I build and lead engineering teams that ship.

Contract and fractional engineering leadership for startups and growing companies.

From Idea to Impact. Sustainable Startup Growth.

3× Rehired byFormer Employers4+ CTO &Co-Founder RolesFortune 500Delivery

Track Record

My portfolio is not a list of isolated projects. It points to the kind of work I keep being trusted with: leadership when the product, team, or delivery system needs to become more real.

Three former employers brought me back for second engagements: once to step into leadership, once into a larger promoted role, and once after building the original MVP so I could help scale what came next.

Repeat engagements are the pattern: useful work, earned trust, and more responsibility the second time.

Companies I've led engineering at:

GAIN Fitness — CTO & Managing Partner

Personalized fitness app. Owned the full technical stack from architecture through delivery with a small, focused team.

MentorFit — CTO & Co-Founder

AI-powered resume builder and employee-matching platform for the construction industry. Built from zero to production.

Better World Software — Co-Founder

Software company serving non-profits and charities. Co-founded the company and helped build Better Meal Delivery from early product work into software used by meal delivery programs across North America.

Next Epic — Fractional CTO

Led architecture, delivery, and technical direction for a Fortune 500 connected fitness initiative. Small team, large scope, multi-year engagement.

Engineering Leadership, Applied

Built products from zero to production, led small teams on large-scope enterprise initiatives, and helped companies move from founder-led engineering to repeatable delivery.

The pattern across my work is hands-on leadership: architecture, delivery, team development, executive communication, and enough operational discipline to make momentum visible.

Organizations have asked me back when they needed more leadership, a larger role, or another stage of growth.

A Closer Look

The summaries above matter more when they connect to actual working conditions: remote teams, regulated software, engineering systems, complex product logic, and delivery habits that need to keep working after I step away.

Exan Software / Henry Schein

Leading a remote team building HIPAA-compliant software

At a Henry Schein software subsidiary, I led a fully remote engineering team working on HIPAA-compliant software. The work called for delivery leadership, hiring judgment, debugging discipline, and process that helped the team keep functioning even when I was not the bottleneck.

Context

Remote, regulated software

Role

Engineering leadership

Team clarity

Led the team through remote delivery, including hiring and the operating habits needed for distributed work.

Debugging discipline

Improved how the team approached debugging so issues could be understood and resolved more reliably.

Sustainable process

Put leadership processes in place so the team could function and thrive without depending on me for every decision.

This is the kind of work that is easy to flatten into a resume line, but the value was in the operating system around the team: how decisions were made, how delivery stayed visible, how debugging improved, and how a remote group kept momentum.

It also reflects the pattern I care about most. I am not only trying to ship the next thing; I am trying to leave behind a team that understands the work, owns the path forward, and can keep improving after my direct involvement changes.

Engineering systems

Helped with a TFS-to-Git migration across 50 repositories and 50 developers.

Developer enablement

Helped prove the approach, plan rollout, write instructions, and set up CI/CD pipelines.

Product logic

Built geospatial calibration work that aligned satellite imagery with GPS paths and vehicle positions.

At Wenco / Hitachi, I worked inside a mining fleet-management software environment where product work and engineering systems work were closely connected. One part of the work was modernization: moving source-control workflows from TFS to Git and helping the team adopt the supporting CI/CD patterns.

Another part was product depth. The fleet-management map needed satellite background images to line up with real-time GPS paths and vehicle positions, which required a custom calibration workflow and linear algebra to transform imagery into the product's coordinate system.

Wenco / Hitachi

Modernizing engineering workflows in mining software

This story shows a different side of the same pattern: practical technical contribution inside a complex product environment, paired with the kind of systems work that helps other developers adopt a shared workflow.

Context

Mining fleet software

Focus

Systems and geospatial work

Better World Software

Co-founding software for nonprofit meal delivery operations

Better World Software started with custom software work for non-profits and charities, then grew into Better Meal Delivery: a system built with Meals on Wheels teams to help run the operational details of community meal programs.

Context

Nonprofit operations

Role

Co-founder and builder

Product from real operations

The product grew out of nonprofit contract work and direct exposure to how Meals on Wheels programs actually run.

Hands-on technical build

Worked as one of two technical people implementing the application, infrastructure code, DevOps setup, and CI/CD pipelines.

Still expanding

The company is still running, and Better Meal Delivery continues expanding to additional locations across North America.

This story is a strong example of my zero-to-real-software work. We were not just building a generic application; we were learning the operational shape of nonprofit meal delivery and turning that into software for clients, volunteers, routes, meals, billing, reporting, and day-to-day coordination.

My contribution was deeply technical and practical: setting up the delivery infrastructure, implementing major parts of the application and infrastructure code, and working closely with another highly skilled technical partner so we could move between architecture, implementation, DevOps, and product decisions as the company grew.

Patterns Across My Work

The same patterns keep showing up in my work: trusted leadership in ambiguous stages, early products becoming real software, and technical decisions made clearly enough for teams and executives to act on.

15+

Years in Tech

CTO & Co-Founder Roles

F500

Delivery Experience

3×

Rehired by Former Employers

Where I Tend to Help

These are recurring situations where hands-on engineering leadership, product judgment, and delivery discipline matter at the same time.

Ambiguous Work That Needs Technical Leadership

The work I step into is often unclear at the start: product direction, technical path, team shape, or delivery risk. I help turn that ambiguity into decisions and shipped software.

Early Products Becoming Real Software

I have built products from zero to production, then returned when they needed to mature. That arc shapes how I think about architecture, delivery, and team habits.

Decision Pressure Across Product and Engineering

Founders, executives, product leaders, and engineers need a shared view of tradeoffs. I make technical choices legible enough for the business to trust and the team to execute.

AI and Tooling as Working Practice

I built and run a 100+ agent AI system for development and operations, so my perspective on AI comes from using it inside real software and business workflows.

Dustin Parnell

I'm an engineering leader with 15+ years of experience across software engineering, technical leadership, and startup operations. I've held multiple CTO and co-founder roles, delivered products from zero to production, and built businesses from scratch.

The thing that makes me useful is that I'm credible on both sides of the table. I can lead an engineering team and present to investors in the same week — and both groups will trust what I'm saying. That combination is rarer than it should be.

I do my best work embedded in a team, solving real problems with real people. Not advising from the outside. Not writing reports. Actually in it.

I also built and run a 100+ agent AI system I use across development and business operations every day. Not a product — just proof that I go deep on what I recommend.

Connect on LinkedIn→

Diagnose First

I look for the real constraint before prescribing process, architecture, hiring, or tooling.

Tight Feedback Loops

Teams get better when the work, tradeoffs, and risks are visible early enough to change.

Systems Thinking

Delivery problems are rarely just code problems. They usually involve incentives, communication, and ownership.

Practical Delivery

I care about systems because they help people ship. The goal is always useful progress.

Say Hello

If something here resonates, send a note or book a short call. I am always glad to compare context with thoughtful people building useful things.

LinkedIn is usually the easiest place to reach me.

15+ Years Experience3× RehiredFortune 500 Delivery