Reference for Matt McCaffrey

Matt McCaffrey and I have worked together on the FootPrints product development team since 1997. I know Matt’s work very well, both during his time as a developer and his time as a manager. Since 2008 I have been Matt’s direct supervisor.

From 1997 – 2006, Matt drove the development team’s growth and the product’s growth, in the role of lead developer. He was personally responsible for designing and building countless core features, and for the architecture and database. His technical leadership and intuitive design sense were directly responsible for FootPrints’ immense success as the company’s flagship product.

In 2006, when we needed a more formal team structure, Matt stepped into a management role. At the same time, he was asked to continue wearing the hat of a lead developer. Matt rose to the challenge beautifully, balancing his growth as a manager with his continued technical leadership and hands-on development work.

Matt consistently earns the respect and trust of everyone he works with, including developers, product managers, services managers, clients, and partners. He has an honest and infectious passion for creating products with customer experience as the top priority. Matt has relied on that thought leadership, along with great project management skills and a pragmatic problem-solving style, to manage the development of our most-challenging and biggest-impact features over the last few years.

I have used the phrase “technical leadership” a few times above. Matt is insatiably curious about new technologies: languages, frameworks, design techniques, libraries, tools, apps, etc. He follows the latest trends, learns them in small personal projects for fun, and routinely brings that knowledge back to the team. He always has an answer for “I wonder if it’s possible to do X?” questions, especially in the rapidly evolving technologies of web design and UX that are so important to FootPrints. This crucial leadership from Matt has time and again made daunting projects seem easy, and been the key to making routine projects turn out great. The features he has managed have consistently turned out to be the “wow” features in FootPrints after release.

Matt has applied that same open-minded spirit of continual learning to his management career, rapidly mastering the basic skills and then continually growing in leaps and bounds in his ability to manage teams, plan and execute projects, and to manage relationships with other departments, clients, and vendors. He would, without hesitation, be my first choice to lead our toughest projects.

Matt is an ideal combination of an intelligent, creative decision maker and leader, and I can directly credit FootPrints’ success over the years to his skills, abilities, and actions. Anyone who hires Matt will be gaining a tremendous asset to their team and company.

Joe Cullin
Director of Product Development, Numara Software