Geoffrey Dagley

gdagley@gmail.com | 469-742-1130 | geoffreydagley.com | linkedin.com/in/gdagley

Senior engineering executive with 25+ years of experience building and scaling high-performing teams to develop market-defining web and mobile applications. Proven ability to recruit, mentor, and develop top engineering talent, foster a culture of collaboration and innovation, and create agile, efficient engineering organizations that drive business success.

Team Leadership: Successfully scaled engineering organizations across startups and enterprises, implementing agile methodologies, cross-functional collaboration, and a strong engineering culture to accelerate product development, improve developer satisfaction, and optimize execution.

Product Development: Led engineering efforts to bring cutting-edge digital products to market, contributing to 100+ patents in auto finance, e-commerce, data analytics, machine learning, and AR/XR. Expertise in translating business vision into scalable, high-impact technology solutions that enhance customer experience and drive competitive advantage.

EXPERIENCE

blockit (Mar 2024 - Jan 2025)

VP of Engineering

Engineering Team Growth & Leadership

Scaled the engineering organization from 6 to 28 engineers, QA, and data professionals, forming 7 cross-functional teams covering product development, EMR integration, customer support, QA, and data. Implemented a pod-based team structure to empower teams with clear ownership, faster decision-making, and a culture of accountability.
Invested in team development by launching Focus Fridays and Lunch & Learns, fostering a culture of continuous learning, innovation, and internal knowledge sharing that directly improved developer satisfaction and retention.

Process & Operational Improvements

Dramatically improved efficiency, reducing average ticket resolution time from 40 days to 10 days by revamping the feature intake process, increasing stakeholder engagement, and setting clearer development priorities. These changes empowered teams to work more autonomously while improving responsiveness to customer needs.

Technical Leadership & System Improvements

Proactively improved platform security and scalability by conducting a comprehensive infrastructure audit, identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities before they could impact customers. This effort laid a strong foundation for growth, operational resilience, and regulatory compliance, and led to a project to automate infrastructure management using Terraform, ensuring greater consistency, scalability, and reduced operational overhead.
Strengthened automated testing and observability systems to ensure deployment stability, prevent regressions, and proactively address performance issues. By improving alerting and monitoring, the team was able to reduce on-call disruptions, enhance engineering focus, and minimize customer downtime—directly improving reliability and user trust.

Product & Delivery Excellence

Aligned engineering strategy with business goals to ensure that all development efforts delivered meaningful customer impact. Strengthened QA and product review processes to catch issues earlier, reduce production bugs, and elevate product reliability—directly improving customer satisfaction and retention.

Strategic Leadership & Stakeholder Engagement

Successfully managed a custom development project for one of our largest clients, ensuring long-term sustainability, maintainability, and a seamless customer experience despite complex integrations.
Championed a culture of collaboration and operational excellence by breaking down silos between engineering, product, and operations. Led cross-functional initiatives to enhance team efficiency, create more transparent workflows, and elevate overall product quality—resulting in a more aligned and engaged engineering team.

Capital One (July 2017 — Feb 2024)

Director, Software Engineering, Credit Card (March 2023 — Feb 2024)

Led the convergence of multiple fraud detection decision engines into a unified platform, with a goal of improving development efficiency, reducing operational complexity, and accelerating rule deployment.
Transformed four remote teams to proactively manage tech upgrades, security remediations, and microservices hygiene, resulting in lower operational costs and faster product deployments.

Director, Software Engineering, Auto Finance (Feb 2022 — March 2023)

Expanded Capital One's auto financing footprint to 6000+ dealerships by integrating financing tools into dealer websites using independently deployable micro frontends.
Led the expansion of Showroom, a white-labeled digital retail product, enhancing the car buying experience and increasing dealer adoption.
Coached and mentored five remote agile teams, transitioning from reactive work to a proactive development approach, fostering continuous delivery and leadership growth among 30+ engineers and managers.
Eliminated redundant technical debt across multiple applications by aligning product, design, and engineering teams, reducing transaction costs and improving system interoperability for dealer integrations.

Senior Manager, Software Engineering, Auto Finance (Feb 2020 — Feb 2022)

Led a team of 15+ engineers through the acquisition and integration of Carvoy.com, incorporating its digital retail car buying experience into Capital One's microservices-based architecture and cloud-first infrastructure.
Scaled leadership from 2 to 5 teams, overseeing the technical integration of Capital One's direct dealer website platform, which facilitated $1B+ in auto financing originations across 3,500+ dealerships.

Lead Software Engineer, Auto Finance (July 2017 — Feb 2020)

Led research and development efforts exploring emerging technologies in financial services, driving 75+ patents in machine learning, augmented reality, and AI-driven financial tools.
Designed and developed the AutoNavigator iOS app, integrating machine learning to allow customers to identify vehicles on the street and using augmented reality (AR) to suggest similar cars available for purchase nearby.
Enhanced AutoNavigator's search capabilities by leveraging Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning to improve vehicle matching efficiency, reducing search times and increasing customer engagement.

Early Career & Consulting Roles (1998 – 2017)

Magic Leap / Fuzzy Cube Software (2014 – 2017) – Developed mobile games for iOS/Android, built backend services, and prototyped new AR/XR experiences for Magic Leap One.
Newtoy/Zynga (Director, Backend Services, 2010 – 2013) – Scaled the backend for Words With Friends to 30M+ MAU, ensuring zero downtime during Zynga's acquisition and migration. Led a remote team of 15+ engineers in building the With Friends backend platform, enabling multiple game launches.
Dallas Ruby User Group (Organizer, 2006 – 2011) – Founded and led the Dallas Ruby User Group, organizing meetups, coordinating speakers, and fostering a local developer community.
Independent Consulting (2005 – 2013) – Provided web and mobile application development services for clients in social networking, property management, travel, and educational fundraising. Delivered cross-platform iOS/Android educational apps and built scalable web applications.
Various Engineering & Leadership Roles (1998 – 2010) – Held software engineering and architecture roles at companies including JD Edwards, Frito Lay, and EDS, specializing in enterprise software, financial systems, and infrastructure development.

EDUCATION

Texas A&M University (Sept 1994 - May 1998)

Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering

SKILLS

Leadership & Strategy

Scaling High-Performing Teams: Built and led engineering organizations from startup to enterprise scale, implementing agile methodologies, pod-based structures, and a culture of accountability to drive high-impact product development.
Driving Business & Product Strategy: Developed and executed strategic roadmaps that aligned engineering efforts with business goals, improving operational efficiency, accelerating go-to-market timelines, and enhancing customer experience.
Cross-Functional Collaboration & Execution: Partnered with Product, Design, and Operations to optimize feature intake, technical debt reduction, and seamless cross-team execution, resulting in faster product releases and improved developer satisfaction.
Mentorship & Leadership Development: Created programs like Focus Fridays and Lunch & Learns, fostering continuous learning, innovation, and career growth for engineering teams, leading to higher retention and team engagement.
Hiring & Talent Development: Recruited, onboarded, and developed top engineering talent, cultivating leaders who drive scalable solutions, innovation, and strong engineering culture within their teams.

Technical Expertise

Languages: Dart, JavaScript, Ruby, Java, Objective-C, C#, Python, Lua, SQL, UML
Mobile: Flutter, iOS, Android, Unity, Corona, Ionic, RubyMotion
Web: React, Ruby on Rails, jQuery, Angular, HTML, CSS, Tailwind
Java/J2EE: Android, Java, Spring
Databases: AWS DynamoDB, Postgres, MySQL, Redis, Memcache
OS & Cloud: AWS, Mac OS X, iOS, Android, Windows, Unix