Krystian Cybulski

I am an engineer at heart and love to build things. I started building software over 20 years ago, and went on to build teams and eventually whole engineering departments. Working with American firms in finance, HR, and education, I've helped distributed, remote, and hybrid teams achieve success through effective strategies and good execution.

Building great products requires a harmony of art, science, and intuition. You need to execute now, and get a good product out the door. You also need to consider the future, and see how you will nurture and care for the things that you have built. Finally, you need to be able to react to new realities and the unexpected. I can help you by drawing on my experience—I’ve done this before.

Experience

2023 and onward

Koliber Services

Clients in the USA and Europe

Provided advice and coaching, and solved problems for clients in the USA and Europe.

2021 - 2022

Career Karma (YC W19)

San Francisco, CA - remote

Scaled and matured the engineering department at a fast-growing series-B startup. Tripled the team; built out an organizational structure for scale; implemented hiring, onboarding, and competency review processes to ensure long term team health; developed a systems metrics framework and process of using them for driving improvement and spotting issues; led a team in Ukraine through the first year of war; navigated a market downturn.

2011 - 2021

15Five Inc.

San Francisco, CA - remote

My decade-long tenure at 15Five started as "employee #1" and ended with leading the engineering department. During this time, 15Five grew from 1 to 300+ people, raised multiple funding rounds, defined a new market category, and became one of the leading players in the employee performance management space. I've built a large portion of the initial product, shaped the technical direction by making, and later overseeing, strategic technical decisions.

In the department leadership role, working alongside the CTO, led the engineering team of over 50 people. Was responsible for development, DevOps, and QA teams, and focused on allowing them to work well together. Implemented, oversaw, and managed the system and people performance metrics, and used them to regularly draw insights and support strategic decisions. Participated in the due diligence for the acquisition of an employee engagement company, and led the integration of the technical platforms. Working with the senior leadership team, made sure the engineering department's goals aligned with and supported the wider and longer-term company strategy.

2008 - 2010

BidRodeo

Jersey City, NJ - hybrid

Founded BidRodeo, which was one of the top five pay-per-bid auction companies in 2010. Built the site and the bidding system, and operated the company through the exploding early days of this market. Scaled the platform to keep up with the growing demand, maintaining the lowest latency among competition. Kept the site secure from continued attacks by employing a mix of best practices and custom defenses. Brought the company to profitability and sold it to private investors.

2007 - 2010

Knight Capital Group

Jersey City, NJ

As a software engineer, maintained and built out the backend allocations and reporting system for Knight Direct, an institutional multi-market, multi-asset class execution management system. Developed robust, scalable, low-latency systems for handling high-volume concurrent transaction load.

2005 - 2007

NYC Corp., acquired by B/E Aerospace

Paramus, NJ

Performed enterprise-wide business analysis and software development. Worked with executive-level leadership on pricing and product performance data analysis. Developed reporting tools for assessing short-term trends within the company. Worked on team that launched a subsidiary in Poland.

2000 - 2005

BlueTie Inc.

Rochester, NY

As the lead software engineer at a dot-com startup, developed a solution-provider level web-based application suite that includes email, calendar, contact management, instant messaging system, and secure document transfer application.