Bryan Focht
Director of Software Engineering · GoDaddy
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Profile
- 28 yr in software
- 14+ yr at GoDaddy
- ~25 current org
- MBA Boston University
Director of Software Engineering · GoDaddy — Arizona · linkedin.com/in/fochtb
Engineering leader with 28 years building software and 14+ years at GoDaddy, currently directing the catalog, product-creation and basket platform underneath GoDaddy's commerce stack — the systems that decide what can be sold, at what price, in which market, and how it reaches a cart.
Career arc runs from hands-on ETL and payments engineering, through eight years managing a product-and-platform team that took an e-commerce program into 50+ markets, to a director role running three teams across US, European and Indian time zones owning a multi-billion dollar ecommerce platform.
How I work
- Buy down risk before scale. Large migrations ship behind translation seams, shadow-mode comparison and per-item kill switches rather than flag days.
- Fix causes, not symptoms. When a pricing defect surfaced downstream, the fix went into the catalog layer instead of a patch in the consuming service.
- Grow people into scope. Several managers and a bench of staff engineers own delivery outright; my leverage is architecture review, staffing and unblocking.
Currently accountable for
Catalog modernization onto a product/variant/offer semantic model · migration of order and basket traffic onto a new commerce stack in AWS · platform resilience and caching · engineering standards · security and compliance · an expanding ownership that now includes refund automation and AI credit reserve.
Agentic tools
Claude Code · Cursor · Cowork · Copilot · OpenClaw · ZeroClaw
Core technology
Java 21 · Spring Boot 3.x · AWS · DynamoDB · Redis · SQL Server · Node.js · React · Python · Kubernetes
Education
MBA, Boston University (2022) · BS Information Technology, University of Phoenix · Engineering coursework, Arizona State University
Selected credentials
Certified ScrumMaster · ITIL v3 · CSSLP · Prompt Engineering (Vanderbilt) · Node.js Foundation member
Skills: Engineering Leadership · Global Team Management · Roadmap & Product Strategy · E-commerce Platforms · Catalog & Pricing Systems · Java · AWS · LLM Agents · Forward-Deployed Engineering
Director of Software Engineering
- ~25 engineers & managers
- 3 teams, 3 regions
- $1M defect exposure caught
- 100K+ monthly orders in scope
I own the catalog, product-creation and basket platform behind GoDaddy's commerce stack. Three teams, roughly 25 engineers and managers from staff level to SDE I plus interns, deliberately spread across time zones for near-continuous delivery.
The organization
- Catalog Platform — catalog query, offer enrichment, the translation compatibility layer, and the new catalog-variants service.
- Product Creation / CMT — product intake, TLD master listing, catalog UI, and internal agent tooling.
- Basket Service — basket, order shim, and shadow routing onto the new commerce stack.
- Scope is still growing: refund automation and AI credit reserve are moving into the org.
What I am accountable for
Catalog modernization. Moving a long-lived legacy catalog onto a variant/offer model behind a translation seam, so V2 callers keep working while V3 rolls out. That one catalog prices and manages the lifecycle for domains, hosting, SSL and other security products, email and productivity plans, website builder and commerce add-ons, mobile plans, payment products, and the emerging AI Credit reserve — every SKU behind the storefront runs through the same pricing and offer model. Delivery runs through curated offers one offer at a time, with per-offer and bulk kill switches, explicit production gates, and a bug bash before broad serving. I set the sequencing rule that the new service proves it can reach production data before the first gate opens.
Commerce-stack migration. Order and basket traffic moves onto the new stack in shadow mode and is only cut over once diffs are clean — the orders-translation cutover held at 99.6% shadow match and when new domain element types landed I ran them through another shadow pass and cut over clean. That produced a standing rule: any new element type requires another shadow pass before re-cutting traffic, with named code owners on the legacy repository so changes cannot land unnoticed.
Platform resilience. Timeouts and circuit breakers on downstream calls, bounded caches, connection-pool isolation for noisy upstreams, and a deliberate caching strategy.
Engineering standards. My teams adopted enforced coverage on new code — 90% unit, 100% functional-API — tracked per repository rather than as an aspiration.
Contractor and staffing management. I own the full software engineering contractor lifecycle end to end — sourcing and acquisition, statement-of-work negotiation, onboarding, day-to-day management, and renewal or offboarding — augmenting my full-time teams with staffing vendors including EPAM, Tech Systems, Globant, Apex Systems, Lviv IT and others.
