About Tim Cheadle

Hello! I'm Tim.

I'm an engineering and product leader who's worked in tech for over 25 years. I'm a full stack engineer who loves talking to customers and building great products with good people. I focus on creating simple, sustainable systems and helping teams trust each other and grow.

I'm VP of Agentic AI at Phaidra, building the next generation of tools to help AI datacenters run efficiently. I lead product and engineering for our fully remote team. Our first product is an agent that optimizes liquid cooling for GPUs.

I've spent my career learning how to craft products people actually use and teams that don't waste time on the wrong things. I've worked at Google, Shopify, and startups. I've been a founder, an exec, an engineer, and a product manager. What drives me is solving real problems that matter to the people using our work.

The work I'm most proud of is co-founding Simple.org with Daniel Burka in 2018. We built an app to help nurses manage hypertension across India, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Sri Lanka. Today it serves over 6 million patients. I'll never forget seeing nurses in Punjab use our app to help patients get the care they need.

How I got here

I started at AOL, working my way up from intern to engineer. My code monitored the first live streamed Super Bowl commercials and I worked on early internet radio with the Winamp team. Later I became one of the first Site Reliability Engineers at Google, leading teams that ran GFS and Borg (the system that inspired Kubernetes). I learned how to build large scale systems that don't break when millions of people depend on them.

Following those years of deeply technical work, I wanted to reconnect with my longtime interest in design. I pivoted and founded my own agency, doing product development and UX work alongside engineering. From Rails apps to content strategies, we worked with education startups, online stores, and many companies trying to grow. That's where I learned what actually matters is not code; it's understanding and solving the right problem.

Most recently, I was VP of Engineering at Binti, helping every child find a loving family. Before that, I led the global shipping platform at Shopify, empowering millions of merchants worldwide, and led engineering at Resolve to Save Lives, a public health nonprofit. I'm drawn to work with a mission that matters.

See my LinkedIn for more details, or check out my speaking and writing.

How I can I help

I enjoy sinking my teeth into a product, building and learning quickly to help make customers happy and grow the business. I also want to build relationships and help my team become the best versions of themselves. I like being part of organizations with strong foundations and leaders who are positive, honest about their needs, and empower those around them.

Giving back is important to me. I love coaching and mentorship, doing so for years with Out of Office Hours. I'm also an active member of Enrich, a peer group for tech leaders. I enjoy writing, speaking at conferences, and trading knowledge and perspective with folks in the industry. I want to help folks look into the mirror and like what they see. (Thanks to Kelsey Hightower for that line!)

What matters to me

My family is the foundation of my joy. My partner, Faye, is the love of my life and we're lucky to get to raise two amazing kids. Every day I learn something from them. Being a parent, like being a leader, is all about giving people space to make mistakes and being there to lift them back up.

I’m passionate about music and food. I play piano and drums, and I’ve been a DJ since high school. I love traveling the world, meeting its people and learning about their cuisines. I'm a sneakerhead and also have a solid whiskey collection. (My favorite is the one I get to share with friends.) If you want, I will happily talk basketball or watch a game together.

Thanks for reading! I look forward to finding ways to work together.

Thank you to @fayecheadle, @dburka, @amychiou, @staserz, @harimohanraj89, @sartin_shannon, @bigfleet, and everyone else I lean on to be a better person every day.

Be kind. ❤️