Kendall Totten
Engineering Manager in Raleigh, North Carolina
My journey began when I started building websites as a kid. I always loved the idea of creating something that the whole world could see! Working in a digital space was my calling. I worked on the newspaper staff all through high school and college so that I could flex my graphic design muscles and I completed a Bachelor's degree in Communication Technology & Graphic Design.
Though I still have a keen eye for practical design, over the next 10 years my focus shifted from Graphic Design back to building for the web. I built many Drupal freelance websites, as well as client sites (such as dallascowboys.com, weather.com and butler.edu) while working for digital agencies, and finally redhat.com and the open source project PatternFly Elements web components. I've been fortunate to hold a variety of roles such as Drupal Theming Manager, Front-end Web Developer, and UX Dev Team Lead.
As much as I love technology, a new challenge arose, which was learning how to develop people! As I moved into a People Manager role at Red Hat, I had the privilege of participating in a robust manager training program and learning from seasoned professionals at a great company. I've also done some key courses such as Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) and the Program Management Professional (PgMP) course from the PMI institute. This prepared me to move into a Principal Program Manager role, leading the Digital Acceleration Team.
Now as the Engineering Manager at Pinata, a small but dynamic startup, I'm managing both people and process. Anyone I've worked with will tell you I'm passionate about organization, efficiency, and helping teams do their best work. Primarily my focus has been working with engineering teams - but I'll lean into any kind of process creation. Whether that's helping teams understand the greater vision of the company and how that connects to their daily work, or how to prevent important things from slipping through the cracks.
I live in Raleigh with my spouse & 2 dogs. I enjoy photography, traveling, board games, music, good food, and the great outdoors. I'm also obsessed with avoiding food waste! If this also interests you, make a copy of my free meal planning board on Trello. 😁
Thanks for stopping by!