunt work — including AI tooling that helps write more consistent performance feedback.

Grow the people on my team

I coach engineers through performance and growth, help seniors step into lead roles, onboard contractors, and shape the management roles around me as organizations scale.

Experience

Senior Software Development Manager

Allocate

Apr 2024 – Present Current

Allocate is a platform that helps family offices and RIAs discover, access, and manage private market opportunities through investment curation, portfolio tracking, and custom solutions.

  • Directly managed and coached a team of engineers (up to 6) embedded across multiple product teams, focused on performance, growth, and day-to-day execution.
  • Built an internal platform pulling data from GitLab to track cycle time, defects, and throughput, giving real visibility into how teams are performing. Team throughput has more than doubled with no meaningful increase in defects, even as cycle time held steady despite tickets growing larger and spanning both frontend and backend.
  • Built an AI tool that drafts performance summaries for engineers, making feedback more consistent and cutting prep time for 1:1s and reviews.
  • Rebuilt our on-call and support model to cut down on interruptions during active sprint work.
  • Leading the org-wide push to adopt AI dev tools like Claude and Cursor to speed up iteration.
  • Building chatbot tools to handle common support requests so engineers don't have to.
  • Led a lending-focused team as technical lead within our Money Movement org, delivering the Increase integration and onboarding clients from a strategic acquisition on an aggressive timeline.
  • Leading hiring for key engineering roles. Also mentor across teams, including onboarding contractors and helping senior engineers take on more ownership.
  • Give leadership a clear, regular read on engineering performance so they can plan and prioritize with real data.

Software Development Manager / Lead Software Engineer

Allocate

Nov 2022 – Apr 2024
  • Led a team of up to 13 engineers while directly managing 2, balancing hands-on technical work with team leadership.
  • Owned delivery and technical direction for a portfolio and diligence product.
  • Stayed hands-on across backend development, architecture, and code review — C#, .NET, GraphQL, PostgreSQL, AWS — while guiding the team's execution.
  • Led integration of a third-party data vendor, coordinating across engineering and product.
  • Introduced automation for processing unstructured data, reducing manual effort for the team.
  • Guided architectural decisions, including both adoption and later deprecation of GraphQL as needs evolved.
  • Mentored engineers, including helping a senior engineer transition into a lead role.
  • Contributed to shaping the Software Development Manager role as the organization grew.

Solution Architect: Innovation, Store Tech, Omni

Dick's Sporting Goods

Mar 2021 – Nov 2022
  • Worked across 20+ initiatives touching React, React Native, computer vision, and in-store customer experience, usually hands-on in both the architecture and the code, not just directing it.
  • Worked with teams on architecture and technical decisions, then presented the options and tradeoffs up to leadership.
  • Built an RFID-based cycle-counting app for our store teams, cutting what took three teammates about 45 minutes down to under 5.
  • Evaluated vendors and led the rollout of a digital bike-build form on JotForm, tied into SSO and running on our Zebra handhelds. It replaced about 860K paper forms a year across Bike, Golf, Team Sports, and Lodge — we picked JotForm, which cost roughly 90-99% less than the enterprise alternatives we evaluated.
  • Built a Raspberry Pi and OpenCV system that could detect a car pulling into a curbside pickup spot, then piloted it live at a store. Part of the team that took 1st place in the company hackathon for it.
  • Helped build an in-store bat-fitting tool tying together swing sensors from the batting cage, a MOI-based recommendation engine, and our handheld devices. Pilot data showing strong purchase rates became the business case for scaling the concept chain-wide.
  • Also spent time prototyping body-pose estimation with OpenCV and MediaPipe, early research for a multi-sport interactive bay.
  • Became the facilitator for our internal engineering tech meetups (200+ people) and regularly presented on what we were building.

Senior Software Engineer: Application Transformation

Dick's Sporting Goods

Aug 2019 – Mar 2021
  • Embedded with product teams as a senior engineer, delivering React and React Native applications while modernizing cloud-native platforms across Azure, GCP, Kafka, CosmosDB, and PostgreSQL.
  • Led technical discussions and supported teams through design and implementation decisions.

Senior Software Engineer: ALIM/InspectTech

Bentley Systems

2014 – 2019

Bentley Systems is a leading global provider of software for engineers, architects, and infrastructure owner-operators.

  • Led development and implementation of the InspectTech product across numerous clients, including a custom integration between NJ and NJTA.
  • Developed features for the new ALIM asset management product used by Highways England.
  • Rearchitected the end-to-end testing framework to be generic, efficient, and scalable.
  • Architected and developed a mobile application for remote inspection of assets, helping drive the case for React Native.

Software Engineer

Campus Labs (now Anthology)

2010 – 2013

Campus Labs collects information from students to help colleges and universities improve their programs and services.

