Matt Breeland

Strategic Engineering Leader

Building Strong Teams & Modern Software Platforms

Based in Apex, NC

About

Strategic engineering leader with over 20 years of experience delivering high-impact software and operational excellence across global organizations. A dedicated servant leader who builds high-performing, cross-functional teams by fostering cultures of ownership, mentorship, and continuous improvement. Proven track record in stabilizing complex engineering organizations, driving predictable delivery and modernizing critical system architectures. Expert at serving as a bridge between technical execution, product strategy, and business objectives to deliver measurable enterprise impact.

Key Career Accomplishments

Operational Turnaround & Platform Delivery (Innova)

Restored engineering velocity and predictability by rebuilding the software organization following 80% department turnover. Retained key institutional knowledge while implementing modern standards (CI/CD, TDD) and architecting a unified platform that resolved 30 years of delivery bottlenecks.

Global Team Scaling & Mission-Driven SaaS (Siglar Carbon)

Recruited and managed 12+ specialists across two distinct pods that included software developers, data scientists, and product designers. Successfully delivered two commercially successful SaaS solutions that enabled commercially incentivized green decision-making by aligning CO2 reduction with financial savings.

Technical Product Leadership & Revenue Protection (Emerson)

Successfully delivered the Roxar API (Python SDK) in under 12 months after previous multi-year efforts failed to reach market. Established the "bridge" between business needs and engineering by clarifying requirements and authorizing critical architectural shifts, securing 50% of company revenue and enabling the platform's transition to modern AI/ML capabilities.

Professional Experience

Innova

Engineering Manager & Principal Enterprise Architect

Apex, NC (headquartered in Sandnes, Norway)

2024 – Present

Stabilized Engineering Organization: Rebuilt the software team following ~80% departmental turnover, preserving critical institutional knowledge while restoring morale, trust, and delivery predictability.
People Leadership (5 engineers): Managed and mentored a core team of 5 engineers, establishing clear expectations, strengthening engineering practices and delivery standards, and improving team throughput and reliability.
Operational Excellence: Implemented Agile cadences, CI/CD, code review standards, and TDD/unit testing to transform a legacy environment into a measurable, dependable delivery engine.
Platform Modernization (NEO): Architected and launched a modular C/C++/Python/TypeScript platform that unified previously fragmented systems, eliminated long-standing technical bottlenecks, and enabled rapid multi-product development.
End-to-End Execution: Led cross-functional delivery across STM32/ARM firmware, Python backend on Linux, and Svelte/TypeScript frontend, integrating Modbus/serial and REST interfaces to ship a production-ready deployment for the company's largest customer on time.

Smartcube

Chief Product and Technology Officer (Hands-on Engineering Leader)

Stavanger, Norway

2023 – 2024

Operational Excellence: Implemented agile planning and execution rituals to improve collaboration, clarity of ownership, and delivery predictability.
Platform Modernization: Architected a cloud-native platform on AWS, integrating the AppFarm no/low-code environment to modernize infrastructure and improve scalability.
Shipped SaaS Product: Delivered I-SPIR, a logistics and spare parts collaboration platform for the offshore energy sector.
People Leadership (3 engineers): Managed and mentored a 3-person team, strengthening engineering practices through code review, TDD, and AWS best practices.

Siglar Carbon

Chief Product and Technology Officer (Hands-on Engineering Leader)

Stavanger, Norway

2021 – 2023

People Leadership (12+ specialists): Rebuilt and led two cross-functional pods comprising engineers, data scientists, and designers, establishing clear ownership and delivery standards across all disciplines.
Data Science-Enabled Execution: Embedded data scientists into team workflows (planning, execution, reviews) to deliver ML-informed capabilities without siloing research from product delivery.
Shipped Commercial SaaS: Delivered Ship Finder and Estimator, two revenue-generating solutions that help charters reduce emissions by linking CO2 reduction to financial outcomes.
Platform Modernization: Modernized the platform to cloud-native microservices with CI/CD and quality practices across AWS/GCP/Kubernetes, improving release speed and reliability.
Operational Excellence: Established incident management, monitoring, and customer support workflows to improve uptime, response times, and stakeholder transparency.

Cognite

Senior Solutions Architect (Regional Lead)

Stavanger, Norway

2019 – 2021

Regional Office Establishment: Spearheaded the launch of Cognite's Stavanger presence, serving as the primary local lead for office operations and technical culture.
Cross-Organizational People Leadership (15 specialists): Co-led the Data Liberation Chapter, a multidisciplinary organization of Data Engineers, Business Analysts, and IT experts from Cognite and Aker BP.
Matrixed Team Management: Co-captained the delivery of secure, observable data pipelines by synchronizing efforts across internal specialists and client-side experts.
Strategic Enablement: Optimized data contextualization workflows to support five downstream product teams, enabling the rapid deployment of enterprise-scale AI and software initiatives.
Technical Ownership: Built and operated critical pipelines on GCP and OpenShift, maintaining a rigorous focus on security and reliability in a high-stakes industrial environment.

Emerson Automation Solutions

Technical Product Manager

Stavanger, Norway

2014 – 2019

Turnaround Delivery (Roxar API): Delivered the Roxar API (Extensibility Platform, Python SDK) in <12 months, reviving a decade-stalled initiative; enabled modernization toward AI/ML workflows and protected a core revenue stream (~50% of company revenue).
Customer-Driven Prioritization: Led global discovery (trade shows, key clients, regional offices) to synthesize requirements and set roadmap priorities, translating market needs into actionable engineering plans.
Bridge Leadership: Aligned business stakeholders and multiple engineering groups (Reservoir, Wells, Structural, Infrastructure) on scope, priorities, and architecture decisions to unblock delivery.

Emerson Automation Solutions

Software Engineer / Senior Software Engineer

Stavanger, Norway

2006 – 2014

Product Development: Developed geomodeling and data management solutions supporting reservoir workflows.
Delivery Automation: Maintained CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, Gerrit, Git) to streamline software delivery.

LiveWire Logic

Implementation Engineer

Morrisville, NC

2005 – 2006

Client Delivery: Built and deployed early NLP conversational agents for enterprise clients including Ford and Circuit City.

Core Skills

Core Competencies

People Leadership

Team Development
Technical Mentorship
Talent Retention

Operational Excellence

Process Optimization
Incident Management
Reliability Engineering
Continuous Delivery

Bridge Leadership

Cross-Functional Collaboration
Stakeholder Alignment
Product Lifecycle Management

Technical Strategy

Software Architecture
Systems Design
AI Strategy
Integration & Enablement

Global Operations

Distributed Team Leadership
Change Leadership
Organizational Strategy

Technical Skills

Programming

C
C++
Python
Go
TypeScript
Dart

Architecture

Microservices
DDD
SOLID
TDD
API Governance & Design

Cloud & Infrastructure

AWS
GCP
OpenShift
Docker
Kubernetes

Operations

CI/CD (GitHub Actions, Jenkins)
Site Reliability (SRE)
Incident Management

Data & AI

LLM Integration
Machine Learning
Data Contextualization
NLP
AI Strategy

UI Frameworks

Svelte
Flutter
Angular
React
Qt

Contact

The best way to reach me is through LinkedIn.

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