From $0
$250M/yr
in Azure compute: four people to ~5% of all Azure VMs (Azure Lab Services)
VP / SVP Engineering
Some leaders bring vision.
Others bring execution.
I bring both.
I'm Mark Mydland. I've spent over two decades building software products and the organizations that ship them, at companies like Microsoft and Dexcom. What I do best is take a bold product vision and build the operating system that actually delivers it. I anchor teams to customers, ship for outsized value, and never bend on quality. I build products that do real good in the world. No fire drills. No heroics.
The recordMicrosoft · Strella · Dexcom
From $300M
$1B+
platform revenue, leading ~225 engineers across 55 regions (Azure IoT)
From $0
$130M/yr
Stelo, the first FDA-cleared OTC glucose monitor (Dexcom, reported FY25)
From an 18-month plan
4 months
to shipped, at Strella (Series A), by fixing the rhythm before the code
Case entriesFour problems · One operating system
Founder & Engineering Leader
Built it from four people into the service creating about 5% of all Azure VMs, roughly $250M a year in Azure compute. We invented the auto-shutdown feature Azure adopted platform-wide, and delivered in about half the time anyone expected.
4 people → ~5% of all Azure VMsAuto-shutdown, adopted Azure-wideShipped in half the expected time
Engineering Leader, Core Services
Led the core services of one of the world's largest IoT platforms: IoT core, Device Provisioning, Digital Twins, Edge runtime, SDKs. About 225 engineers across 55 regions, serving customers like Daimler Trucks, Starbucks, BMW, and Bosch.
~225 engineers · 55 regionsDaimler · Starbucks · BMW · BoschSI + silicon deals: ST Micro, NXP, Renesas
Engineering Leader (Series A)
Walked into a Series A in full chaos and left it thriving: the eighteen-month plan delivered in four, three SaaS products in market, inventory shrink cut about 50% for customers, deployed across three continents. The lever was a weekly demo to the CEO and a hard rule that done means production. Rhythm first, then the code follows.
Chaos → 3 SaaS products in market~50% inventory shrink reduction3 continents
VP of Engineering
Delivered Stelo, the first FDA-cleared over-the-counter glucose monitor and the first CGM with AI, opening a new direct-to-consumer market and taking it from zero to $130M a year and climbing (Dexcom's reported FY25 figure). Led 125+ engineers under medical-device regulation with hard deadlines, holding 99.9% crash-free the whole way.
First FDA-cleared OTC glucose monitorFirst CGM with AI99.9% crash-free · 125+ engineers
"Organizations that value firefighters breed arsonists."
Answer four questions and I will tell you which type you've got.
The four questionsTap one
4.1Do you ship at least every day?+
Deployment frequency, in plain language. A team that ships daily has already solved a hundred problems (build health, test trust, small increments) that a team shipping quarterly is still arguing about. A bad answer here usually means the increments are too big to finish.
4.2How long does it take to ship a thing?+
Lead time for changes. The gap between "the code is written" and "a customer can use it" is where organizations hide their dysfunction. Weeks of lead time means approvals, hand-offs, and fear own the calendar, not engineering.
4.3How often do you break it?+
Change failure rate. Some breakage is the price of moving. The bad answer isn't a number, it's a shrug: a team that doesn't know its failure rate isn't measuring the machine, which usually means it's measuring the heroics instead.
4.4How fast can you un-break it?+
Recovery time, and the one I care about most. This is where the Airbag Rule lives (Fig. 2). A team that recovers in minutes designed for the crash before it happened. A team that recovers in days is betting the product on being right every time. Nobody is right every time.
These map one-to-one to the DORA metrics, stated the way I actually ask them. They land with executives who would glaze over at "change failure rate," and a first conversation built on them gives you a fast, credible read on how mature the machine really is.
"Heroics are ephemeral. Systems are enduring."
Why the system below exists
The frameworksHow the system actually works
Every leader says they have a system. These are mine, named and drawn, because a system you can't hand to someone else isn't a system yet. Each one was built inside a real team, under real pressure, and each one still runs today.
01 / 04
"The best leaders share the misery."
What makes me who I am
The personHow I lead
The team and the truth, over any one person's brilliance.
I trust what I can demonstrate over what anyone claims. Done is a demo running in production, not a percentage. A green nobody can explain is worse than an honest red. I say the true thing early. Bad news doesn't get better with age, and the real problem is usually knowable before anyone wants to admit it. When something breaks, I go looking for the fix, not someone to blame. I take the blame, share the misery, and put the team back on the work. We for the wins. I for the misses.
Before any of this: West Point grad, Airborne/Ranger Infantry officer. I learned to work on a Wyoming dairy farm that had the same name as me. I attended the Jungle School in Panama where my dad had been an instructor 20 years earlier (I was three). These days I'm in Bremerton, Washington, and I haven't lost the habit of the early morning, catching the alpenglow with my first cup of coffee to jump-start my day.
Start the conversationNo form. Just a calendar.
I'm looking for the next thing to build, at full scale. Something I can point to and say it does real good in the world.
If you're standing up a new product line, an internal startup or AI innovation group, or a business with an exit to build toward, and you want someone who can build it and make it ship, let's talk.