Lisa Phillips

Lisa Phillips

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Engineering & Product Executive | Scaling Systems & Teams | Building High-Impact, Human-Centered Products | Twitter, Fastly, Six Apart, Help Scout| Latinas in T
San Francisco, California, United States

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  • P
    VP of Engineering
    Progressive text and dialer technology provider
    Oct 2025 - Current (11 months)
  • Career Break
    Health and well-being
    Career Break
    Jan 2024 - Oct 2025 (1 year 10 months)
    I took intentional time away from executive leadership roles to focus on personal health and reflection after two decades of high-impact work in engineering. This time allowed me to recharge and return with renewed clarity about what matters most: building strong, psychologically safe engineering cultures, mentoring high-performing teams, and driving operational excellence. I’m now looking for mission-driven opportunities where I can align engineering execution with business goals, foster customer-focused delivery, and create predictable, sustainable paths to product success.
  • Help Scout
    Chief Experience Officer, VP of Engineering
    Help Scout
    Sep 2022 - Dec 2023 (1 year 4 months)
    • Reformed Agile practices within a globally distributed R&D organization of 85 people, spanning multiple time zones and continents. Streamlined product development, with a 133% increase in releases per year. • Directly managed two engineering directors and provided leadership to senior engineering managers, ensuring alignment with company objectives. • Streamlined project management, introduced consistent Agile practices, and improved collaboration across teams for better project delivery. • Guided the company through technical growth and improvements in performance and process across engineering disciplines.
  • Fastly
    Vice President, Data Governance
    Fastly
    Jul 2018 - Sep 2022 (4 years 3 months)
    As VP of Data Governance at Fastly, a leading CDN and Edge Cloud provider: • Spearheaded Data Governance initiatives leading to a reduction in demand for legal services • Ensured regulatory compliance and privacy protection for sensitive data by collaborating with stakeholders to establish Fastly's first data governance program • Wrote and published Fastly's first Data Governance Policy • Empowered teams, particularly engineering, to integrate repeatable and auditable data security considerations
  • Fastly
    Vice President of Site Reliability Engineering
    Fastly
    Oct 2015 - Jun 2018 (2 years 9 months)
    As the Vice President of Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) at Fastly, a prominent Content Delivery Network (CDN) and Edge Cloud provider: • Built a skilled team of 30 tech and DevOps experts from diverse backgrounds across the globe • Established and managed Fastly's global Incident Management program for round-the-clock monitoring and response • Reduced server build and deploy time for the global POP network by over 10x • Developed Fastly's first Business Continuity plans, enabling successful acquisition and partnership with enterprise customer Target
  • R
    Board Member
    Resource Equity
    Jan 2014 - Jan 2016 (2 years 1 month)
    An important space to strategize on how to move the needle on women’s land rights, and take a step towards making positive change in women’s lives
  • Twitter
    Sr Database Reliability Engineering (MySQL) Manager at Twitter
    Twitter
    Nov 2012 - Oct 2014 (2 years)
    As a Sr Manager of Twitter's MySQL Team: • Led a team of eight DBAs responsible for managing Twitter's relational databases, including MySQL, Vertica, and PostgreSQL • Achieved SOX compliance to ensure adherence to regulatory requirements in support of Twitter's IPO • Successfully launched Twitter's first Seattle office as the lead manager, in support of 60 engineers
  • Twitter
    Senior MySQL DBA
    Twitter
    Jan 2010 - Oct 2014 (4 years 10 months)
    • Managed thousands of MySQL database servers in a rapidly growing environment as part of a small team • Rolled out the first HA solution for MySQL read-requests, utilizing hardware load balancers and in partnership with network engineering • Wrote the first database backup software, leading to off-site backups, documentation, and logically-focused monitoring • Collaborated with peers and the executive team to develop Twitter's first core values
  • Twitter
    Capacity Planning Manager
    Twitter
    Jan 2010 - Jan 2011 (1 year 1 month)
    As Twitter's first capacity planning manager: • Joined Twitter as the 132nd employee and left after the employee count exceeded 3,000 • Ensured systems, network, and operations had the capacity to meet extreme growth from 40 million to 80 million users • Established Twitter's first capacity management model • Recruited and hired Twitter's first in-house technical operations leadership team • Worked to eliminate the Fail Whale
  • Big Fish Games
    Director of IT
    Big Fish Games
    Apr 2009 - Jan 2010 (10 months)
    As the Director of IT for Big Fish Games, a casual online game company: • Built and led a technical operations team to ensure availability of Big Fish Games sites, providing over one million game downloads per day • Managed corporate IT team and infrastructure supporting 400 employees and offices across three countries • Developed and supported budget for multiple data centers, CDN, network infrastructure, and corporate software licenses • Planned and executed successful Fisher Plaza data center migration with minimal downtime despite unexpected challenges posed by fire and flooding
  • Six Apart
    Director of Operations and Hosted Services
    Six Apart
    Jun 2007 - Apr 2009 (1 year 11 months)
    While Director of Operations and Hosted Services for Six Apart, a blogging services provider for Livejournal and TypePad: • Led a team of 20 technical operations team members to ensure the performance and availability of significant blogging and social networking sites with 14 million users • Developed and monitored Service Level Agreements with third-party vendors and hosting partners • Executed the migration of a 120-server data center from Seattle to San Francisco with minimal downtime • Worked with enterprise clients such as Talking Points Memo on hosted blog solutions for the highest availability and scalability • Developed capacity plans to anticipate internet traffic spikes during the 2008 election
  • Six Apart
    Database Administrator
    Six Apart
    Sep 2006 - Jun 2007 (10 months)
    • Built and managed over 50 clustered and partitioned MySQL databases as a MySQL DBA for Six Apart • Provided MySQL consultation to a large corporate partner, NIFTY corporation, resulting in a continued agreement that brought significant revenue to the Tokyo office
  • Rat City Rollergirls
    Founding Member, Skater and Alumni
    Rat City Rollergirls
    Apr 2003 - Dec 2013 (10 years 9 months)
    Helped established the Rat City Rollergirls in 2004: • Skated as a blocker on Grave Danger team • Served as a member of the website committee • Worked as an Ombudswoman for the league • Became the league's marketing representative for the Women's Flat Track Roller Derby league in 2009 • Attended the WFTDA yearly meeting in Tampa in February 2009 • Participated in discussions about the future of flat track roller derby, including social media presence
  • LiveJournal
    Senior Systems Administrator
    LiveJournal
    Jan 2003 - Sep 2006 (3 years 9 months)
    As the sole Senior Systems Administrator for Livejournal - an early social media site upon which Facebook and Twitter are based: • Assured high up-time of hundreds of Linux servers in data center environment to support user growth from one million accounts in 2003 to 10 million accounts in 2006 • Created Memcached in collaboration with software developers, resulting in the ability to scale to meet user demand with zero additional capex spend
  • Speakeasy
    Lead Systems Administrator
    Speakeasy
    Jan 1999 - Jan 2003 (4 years 1 month)
    As a Lead Systems Administrator at Speakeasy, Inc. - a top DSL provider: • Created and maintained the first-ever Valve Steam network, to ensure seamless game updates for Valve's games • Kept DSL network uptime high and low latency alive during small ISP industry collapse
  • StarNet
    Technical Account Manager
    StarNet
    Oct 1997 - Feb 1999 (1 year 5 months)
    As a Technical Account Manager for AZStarNet, a local ISP and newspaper host, gained initial experience in the technology industry • Exceeded sales targets by educating clients on the power of the web and leveraging exceptional communication skills over the phone and email
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