  • Redesigned and re-platformed an acquired product in a matter of months, working alongside a small engineering team.
  • Actively maintained the core assessment product, serving over 800 colleges and universities.
  • Built "Builder," a self-service tool for constructing surveys, assessments, and forms, adopted across four products with little to no training.
  • Integrated Mailgun for mass mailings and delivery/bounce tracking, improving visibility into client communications.
  • Led Scrum activities as team lead across multiple teams, and built a new Rubrics module that opened an additional revenue stream.

Earlier Career

  • LocalEdge (Hearst), Senior Software Engineer / Scrum Master, 2013–2014. Led the lift-and-shift of 16 applications to a new data center, and brought Scrum/Agile practices to the ad-management platform team.
  • Thomson Reuters (via Wellington Steele), Contract Software Engineer, 2009. Integrated SSO into the Westlaw Watch application and implemented 508-compliance changes.
  • IVR Technologies Group, Software Engineer, 2008–2009. Built the iConfirm web portal for automated patient appointment reminders and CMS modules for client sites.
  • Lance Technologies, Business Systems Analyst & IT Consultant, 2007–2008. Delivered CMS and reporting modules for small businesses across healthcare and medical clients on a LAMP stack.
  • Houghton University, Adjunct Professor, 2009–2013. Taught Databases and Programming III with a project-based curriculum.

Leadership in practice

The through-line across every role: build the systems, both technical and organizational, that let engineers do their best work.

01

People management with real coaching

Directly managed and coached engineers through performance challenges and promotions, helped a senior engineer step up into a lead role, and onboarded contractors alongside full-time hires.

02

Engineering metrics that mean something

Built an internal platform pulling cycle time, defects, and throughput straight from GitLab. Team throughput has more than doubled with no meaningful increase in defects, giving both teams and leadership a real signal for planning instead of gut-feel status updates.

03

AI woven into the SDLC, not bolted on

Piloted a ChatGPT-based PoC for automated data extraction years before it was standard, led adoption of Claude and Cursor across teams, and built AI tooling that helps write more consistent, less time-consuming performance feedback.

04

Architecture and delivery, hands-on

Still writes code, reviews PRs, and makes architectural calls, including leading a strategic-acquisition integration (Increase) under aggressive deadlines while managing a team.

05

Process that protects deep work

Built and scaled an on-call/support model specifically to cut down interruptions during active sprint work, and identifies delivery bottlenecks across teams before they compound.

06

Teaching and community

Former adjunct professor at Houghton University, past nonprofit board member, and a regular presenter at internal tech meetups with 200+ attendees.

Selected work

Artifacts from hands-on engineering work across my career, from what I'm building today at Allocate back through earlier product screens and architecture diagrams.

Allocate portfolio tracking dashboard showing net asset value by investment, cash flow activity, and investor documents

Portfolio & diligence product

At Allocate, I delivered the core components the portfolio and diligence product was built on, helping wealth advisors track private-market holdings across their clients.

Stock photo of an analytics dashboard with charts on a laptop screen

Engineering analytics platform

At Allocate, I built an internal platform pulling data from GitLab to track cycle time, defects, and throughput. Team throughput has more than doubled with no meaningful increase in defects, even as cycle time held steady despite tickets growing larger and spanning both frontend and backend.

Stock photo of code on a screen

Mobile asset-detection POC

At Bentley Systems, I built a proof of concept in React Native that could detect physical assets along an inspection route on iOS and Android, part of the case for adopting React Native more broadly.

Stock photo of code on a screen

Rearchitected E2E test framework

At Bentley Systems, I rebuilt the end-to-end testing framework to be generic and scalable across configurable object types, with automated pass-rate reporting.

Cycle Count app running on a Zebra RFID handheld at a Dick's Sporting Goods store Three Zebra RFID handhelds running the cycle-counting app side by side in a store

RFID cycle-counting app

At Dick's Sporting Goods, I built an RFID-based cycle-counting app for our store teams, cutting what took three teammates about 45 minutes down to under 5. It came out of the same RFID push our Innovation team later wrote about publicly.

Digital bike build form running on a Zebra handheld

Digital bike-build form

At Dick's Sporting Goods, I evaluated vendors and led the rollout of a digital bike-build form on JotForm, running on our Zebra handhelds. It replaced about 860K paper forms a year across Bike, Golf, Team Sports, and Lodge — we picked JotForm, which cost roughly 90-99% less than the enterprise alternatives we evaluated.

Raspberry Pi and camera rig used to detect vehicles for curbside pickup Tim Wilson testing the curbside pickup camera rig on a sign in a store parking lot Vehicle-detection code and camera feed running on a monitor, showing curbside hours and a detected car Solar-powered prototype hardware laid out on a table 2022 DICK'S Hackathon championship belt

Curbside pickup vehicle detection

At Dick's Sporting Goods, I built a Raspberry Pi and OpenCV setup that could spot a car pulling into a curbside pickup spot, then piloted it live at a store. Our team took 1st place in the company hackathon for it.