Full-cycle recruiting. I run the full-time hiring pipeline end to end — sourcing, screening, structured interview loops, offer strategy and closing — using tooling including HackerRank, ModernLoop, Greenhouse, LinkedIn Recruiting and WorkDay.
Security and compliance. Vulnerability remediation, certificate renew/install/retire automation, and SOX review tooling for product-lifecycle changes.
Selected impact
- Caught a cart add-on defect that broke the domain/add-on parent-child relationship with roughly $1M exposure, and staffed the fix by pairing my staff engineer directly with the owning team rather than filing it across a boundary.
- Root-caused a prorated-pricing defect projected to affect 10–16% of 100K+ monthly orders during migration events, and drove the fix into the catalog layer instead of accepting a downstream patch.
- Traced platform-wide catalog instability to upstream API latency; the same-day fix ended the timeout alerts, and I moved those calls behind a dedicated connection pool so one slow dependency cannot take the platform with it.
- Standing up LLM agent tooling on the platform: a catalog MCP server, a multi-domain catalog AI agent, and an intern-built AI-backed SOX tax-review agent that replaced a manual spreadsheet process.
Technology
Java 21 · Spring Boot 3.x · AWS · DynamoDB · Redis · SQL Server · Elasticsearch · Kubernetes
Skills: Engineering Leadership · Global Team Management · Roadmap & Product Strategy · Mentorship & Career Growth · Partner & Vendor Management · Contractor & Staffing Management · Full-cycle Recruiting · Architecture Review · Agile / Scrum · Test Strategy & Coverage · SOX / Compliance · Java · Spring Boot · AWS · Microservices · REST APIs · SQL · SQL Server · DynamoDB · Redis · Caching Strategy · Observability · Resilience Engineering · Large-scale Migration · Catalog & Pricing Systems · E-commerce Platforms · LLM Agents · MCP · Prompt Engineering
Senior Engineering Manager
- 50+ markets launched
- 97% unit test coverage
- 8 yr in seat
- 4+ major partners onboarded
Built and ran a cross-functional agile team — software engineers, test engineers and a product owner — and drove the roadmap in partnership with business development. Responsible for hiring, delivery and platform direction.
Ran full-cycle recruiting for the team — sourcing, screening, interview loops and closing
Growth and reach
- Expanded the private label reseller program into 50+ global markets, adding localization to the platform: multi-language, multi-currency and multi-brand support.
- Launched a brand-new internationalized, responsive turnkey storefront on Node.js, React, and Bootstrap.
- Onboarded recognizable partners onto the platform, including WHMCS, Microsoft and Amazon.
- Consistently delivered roadmap commitments on time.
Platform and engineering
- Built a RESTful e-commerce API now consumed by the storefront and by customers building their own, fully documented with OpenAPI so any platform can integrate.
- Authored the companion WordPress plugin and theme.
- Fully automated CI/CD with Jenkins, building Docker images and deploying to Kubernetes, including automated change-order creation for releases.
- Held 97% unit test coverage plus integration tests across all core features.
- Lead engineer on the Web Pro platform (Django/Python), launching the first send-cart and shared-shopping experience, and integrating WebPro Marketplace and delegation.
- Partnered directly with Google on an OAuth flow letting Google Apps and Gmail customers link a GoDaddy-purchased domain — implemented in .NET and C#.
Customer growth, unusually
Started a YouTube channel to improve onboarding for customers new to the program. It worked well enough that the team expanded to include marketing, with monthly livestreams and social content, and eventually monthly webinars where engineers demo directly to customers.
ITIL certified since 2012.
Skills: Engineering Leadership · Hiring & Team Building · Roadmap & Product Strategy · Partner & Vendor Management · Contractor & Staffing Management · Full-cycle Recruiting · Global Team Management · Agile / Scrum · ITIL · Test Strategy & Coverage · Internationalization · Node.js · React · JavaScript · Python · Django · WordPress · REST APIs · Swagger / OpenAPI · Jenkins · Docker · Kubernetes · CI/CD · OAuth · .NET · C# · E-commerce Platforms · Microservices
Senior Technical Consultant
- 10 yr consulting tenure
- ETL core specialty
- FDE engagement model
Software and data consulting, specialising in ETL data conversion and processing alongside .NET application development — working as a forward-deployed engineer (FDE), embedded directly at client sites.
- Worked directly with over 150 clients from fortune 500 corporations down to small businesses, designing and implementing solutions against their specific constraints rather than a standard package.
- Streamlined client processes and optimized data flow, improving overall operating efficiency.
- Long-running relationships — a decade of repeat projects.
