Product & Engineering Leader | Systems Thinker
I build high-performing, adaptive, deeply collaborative product & engineering organizations that deliver exceptional value at high velocity. With 20+ years across startups, scale-ups, and Fortune 50s, I bridge product and technology to drive growth—accelerating release cadence, cutting lead times, creating products that matter, and saving millions in operational costs. I lead through systems thinking, cross-functional collaboration, and AI-enabled innovation, building adaptive teams that scale and thrive together.
I transform organizations by building adaptive systems that scale faster than market changes. Whether you're struggling with slow decision-making, siloed teams, or technology that's become a bottleneck, I help you create high-performing, collaborative environments that deliver exceptional value at unprecedented velocity.
20+ years learning that slow product and engineering teams aren't slow because of bad developers or old technology. They're slow because their systems make collaboration hard and individual heroics necessary. When you redesign the human systems around how people connect, communicate, and make decisions together, the technical problems solve themselves.
Providing strategic guidance on product and technology to drive innovation and growth.
Building data infrastructure and tooling for developers and agents.
Field CTO working with customers, prospects, and partners across the world, internal teams (sales, engineering, product, marketing, developer relations), and public relations (industry analysts, press).
Transformed product & engineering culture achieving 6x product releases and 10x deployment frequency while saving $1.2M annually
Built mobile-first, cloud-native digital banking from scratch while learning regulation drives innovation
Built JPMC's first feature-flagging platform enabling 1,200+ concurrent releases to 65M+ users while optimizing core systems for 4.25-second performance gains.
MSCLVR (CTO/Co-founder), Try the World (CTO), Birchbox (Senior Engineer), JP Morgan Wealth Management (Engineering Lead) - Customer obsession beats technical perfection
Sharing insights on adaptive leadership, organizational transformation, and product & engineering across various platforms
In the second session of the 'Unlocking Engineering Productivity' webinar by Typo, host Kovid Batra engages engineering leaders Cesar Rodriguez and Ariel Pérez in a conversation about building high-performing development teams.
Chris Lucian and Austin Chadwick discuss all things agile and product development from a MobProgramming perspective. Exploring the fascinating intersection of Complex Adaptive Organizations, Organizational Topologies, and the FAST Agile Framework.
Welcome to episode #35 of the 'groCTO Originals' podcast. Ariel Pérez, VP of Engineering at Split, shares insights on creating an environment for success and enabling cross-functional teams to establish the right context.
How can engineering leaders help their reports find joy in their work?
Does the emergence of feature flags affect the interpretation and utility of DORA metrics? Dan Lines and Ariel Perez, VP of Engineering at Split.io, discuss the state of DORA metrics and whether they need reimaging in a world of feature flags.
In this meetup I'll be talking about the role of leaders and the difference between leaders and managers. How leaders can put people first to identify the most important areas to focus on to build trust, create motivation, and deepen engagement.
Exploring adaptive leadership and organizational design at The Adaptive Alchemist
Refactoring prevents decay. AI multiplies output. Neither changes the underlying economics of your system. The highest-leverage investment in software is reducing structural drag—the friction baked into architecture, practices, and org design.
Teams invest seriously in refactoring and still lose speed. The surprise isn't the cost. It's that with the same effort, timing alone can nearly double the return.
Teams ship faster every quarter, yet delivery keeps slowing. The problem isn't process or talent. It's technical debt silently draining change capacity until agility collapses.
I love collaborating with organizations and individuals who are passionate about building adaptive, high-performing teams and systems. Whether through fractional/interim CTO/CPTO engagements, speaking, or writing collaborations, I'm always excited to share insights and work together on challenging problems.
I work with companies to build systems that adapt faster than market changes by transforming your organization through adaptive leadership, cross-functional velocity, and strategic product & technology alignment.
I don't just diagnose problems. I get hands-on to fix them, whether reviewing code, redesigning team structures, or sitting in strategy and planning meetings.
Important Note: I deliver my services exclusively through Adaptive Alchemy LLC, a US-based consultancy. I focus on delivering exceptional value while Adaptive Alchemy handles business operations.
I'm passionate about sharing insights on adaptive leadership, organizational transformation, and the intersection of technology and human systems. Let's explore opportunities to collaborate, share knowledge, and push the boundaries of what's possible.
Please reach out for:
The best conversations start with curiosity about what could be different. Whether your team is stuck in coordination overhead, your product and engineering groups aren't aligned, or you're wondering if there's a better way to organize for growth, I'd love to explore what might be possible.