Kristen Spencer: fractional engineering leadership and coaching

Fractional engineering leadership for startups and scaleups, and one-on-one coaching for the engineers and managers inside them.

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About

Better systems, stronger teams.

The hardest problems product teams face are rarely about the code. They're about people and systems, and that's where I do my best work.

Most of my time as an engineering leader has been spent in high-growth startups and consultancies, building zero-to-one products across industries, tech stacks, and team dynamics. Today I partner fractionally with founders and engineering leaders, and coach engineers and managers on the communication skills that stand between great work and the next level.

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Services

How I can help.

Leadership for startups & scaleups

Technical leadership

Your business is scaling faster than its technical leadership

I step in as your senior technical leader, bringing experience from the next stage of scale without the commitment of a full-time hire. I set direction, represent engineering at the leadership table, and make the calls that keep things moving.

Engineering operations

Your operating cadences are slowing you down

I find what's slowing you down and rebuild the operating layer between strategy and execution: planning rhythms, incident processes, and delivery metrics that fit how your team actually works. I also lead large technical programs, like moving your whole org onto new tools.

Growth engineering

You're guessing instead of learning

I help engineering and product build a real experimentation culture: the infrastructure, process, and habits for high-velocity testing, from A/B frameworks to making learning stick.

Coaching for engineers & managers

For individual contributors

Your work isn't speaking for itself, and the path to the next level seems vague

One-on-one coaching on how you talk about your work, make it visible, and influence beyond your team. As a manager, I've told more engineers than I can count that communication was holding them back, then coached them into people known for how well they communicate. Many of them got promoted.

For managers

You're managing in every direction with no playbook

Brand new or years in, your own boss is probably stretched too thin to mentor you the way you deserve. I've lived through it all before: the first underperformer, a CEO who wants dates you can't promise, partners who don't speak engineering, and a team looking to you for direction and answers. I survived to tell the tale and pass on my advice.

Not sure where to start?