> Engineering operating models · Advisory · Keynotes · EMEA + US
Agents are writing your code.
Who's redesigning your engineering?
I help engineering leaders rebuild their operating model for the world they're actually operating in — the org design, the platform decisions, and the governance your board needs before your competitors ship it.
30+ years across telecom, financial services, ISVs, and security. Most recently at Microsoft, advising executive leaders at Fortune 100 companies across EMEA on the agent era. Author of Ghost Decisions. Named frameworks: ISEE, Agentile.
Suzanne Daniels
> The thesis
What if everything you built your engineering culture on was designed for a world that no longer exists?
Engineering operating models were built for long release cycles, deterministic systems, human-only development, and stable org charts. AI-native software changed the constraints. Most leadership teams haven't caught up yet.
That's the work. Surface the ghost decisions, decide what to keep, rebuild what's broken. Bill for outcomes you can put in a board deck — your success is my success isn't a slogan, it's a billing model.
> What I do
Six engagement shapes.
One thesis underneath.
From a 10-minute diagnostic to a 12-month transformation. The anchor is fractional CTO leadership — the other shapes exist because not every problem is one-day-a-week shape, and not every CEO is ready for a CTO conversation yet.
I sit at the intersection of engineering depth and executive clarity. That means I can hold a board conversation about runway risk and a code review about platform architecture in the same afternoon — and translate between them.
Not consulting deliverables. Decisions made, systems shipped, teams unblocked.
01
Ghost Decisions Diagnostic
10 minutes
A short signal report on where your engineering operating model is misaligned with the world you’re actually operating in. The fastest way to test whether we should be talking.
02
AI-Native Operating Model Audit
3–4 weeks
Stakeholder interviews, artifact review, benchmark against the Ghost Decisions framework. Executive report, board presentation, 90-day roadmap with named decisions and owners.
03
Board / CEO Advisor Retainer
6-month minimum
Biweekly sessions, ad-hoc judgment between them, board prep, investor decks. For CEOs without a CTO, or with a junior one who needs cover.
04
Anchor
Fractional CTO Partnership
6–12 months · ~1 day/week
Embedded with your leadership team. Owns the operating model redesign, AI adoption plan, leadership coaching, ELT participation. Equity considered on growth-stage.
05
Leadership Intensive
2 days · on-site
Board or ELT offsite. The Ghost Decisions framework applied to your specific org. Output: a 30-day action plan the leadership team signs before anyone leaves the room.
06
Keynote
1 hour · global
The signature talk and its variants. Designed to make engineering leaders see the structural assumptions they’ve stopped questioning — and what to fix first.
Investment scales with scope ($ to $$$). Every engagement is scoped and quoted against the outcome you need — not the hours. Tell me what’s in front of you →
> Who this is for
Series B–D scale-ups (50–500 engineers), PE-backed mid-market, and regulated teams navigating AI risk.
> Not a fit
Pre-seed (too early), Fortune 100 (better served by the big consultancies), or pure staff augmentation.
> Proof
Where I've been useful.
I’ve run engineering at every altitude: eleven years as a consulting technical lead, then EM and CTO in the seat, then advising Fortune 100 executives at Microsoft across EMEA. The advisory work I do now isn’t a pivot — it’s the throughline.
Selected affiliations
Chief Developer Advisor
Microsoft
Current. AI-era engineering strategy, adoption, and governance — advised at the C-suite level.
Head of Developer Experience
DHL eCommerce
Built an engineering operating function from zero — platform strategy, golden-path tooling, and the org design behind it.
Founding DevRel
Backstage at Spotify
Took Backstage — the internal platform that becomes the org’s decision-maker — from niche project to the default reference.
> The book
Ghost Decisions.
Available now.
Thirty years of platforms, organisations, and shipping software compressed into the playbook I wish I'd had.
For the engineering leader who is being asked to scale through AI adoption, platform thinking, and team design — at the same time — without breaking what already works.
> About
The short version.
I'm Suzanne Daniels. I've spent three decades in production environments — government, telecom, financial services, ISVs, security, networking, MSPs. I've seen the same problems cycle through new branding, and I can usually tell you which parts are genuinely new and which parts are just repackaged.
Today I run Great Success — interim and fractional CTO work across EMEA — alongside my role at Microsoft, advising executive leaders at Fortune 100 companies. I created the Agentile (opens in new tab) operating model because Agile assumed all work is done by humans, and that assumption broke.
The longer version →> Let's talk
Ready to lead your next transformation?
Tell me what's in front of you. The first call is free, runs 30 minutes, and ends with either a clear next step or a clear referral to someone better suited.