W. David Betts
Engineering Leader
I build platforms that change how teams ship software.
About
Hands-on engineering leader with 15+ years experience. Currently at Twilio as Platform Software Engineering Architect, leading AI developer productivity for 1,500 engineers. I've led teams from 2 to 35, shipped platforms used by thousands, and still write code every week.
I believe platforms should make the right thing easy — and I've seen what happens when they do: grassroots adoption, engineers praising the tools unsolicited, VPs showing up to say "this changed how we build software."
Experience
Platform Software Engineering Architect
Twilio
- Single-threaded owner for AI developer tooling strategy across R&D (1,500 engineers)
- Founded AI DevEx Guild, 300+ members; drove Claude Code adoption (860 active users, 87% adoption)
- Presented AI tooling progress to Twilio’s Board of Directors
- EM of Platform Cloud Native Domain Team — built Cloud Native platform, 75 active contributors
- Co-authored 3-year Platform strategy, roadshow to 10+ VPs
Senior Engineering Manager
Segment / Twilio
- Led 3 teams (19 ICs, 2 managers) on developer productivity
- Implemented Backstage for 400+ active users
- Drove migration of 900+ services to Argo CD/Workflow deployment pipeline
Director, Platform Engineering / Operations
Solid State Operations
- Led Azure DevOps, SRE, and Security teams
- Operated production Kubernetes clusters for government services
- Owned FedRAMP/StateRAMP compliance
Enterprise Technologist
HP Inc.
- Led 10 architects across 26 application teams and 43 projects
- Managed $76M digital transformation with $383M+ delivered savings
CTO
Krazy Coupon Lady
- Built engineering and data team from scratch (2 managers, 11 ICs)
- Established $6M Sponsored Content business
- Built iOS/Android apps with React Native
Featured Work
Wave Planner
Full-stack planning tool for engineering teams. Next.js 16 + SQLite + Tailwind + AWS Bedrock. AI-assisted wave planning with drag-and-drop timeline, metrics dashboard, and executive presentation mode.
SoundSignal
Automated building permit extraction and AI-powered risk analysis for residential properties. Playwright scraping, multi-layer Claude extraction pipeline, FastAPI + Celery backend, Next.js dashboard.
AI ROI Framework
Built the analytical framework to justify enterprise AWS Bedrock spend. Multi-agent cohort analysis correlating Claude Code adoption with developer experience metrics. Deliverable: CFO-level presentation.
Speaking & Media
Engineering Enablement Podcast
Jan 2025Using developer experience surveys to drive internal platform roadmap
LeadDev
Jun 2024Measuring developer productivity with DORA, SPACE, or DevEx
Writing
Building a Medical Research System for Our Daughter with Claude Code
March 22, 2026Using Claude Code to help our family understand complex chronic illness research and ask better questions at appointments.
Building a Full-Stack Career Intelligence Dashboard in One Day with Claude Code and gstack
March 18, 2026From zero to 64 commits, 7,500 lines of source code, and a production AWS deployment in a single sitting.
Agent Phone: Teaching Claude Code to Call Me When It Gets Stuck
March 14, 2026I built a Claude Code plugin that places real phone calls when an autonomous agent needs a decision. Twilio, ConversationRelay, and a stop hook, so I can unblock my AI from anywhere.