Claire Whitlock, coach for people in tech. Eleven years as an engineering manager, ICF PCC, coaching since 2019.
Coach for people who build software · ICF PCC
Eleven years as an engineering manager at two software companies, then a coaching credential and seven years of six-session blocks with senior engineers, new managers and founders. Plain-spoken, structured, unhurried. Twelve clients at a time, a paper notebook for each.
Claire Whitlock Coaching · Seattle, WA
One-to-one coaching for engineers, managers and founders in six-session blocks; a team lead circle of six twice a year; decision sessions for people with an offer and a deadline. 214 clients, 1,340 sessions, one notebook each.
Halyard Software · Seattle, WA
Ran platform and payments, forty-one engineers across five teams. Introduced the written role description for every senior engineer and cut the on-call rota from nine days a quarter to four.
Halyard Software · Seattle, WA
First management role; eleven reports on the payments team. Learned what the good weeks look like and how quietly the bad ones arrive, which is most of what I coach now.
Brightline Systems · Portland, OR
Billing and ledger services in a company of two hundred. Wrote the release notes for four years because nobody else wanted to, and found out I liked saying clearly what changed.
Meridian Logic · Portland, OR
First job out of university, on a scheduling product for clinics. Shipped, broke and fixed things in roughly equal measure.
Coach Training Institute · Seattle, WA
A year of training to stop giving advice. The credential is the least useful thing I took from it.
University of Washington · Seattle, WA
Compilers, databases and a minor in philosophy that turned out to matter more.
International Coaching Federation
Coach Training Institute
National Council for Mental Wellbeing
Lead Dev Seattle, talk
Why every conversation about burnout should start with a calendar and a calculator, and what to do with the number.
Monthly newsletter
One pattern from the sessions, one question, and what I am reading. About 900 readers.
Essay
On writing down what changed, in the plain style I learned from four years of shipping software.