Skills: Forward-Deployed Engineering · ETL · .NET · C# · ASP.NET · SQL Server · SQL · Partner & Vendor Management
Lead Software Engineer
- real-time transaction inquiry
- AS/400 COBOL system migrated
- CSM earned in seat
Led development of high-performance applications on C# and J2EE for financial systems, centred on real-time transaction inquiry and fraud elimination — the latency and correctness constraints of payments processing.
- Migrated an AS/400 COBOL system to .NET and SQL Server, using ASP.NET, C# and SSIS — a legacy modernization with no tolerance for data loss.
- Owned technical direction and delivery for the team.
- Completed scrum training and earned Certified ScrumMaster, then led engineering projects on that model.
This is where the pattern that still defines my work started: modernize a legacy system underneath live financial traffic, without breaking it.
Skills: Engineering Leadership · C# · J2EE · .NET · ASP.NET · SQL Server · SSIS · COBOL · SQL · Payments & Fraud · Agile / Scrum · ETL
Software Engineer
- 7 yr first engineering role
- legacy → SQL conversion focus
First engineering role, and seven years of it. Specialised in ETL processes converting legacy-system data into SQL databases for SmartBiz software in the pest-control industry.
- Collaborated with cross-functional teams to optimize software performance and improve the user experience.
- Built conversion tooling that improved data-processing efficiency and accuracy, streamlining customer operations.
The through-line to everything after: getting data out of a system that was never designed to give it up.
Skills: ETL · SQL · SQL Server
Education
- MBA Boston University, 2022
- BS Information Technology
Boston University
Master of Business Administration · 2020 – 2022
Completed while running a director-level organization.
Arizona State University
Engineering · 2002 – 2005
University of Phoenix
BS, Information Technology · 2002 – 2004
Glendale Community College
Associate of Arts · 1998 – 2002
Every degree here was earned alongside full-time engineering work.
Certifications
- 3 professional certifications
- 2 AI / prompt engineering
- 2017 Node.js Foundation member
Professional certifications
- Certified ScrumMaster — Scrum Alliance, May 2011
- ITIL version 3 — EXIN, Mar 2012
- CSSLP, Certified Secure Software Lifecycle Professional — (ISC)², Aug 2013 (lapsed Jul 2020)
AI & prompt engineering
- Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT — Vanderbilt University, Dec 2023
- Prompt Engineering: How to Talk to the AIs — LinkedIn, Feb 2024
Leadership
- Step Up to Leadership — Dale Carnegie Training
Organizations
- Node.js Foundation, Linux Foundation — since Jan 2017
Skills: Agile / Scrum · ITIL · Prompt Engineering · SOX / Compliance
Degrees
- Master of Business Administration
- Engineering coursework
- BS, Information Technology
- Associate of Arts
Certifications
- Certified ScrumMaster
- ITIL version 3
- Certified Secure Software Lifecycle Pro.
Trainings
- Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT
Credential ID 5NYD6Q9NQTR2 - Prompt Engineering: How to Talk to the AIs
- Step Up to Leadership
LIVE Online Training
Memberships
- Node.js Foundation member
Skills
Leadership
Engineering Leadership · Global Team Management · Hiring & Team Building · Contractor & Staffing Management · Full-cycle Recruiting · Roadmap & Product Strategy · Partner & Vendor Management · Forward-Deployed Engineering · Mentorship & Career Growth
Practices
Agile / Scrum · ITIL · Architecture Review · SOX / Compliance · Test Strategy & Coverage
Languages
Java · C# · .NET · Python · JavaScript · COBOL · SQL
Backend & Cloud
Spring Boot · AWS · REST APIs · Microservices · J2EE · ASP.NET · Django · OAuth · Swagger / OpenAPI
DevOps
Kubernetes · Docker · Jenkins · CI/CD · Observability
Data
ETL · SQL Server · DynamoDB · Redis · SSIS · Caching Strategy
Frontend
React · Node.js · WordPress · Internationalization
AI
LLM Agents · Prompt Engineering · MCP
Domain
E-commerce Platforms · Catalog & Pricing Systems · Payments & Fraud · Resilience Engineering · Large-scale Migration
Organizations
Employers
- GoDaddy
- TheServicePro
- First Data
- FMC Corporation
Schools
- Boston University
- Arizona State University
- University of Phoenix
- Glendale Community College
Institutions
- Scrum Alliance
- EXIN
- (ISC)²
- Vanderbilt University
- LinkedIn Learning
- Dale Carnegie Training
- Linux Foundation