How I Helped Build and Lead Wildebeest’s Product & Engineering Team

From Teaching to Leading a Design & Development Agency

Wildebeest started as a bold experiment—two ambitious founders, Ran Craycraft and Kevin Ng, learning to code in my General Assembly course in Santa Monica and taking that knowledge to build their own agency. What began as a small design and development shop quickly gained traction, landing high-profile clients like Google, Disney, and Spotify.

As their projects grew in scale and complexity, they faced challenges beyond their initial expertise.

So they called me.

Not just to help with tough technical problems but to lead their engineering efforts, mentor a growing team, and architect solutions that could handle the demands of enterprise clients. Over time, my role evolved from technical consultant to tech lead to Head of Product, shaping both the technology and business direction of the agency.

Scaling Engineering, Products, and Client Success

1. Architecting Complex Client Projects for Major Brands

By the time I joined, Wildebeest had secured contracts with some of the biggest brands in the world, including:

✅ Spotify
✅ Disney
✅ Google
✅ Cheetos
✅ GoodRx
✅ Hulu
✅ Una (Healthcare Life Alert System)

But with big clients came big technical challenges. Wildebeest needed scalable architectures, modern frontend frameworks, and robust backend solutions.

Key Technical Challenges & Solutions:

✔ Machine Learning & AI: Some projects required AI-driven insights. The CTO (Kevin) and I taught ourselves ML algorithms and frameworks, applying them in playlist curation, predictive systems, and AI-driven engagement tools.
✔ Modernizing the Tech Stack: Wildebeest originally relied on Ruby on Rails (which I had taught them at General Assembly). I led the transition to React, Next.js, and a microservices-based Node.js architecture, making their applications faster, more scalable, and flexible.
✔ DevOps & CI/CD: I implemented CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and deployment strategies, improving development speed, stability, and workflow efficiency.
✔ Team Growth & Mentorship: As more junior developers joined, I introduced structured code reviews, best practices, and mentorship programs, fostering a culture of learning and technical excellence.

2. Managing Large-Scale & Custom Platform Builds

Beyond well-known brands, Wildebeest also worked with large-scale corporate and community-driven clients that required highly customized, technically demanding solutions.

🏗 Enterprise Hardware Company – Multi-Language, Thousands of Pages

• Led a multi-million dollar project for a major hardware company, overseeing the development of a large-scale corporate website with thousands of pages across multiple languages.
• Helped reduce technical debt, improve performance, and streamline site architecture to make it more maintainable.
• Ensured efficient project execution, leading the team through technical challenges and cross-team collaboration.

🌍 Custom Community Platform – Forums, Courses & Live Events

• Architected a custom community platform for a client building a dedicated space for forums, workshops, course sharing, and live events.
• Designed and implemented features for progress tracking, material sharing, and interactive engagement.
• Provided strategic guidance on platform scalability and long-term growth to ensure sustainable user engagement.

3. Leading Product Design & Development

Beyond client work, I helped Wildebeest turn bold ideas into real products.

🩺 Una – A Hardware/Software Platform for Elderly Care

• A connected life alert system to help families stay informed about elderly relatives’ health and well-being.
• Integrated hardware sensors with a real-time dashboard for health monitoring.
• Designed for high-reliability use cases in health and emergency response.

📈 ML-Powered Playlist Curation for Disney & Spotify

• Partnered with Disney and Spotify to develop an AI-driven playlist generator that matched users' listening habits with Disney characters from upcoming films.
• Used machine learning to analyze genre, tempo, and historical preferences, creating curated playlists as part of a large-scale promotional campaign.
• Boosted fan engagement and brand interaction, showcasing how AI can enhance entertainment marketing through personalized music recommendations.

These projects showcased Wildebeest’s ability to build and scale AI-driven solutions, differentiating them from other agencies.

4. Evolving From Tech Lead to Head of Product

As Wildebeest grew, my role expanded from engineering leadership to product strategy and client management.

✔ Managing Client Relationships – Translating business goals into technical roadmaps and ensuring our solutions met real-world needs.
✔ Balancing Product & Engineering – Led both product strategy and technical execution, ensuring ideas could be built, scaled, and shipped efficiently.
✔ Developed Team Processes – Introduced agile workflows, mentorship programs, and structured team feedback loops to help the company scale.
✔ Optimized Communication & Leadership – Learned to delegate effectively, mentor junior developers, and navigate client relationships while still being hands-on.

Impact & Legacy at Wildebeest

What Changed Because of My Work?

✅ Stronger Technical Foundation – The transition to modern, scalable frameworks (React, Next.js, Node.js, microservices) made Wildebeest more competitive in enterprise software.
✅ High-Profile Client Success – We successfully built and delivered projects for top-tier companies like Google, Disney, and Spotify.
✅ Junior Developer Growth – I mentored and trained new developers, introducing code reviews, modern best practices, and structured learning.
✅ Better Engineering Workflows – Implemented CI/CD, testing, and agile processes, making development more efficient.
✅ Internal Product Innovation – Launched two product initiatives in healthcare and AI-driven analytics.

Key Takeaways & Lessons

✔ Growing an agency requires balancing hands-on execution with leadership and mentorship.
✔ Scaling technical infrastructure transforms what’s possible for clients and internal teams.
✔ Investing in team development leads to better, faster, and more confident engineers.
✔ The best leaders drive technical strategy while staying deeply connected to execution.

Want to Build Scalable, High-Impact Digital Products?

I bring a unique mix of technical leadership, product vision, and hands-on development expertise. If you’re looking for someone who can architect, design, and lead teams to build scalable products, let’s talk. 🚀