Sam Feller

Scaled an internal HR tool for organizational design from a 17-user prototype to enterprise-wide production deployment, growing the audience to over 5,000 users. Depending on org size, HR time spent on non-value-added tasks was reduced by ½ day to 5 days of effort.

• Drove organic, viral growth of the product through internal marketing campaign, building an active and engaged Slack community of over 3,000 Amazonians.
• Secured funding for a 10-person team to transition product from prototype to production. Post launch, obtained additional funding for an additional 8 team members to accelerate development.
• Worked with industrial and organizational psychologists, HR business partners, economists, research scientists, UX designers, and engineers.

Responsible for Tulip's Edge offerings, connecting people, things, machines, and systems to Tulip's low-code/no-code platform. Products managed included our physical devices, firmware feature set, various runtime integrations with Tulip, the Tulip application "Player", and our cloud management portal.

• Launched Edge IO, next-generation Linux-based single-board computer edge device, winning head-to-head evaluation at key customer that led to six-figure direct device sale (largest launch in company history), $13M five-year software contract, and seven-figure strategic investment.
• Collaborated cross-functionally with engineering, design, marketing, finance, sales, professional services, and customer support.
• Championed adoption of improved Agile and Discovery practices across product teams.

Pursued an idea based on my experiences at Amazon to develop better tools to automate project management processes.

• Recruited UI and Technical co-founders to build MVP.
• Validated core automation technology through user testing, successfully automating project updates from individual contributors and identifying market fit challenges.
• Made a strategic decision to pivot based on market validation findings, recognizing the solution was better suited as an internal tool for consulting firms.

Solo venture, including end-to-end product development from concept to fulfillment, as well as consulting engagements.

• The Analog Voltmeter Clock achieved over 500% funding on Kickstarter and was successfully delivered to nearly 400 backers. Over its lifetime, the Clock went on to sell over 1,400 units at 70% gross margin.
• Routinely authors thought leadership content for the AwkwardEngineer blog. Topics include product development, program management, creative problem-solving, and humor, reaching 1,100+ readers with 46% email open rate.
• Architected a project management system for a 200+ member freelancer collective, achieving 95%+ on-time, on-budget project delivery.

TPM for three back-end software teams within the Alexa Information organization: answer orchestration, visual answer composition, and a natural language answer provider service.

• Established process development, Agile training, and planning/reporting frameworks that enabled team growth from 17 to 30+ people while supporting the senior manager.
• Achieved alignment on critical dependencies across globally distributed teams.
• Migrated 184 internal customers from deprecated manual override service to multiple replacement services.

TPM for an entrepreneurial skunkworks group developing the next generation of hardware technology for Amazon Go cashierless stores.

• Orchestrated cross-functional collaboration across 20+ team members spanning mechanical, electrical, firmware, optical, and industrial design disciplines.
• Distilled technical inputs from the team leads to facilitate schedule planning.
• Drove collaboration across supply chain/operations, compliance, software, machine vision/AI, and reliability/test teams, and formed and led ad hoc cross-functional teams when necessary.

Cofounder of a startup building cloud-connected, solar-powered cell phone charging kiosks. On $400K of outside investment, successfully deployed 24 charging stations within Massachusetts and to various locations around the US, and shipped an additional 24 units to the Democratic Republic of Congo before strategic wind-down.

• Assembled and led a cross-disciplinary team of electrical, firmware, and cloud engineers, while serving as industrial designer and mechanical engineer.
• Executed complete product development lifecycle including vendor sourcing and management, BOM documentation, unit installation, and timeline execution.

Project based consulting engagements in a client facing role. Responsibilities include proposal writing, requirements definition, schedule planning, design/engineering, build/integration, and knowledge transfer. Typically worked in small teams with electrical engineers and other disciplines to implement designs.

Specific projects include:

• Injection molded case design and transfer to a Contract Manufacturer
• Thermal trade study for semi-conductor capital equipment
• Mechanism failure diagnosis
• Structural steel design

Worked closely with optical, thermal, and control systems engineers to support system requirements with mechanical designs. Responsibilities included mechanism design/analysis, FEA, documentation, and oversight of assembly and test procedures.

Specific projects included:

• Development of a highly precise focus mechanism capable of surviving the random vibration environment of a rocket launch
• Structural engineering involving a crane lift of a 100,000lb radar dome
• Design of kinematic mounts for precision measurement equipment