Tammy Hepps

I have had a long, successful career as a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and technology entrepreneur working in digital media and with start-up companies.

After graduating with a degree in computer science from Harvard University, I embarked on a successful career managing web technology teams for large companies like Barnes and Noble, The New York Times, and NBCUniversal, as well as start-ups like SparkNotes, during its period of hockey-stick growth after its books went on sale at Barnes & Noble, and Dow Jones/IAC Online Ventures.

Here’s a bit of what we can cover in our PivotPlanet session(s):

If you want to work in the digital space…
• How to identify the right career path for you in the Internet space -- what jobs best fit your experience and interests.
• What technical and non-technical skills you need to cultivate for the best chance of success.
• How to present work history from other industries to hiring managers in the way likeliest to highlight your relevant strengths and experience.

If you're already in the digital space (especially for technical people like myself)…
• How to identify the right career growth path (especially for developers who can become managers of other developers or senior developers within a development team -- two quite different paths).
• What technical skills you need to burnish to keep advancing.
• What non-technical skills/intangible qualities you need to cultivate to seize new opportunities.
• How to communicate effectively about technology to technologists and non-technologists alike.
• I can also help coach you through specific work challenges or provide technical guidance through specific projects.

While honing my expertise in the technology field, I have also increased my knowledge and skills in the area of genealogy, my primary hobby outside of work. I have put my technology skills to use in developing my own online company, Treelines.com. It is designed to assist people in building family trees using their family’s most meaningful history.

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My work in web technology has focused on open source software and hands-on development, as well as software architecture and management across the entire software development life cycle.

Numerous times in my career I've been called upon to transition non-open source technology stacks to open-source or to refresh legacy stacks, whether at NBC where I replaced 10-plus years of legacy, or at NYTimes.com where I kicked off the introduction of open source technology to the site's backend software.

My management background in this area includes overseeing technical teams of 1-15 at small companies, to large companies with 60 plus technical employees on a single team.