Building internal tools and moving a blocked initiative forward

I joined Guaranteed Rate in a high-pressure, engineering-driven culture where credibility came from shipping. I had been hired to help keep teams moving, but early on I was told pretty directly that I was not worth listening to because I could not code.

I needed to earn enough technical credibility to be effective with engineers, while still doing the coordination and program work I had been hired to do.

I learned JavaScript and web development through a very practical apprenticeship with senior engineers. I built internal tools, including a lobby application that visualized loan locks happening in real time, which helped establish that I could build as well as coordinate.

Later, when a major initiative was blocked through the normal engineering leadership path, I helped find an executive route to get the work approved and moving.

That work ultimately contributed to a data-mining tool associated with roughly $1.5 billion in locked loan volume. More importantly, it shaped the way I still build today: start with the smallest useful thing, get it into people’s hands quickly, and use feedback to decide what deserves to exist next.