Hi, I'm Mark Mansour.
I’m a software engineering leader and people manager with a passion for solving customer problems. I do this by focusing on the most impactful deliverables, building cohesive teams, streamlining processes, and improving quality.
I’ve launched and run high-scale services for some of the world’s largest technology companies. I’ve also worked in startups to invent the future.
How I work
Like all leaders, my role is to deliver on what is important to my business as fast as possible. But each leader has their own way of achieving those goals. Here is the way I like to work.
As a leader, much of my success comes from my team. Therefore, my goal is to create an environment where people do their best work. I work with high caliber people. I want to allow each person on my team to bring their unique perspective to their role so I can get the most out of their creativity and energy.
I’ve found that one of the most effective levers to get higher quality work done more quickly is ensuring that everyone on the team knows what they’re responsible for and why. By reviewing org structures, establishing goals, and by clarifying roles and responsibilities, it clears the way for people to focus on work that pushes the whole team in the same direction.
I believe those closest to the work being done are in the best place to make decision on how to do the work. My goal is to delegate as much as possible to my team. Delegating authority can range from full delegation where choices are left entirely to the team through to being quite directive. It all depends on the people and the circumstances.
When working with my direct reports, I encourage a collaborative environment. I believe the best outcomes come when a range of opinions are shared before coming to a decision. And with a decision, my team will work in unison to achieve our shared goals.
With the team in alignment and work delegated, I’m then free to put my energy into growing my people, working with my peers on our shared objectives, and working with my leadership to drive our business forward.
“ I’ve had great experiences working with Mark in the Microsoft Identity team. Engaged, collaborative, detailed-oriented and punctual. Always willing to work through an issue and find a win-win solution. ”
Kamen Moutafov
Partner Director of Engineering at Microsoft
What I do
Let me help you understand the size and the shape of my teams so you can quickly see if my experience is in line with your role.
Scope and Impact
Over the past 8 years I’ve led teams with two levels of managers reporting to me and a recursive team size of around 90. I’m based in Seattle and it’s common for me to manage teams spread across the US and internationally. My team’s products are often a significant piece of a larger product portfolio. In the past I’ve owned the Hybrid Identity features of Microsoft’s Entra ID, the Prime / Checkout / Merchant portions of Amazon’s Buy With Prime product, and Continuous Delivery, Automated testing, Deployment Governance, and Change Management tooling as part of Amazon’s Developer Productivity at AWS. These systems process billions of records. I’ve owned fleets of over 80,000 machines, serving hundreds of thousands of QPS. On the business side, I lead and drive strategic plans for my area of ownership. I work closely with my stakeholders to influence their strategies.
Culture and Leadership
I see culture and leadership as the ingredients that make work rewarding, enjoyable, and productive. Overall, I’m aiming for a team that is on top of their work and has fun while doing it. To create a great environment, I drive change and cultural transformation within my area of accountability. I cultivate a culture that improves performance (increasing speed and frequency of delivery and reducing the number and length of outages), emphasizes system stability (when appropriate), and quality (better code and architecture as well as products that meet customer’s needs). I also help my people reach their potential, providing those who are ready with stretch opportunities. I coach, mentor, and develop my team members to increase the capacity of my organization.
Influence and Decision Making
We don’t work in a bubble, we work in an ecosystem. I work with leaders across an entire company to create alignment and drive collaboration.
Knowledge
I love learning about new industries, which is why I’ve worked in so many of them. I have significant subject matter expertise with developer productivity, Identity, multisided marketplaces, and Information Retrieval. I’ve also spent time in Banking and AI (Agent Based systems).
Judgement and Risk Management
I like getting work done, which requires seeing around corners to predict unforeseen issues and thinking carefully about where to invest effort. My day-to-day management skills are strong in both project management and managing production systems. I actively manage risk and work with my teams so they improve their ability to identify and manage that risk.
“ I can't speak highly enough of his leadership, direction, and ability to create a healthy culture in his organization. […] Mark is able to create high-functioning organizations that work well together under pressure and deliver results without sacrificing morale. ”
Sean Maloney
Director of Engineering at Epic Games
Words from past collegues
“ Mark's strengths include his ability to bring clarity to a problem by understanding the deep technical details, and then being able to up-level them so that everyone can understand. In addition to this, Mark brings out the best in his direct reports and colleagues by teaching: Mark asks questions, so that others can arrive at a solution themselves, rather than just sharing the solution directly. This has greatly helped me grow as an engineer. ”
Ido Benshachar
Principal Engineering Manager at Microsoft
“ Mark is the person who taught me how to be a successful manager at Amazon. Management at Amazon comes with extremely high expectations. I honestly didn't know what I was in for when I started the job, even though I had 7 years of experience there as an engineer. Through Mark's guidance I learned how to communicate at an executive level. I learned how to manage large projects which had an impact across the entire company. Mark was good at finding the balance of leaning in when I needed help and giving me lots of space to when I was doing ok (or when failure was an option). Ultimately I got promoted to Sr. Manager, and I never would have performed at that level without Mark's mentorship. I'm grateful to have had his help, and I think he would be a great leader on any team. ”
Neil Macneale IV
former Senior Manager at AWS
“ I observed Mark to be a highly effective leader of people. I saw him aligning work to impact, an emphasis on quality and automation in services, good judgment and quick decision making when there is no time for deep analysis, an iterative approach to software and services to deliver as much value as possible as quickly as possible, then continue to iterate towards your goals. ”
Joe Isenhour
Principal Engineering Manager at Microsoft
About me
Today I lead software engineering teams, but started as a software engineer working on internet applications from the earliest days of the web. My day job was programming for the first ten years of my career working on distributed systems in Java, C++, and Ruby before transitions into being a people manager. I still enjoy programming and occasionally I scrape out time to write code. But over the last 10 years I’ve been excited, challenged, and engrossed learning about leadership and how to create high performing technology teams.
Looking forward, the people I work with are my top priority as I seek out new roles. I’m looking for an energetic group of people who play well together and enjoy each other’s company. This leads me to a conclusion that the product is really a secondary consideration, which means I’m open to working in nearly any type of product. That will come as a surprise to many, but if I put the people I work with first then everything else must come after that. I’m a curious person and I love to learn new domains and technology. What I do look for in a product is that is has high growth potential and that leadership values that product.
If you’ve got this far, thank you.
Please reach out to me and say hello.
