Zack Runner

Background

About Zack Runner

I've grown up through engineering into management and I deeply love both those roles. As an engineer I'm passionate about strong design and architecture that fully solves a problem in a way that is scalable, reliable, serviceable and understandable (fight that urge to overengineer!) Then I'm the one digging through the telemetry and building the visualizations to prove that design really is as crisp as planned before and after we ship. Design without data is just a guess. I also love hacking out tools and automating away the annoyances of the inner loop for myself and my team, since a happy developer is a productive developer and I'm no exception to that. As a manager, my focus is my employees. I'm watching out for opportunities to share, and coaching careers that will far outlast me or a specific team. To do this I need to be grounded in our direction, vision, and prioritization so I can help align all our efforts toward a common and impactful goal. Over time the team will grow, and the set of employees will also change. I'm here to fill the gaps of expertise in any team makeup while modeling, teaching, and getting out of the way for those that wish to pick up and drive those opportunities forward. I look to build a rapport with my team and avoid micromanaging while still providing strong support. Finally, I believe process is here to serve us, not the other way around. I'm constantly looking for team-supported, and voted, experiments that alter how we work, share, record, prepare, etc. to best meet our needs. I've been lucky to work in Microsoft across many teams and have never stopped learning and growing.