Contact information

Send me a note at steve.vinter@gmail.com. You can find me here on LinkedIn. I’m not a big user of social media but I show up on Google on occasion.

One of the things I like to do is collect and share information. Here are some other resources I’m happy to share with you.

A little about me

I think like an engineer, with an orientation toward analysis and problem solving. I think systematically, strategically, and tactically. I have very good critical thinking skills. I think quickly; if you give me a problem with very little context I’ll probably add something to the way you’ve been thinking about it.

I connect with people deeply. I’m personal. I’ll make you laugh. I’m friendly, but also candid to the point of being blunt. I’ll ask piercing questions. I’m vulnerable and I’ll find ways to connect your experiences with the experiences I’ve had and the lessons I’ve learned. I’ll challenge the way you think and I’ll hold a mirror up to help you see yourself in new ways. I will help you develop both new perspectives and new ways of generating them.

I’m very meta: when I work with people and teams, we spend time talking about how we’re working together. I frequently flip back and forth between the big picture and the detailed, concrete stuff.

I’m resourceful. I collect information and organize it. I’m a student of productivity techniques. I know a lot of people and I like connecting them.

I’m passionate about personal development: mine, yours, and the field generally. I’m also passionate about leadership, and helping people be happier, fulfill their sense of purpose, and do meaningful work.

I’m values-driven, and when I work with people I listen carefully to their values. I always explore what is meaningful for people, what outcomes they want, and what is their sense of purpose. I practice what I preach: everything I do with others is work I do myself. I’m loyal (to a fault?).

I’m highly competitive when it is fun and stimulating, and I use it as a way to drive myself to improve. I’m industrious and I love to work, particularly when it doesn’t feel like work.

I take notes voraciously using Roam Research and love to organize information. Here’s a book list I put together that some people find useful.

I choose to work with people who are deeply committed to improving themselves and what they are doing to contribute to the world. I have no interest in marketing and selling myself. I just want to have an impact.

How did I get this way? Here’s a little bit of background…

The formative years

I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Both my parents were trained as social workers, my mother because a community activist and my father helped build a prestigious School of Social Work at the University of Michigan. I grew up in the 60s and was immersed in a world of people, community, ideas, unrest, and conflict.

I was fortunate to have an internship in high school at the Institute for Social Research because Leslie Kish was a close family friend and he invited me to work there. Despite an auspicious start of working four years in the field of statistics at the Institute for Social Research while studying in college, I fell in love with software engineering and computer science. I worked for a few years as an engineer writing statistical analysis software before returning to graduate school to study computer science at UMass Amherst, where I received a Master’s and PhD.

Developing as a leader

I moved into a management position shortly after arriving at BBN with a team developing distributed systems software as part of government-funded R&D work in the Internet’s early days. This was the start of a 30-year career managing software engineering teams. After a few years as a manager, I moved into a Director role where I spent the next 15 years at startups and medium-sized companies working on a wide range of technologies (internet infrastructure, mobile, web, business apps, etc.) for different markets (consumer, B2B, and enterprise). In retrospect, it seems I had an uncanny ability to learn by doing and making pretty much every mistake possible along the way.

The Google years

I was hired by Google in 2007 as engineering director and site lead of the Google Cambridge office, which at the time was 15 engineers and 25 folks working on the business side. I was responsible for setting the direction of the site, overseeing its growth, hiring engineers, advocating for its interests inside Google, representing Google in the community, and, most importantly, shaping its culture. Early on I realized the key to my success was through the effective development of other leaders at the site, and I deeply invested in mentoring and advising people at all levels. I also became involved in creating an advising program for engineers company-wide and contributing to tech leadership programs at the corporate level. The Cambridge site was unusual in its breadth of work for its size, including contributions to search, content delivery, flights specifically and travel generally, networking infrastructure, ads, Chrome, Android, Google Play, Google News, and YouTube. As an engineering director I worked on a range of Google projects, and eventually oversaw Google books search, Google Play Books, and Google Newsstand (which thereafter evolved into a revamped version of Google News). Toward the end of my tenure as a site lead I was selected to oversee Google’s technical site leaders world-wide (about 25 sites), helping to formalize the site lead role, build development opportunities for site leads, and increase their effectiveness and impact within Google.

As the site grew I began volunteering and serving outside Google with a particular emphasis on education for underserved communities. I started an initiative called MassCAN to expand computer science education opportunities to all K-12 students in Massachusetts, and served on boards or advisory councils of Citizen Schools, Boston’s Museum of Science, MIT’s Office of Engineering Outreach (OEOP), and the Massachusetts STEM Advisory Council Executive Committee. I also served for more than 8 years on the boards of the Kendall Square Association and the Community Charter School of Cambridge (CCSC).

Coaching

When Google Cambridge reached a thousand people a decade after I joined I was ready to move on. When exploring what to do next I was asked “what do I love to do the most at Google?” My answer was “coach people,” and I was offered a coaching position within Google’s internal executive coaching program toward the end of 2016. I became a certified coach through CTI’s coaching certification program, and have since coached dozens of Google engineers, directors, and vice presidents.

In 2018 I also took on the role of organizational development consultant inside Google, working on a team of internal consultants with Google tech leaders of small teams (50) and large ones (5000) on culture, strategy, organizational design, and training. I also began serving as a faculty member of the Google School for Leaders executive development program. The combination of coaching, advising, leadership development, and organizational development emerged as the ideal mix of work that built on decades of leadership experience and my passion for helping leaders and their teams grow and increase their happiness and effectiveness.

During my last three years working half-time at Google, I set up my own coaching business and began coaching and advising outside of Google. Although I take individual clients, most of my work is with a handful of companies where I coach several people in leadership positions. This has the benefit of knowing these companies deeply from multiple perspectives and being able to sometimes help with team dynamics. In 2020 I left Google and began working half-time at the Broad Institute on the Data Sciences Platform team in a coaching role while continuing my private coaching practice.

My coaching clients are predominantly leaders outside the tech sector, including CEOs of startups, Executive Directors of nonprofits, and a college president. Most hold leadership positions in small to medium size companies. About half are women and several are people of color.

Personal stuff

I’ve been married over 40 years to my wife, Pat, and we live in the South End in Boston. We’re blessed to have our two grown children live in the area and be a major part of our lives.

I’m passionate about coaching, photography, happiness, learning and education, politics, anti-racism, productivity and metacognition (yeah, that last one’s pretty geeky).

This website

Special thanks to these folks for the inspiration, motivation, contributions and support for building this website:
Sharna Fey, Galen Vinter, and John McAuliffe.