Bat-fitting app showing swing performance metrics and bat recommendations on a Zebra handheld Bat recommendation list on a Zebra handheld Batting cage kiosk showing swing tracking alongside the bat-fitting handheld

In-store bat fitting

At Dick's Sporting Goods, I helped build an in-store bat-fitting tool tying together swing sensors from the batting cage, a MOI-based recommendation engine, and our handheld devices.

Body-pose estimation research: a batting swing video with pose-tracking overlay next to the Python/OpenCV code that generated it

Body-pose estimation research

At Dick's Sporting Goods, I prototyped body-pose estimation with OpenCV and MediaPipe, tracking swing mechanics frame by frame as early research toward a multi-sport interactive bay concept.

Campus Labs Baseline product dashboard showing active, scheduled, and closed assessment projects

Baseline project dashboard

At Campus Labs, I performance-tuned the project list experience used by hundreds of colleges, cutting load time and improving screen-reader accessibility.

Chart showing outbound and inbound email volume after Mailgun integration, peaking near 1.2 million messages

Mailgun-powered communications

At Campus Labs, I integrated Mailgun into the survey/assessment platform, adding delivery, bounce, and drop tracking across hundreds of thousands of monthly messages.

Rubrics builder tool with a live scoring editor and achievement value sliders

Rubrics builder

At Campus Labs, I led the redesign of the Rubrics module into a reusable toolset, opening a new revenue stream for the platform.

Westlaw Watch sign-on page

Westlaw Watch

At Thomson Reuters, I integrated SSO and 508-compliance updates into a nationally used legal-monitoring application.

iConfirm appointment reminder service homepage

iConfirm appointment reminders

At IVR Technologies Group, I built a web app that let healthcare offices manage automated appointment-reminder call campaigns and track ROI.

Stock photo of a printed report with a chart

CPSB assessment platform

For the Creative Problem Solving Group, I designed and built their digital assessment platform, supporting 9 languages along with custom PDF reports with charts and reporting capabilities.

What colleagues & clients say

Recommendations from LinkedIn.

"Tim and I led a project to build and launch Allocate's first true SaaS offering... Navigating all of this with a colleague like Tim, who is technically skilled and empathetic, made all of this feel manageable. Notably, he placed a lot of value in mentoring our newer teammates, identifying opportunities to implement new tools and best practices, and being a hands-on contributor as the work required. Tim is a thoughtful and versatile engineer who invests as much in the people around him as in the quality of his work."

Dulce Shultz, Sr. Product Manager @ Ritten (worked with Tim at Allocate)

"Tim has worked on a number of complex projects for us at the Creative Problem Solving Group. Each time, he's amazed us with a superb level of excellence! His depth of knowledge and expertise in software development are extensive... Tim has been a key partner in helping us develop, maintain, and grow the use of our digital assessments, as well as deal with the ever-changing landscape of technology."

Scott Isaksen, President at CPSB (Tim's client)

"Tim has done an excellent job as a software engineer for us. He came in as a replacement for another contractor and got up to speed immediately with little training... He was very self motivated and was able to work productively without constant supervision. I would recommend and hire Tim for a permanent position if one was available at my company."

Dragan (Don) Milosavljevic, Senior Software Engineer (Tim's client)

"Having attended college with Tim, I have had the pleasure of seeing him grow over the years professionally. Tim is focused on professionalism in his software craft. He draws energy from both learning and teaching others. I would recommend Tim for any Software Engineering position."

Tim Kellogg, AI & Engineering

Skills & tools

Leadership & Process

  • Engineering Leadership
  • Technical Strategy
  • SDLC Improvement
  • Developer Productivity
  • Performance Management
  • Hiring
  • Mentoring
  • Delivery Execution
  • Metrics & Reporting

Languages & Frameworks

  • C#
  • .NET / .NET Core
  • TypeScript
  • React
  • React Native
  • Vue
  • AngularJS
  • GraphQL
  • Kotlin
  • Java
  • Python

Cloud & Data

  • AWS
  • Azure
  • GCP
  • PostgreSQL
  • SQL Server
  • Redis
  • BigQuery
  • Kafka
  • Docker

AI & Tooling

  • Claude
  • Cursor
  • ChatGPT / LLM Integration
  • Agentic Development
  • GitLab Analytics
  • Grafana
  • New Relic
  • Sentry

Education

B.S. Computer Science, Mathematics & IT Management, Business Minor
Houghton University

Beyond the day job

Former Adjunct Professor at Houghton University · Board member, community-support nonprofit · Past member, Amherst Chamber of Commerce · Builds and restores project cars (see the 370Z rebuild →), plus basketball, kayaking, fishing, and camping.

Let's talk

Open to conversations about engineering leadership roles where I can stay hands-on with the code while growing a team.