Kendall Totten
Engineering Manager in Raleigh, North Carolina
Anyone I've worked with will tell you I'm passionate about organization, efficiency, and helping teams do their best work. With more than 15 years of experience working with web development and design teams, I love finding ways to smooth out processes and help individuals achieve success through teamwork.
That being said, I believe success is more than just completing tasks, it's about understanding and connecting with people. I'm deeply interested in organizational psychology and design thinking. My goal is to align the strategy and business goals with the daily objectives of teams and individuals, ultimately ensuring that it all serves the needs of the end-users.
My journey began with website creation. I always loved the idea of creating something that the whole world could see! I worked on the newspaper staff all through high school and college so that I could flex my graphic design muscles. I then completed a 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, along the way, I found a new love—developing 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.
As the Engineering Manager at Pinata, a small but dynamic startup, I foster the growth of team members, strengthen our remote culture, keep feature releases on track, & streamline collaboration.
I live in Raleigh with my spouse and two dogs. I enjoy photography, traveling, games, music, good food, and nature. I'm also obsessed with avoiding food waste.