Cross-Functional Partnership
The best products emerge when engineering, design, and product work as a single unified team. I lead engineering as a collaborative voice — not the loudest one in the room.
Technology Executive · AI Toolsmith · AI Product Builder
John Viner
Technology executive and AI toolsmith — from Client-Server, to SaaS, to Cloud, to AI ... building software at scale through every shift.
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Leadership Philosophy
What I believe about building software and teams.
Build to Learn
Working software in front of real users is the fastest way to invalidate a bad assumption — and the only way to confirm a good one. Ship end-to-end — close one loop before opening the next.
Delegate with Conviction
Strong teams don't need to be told what to do — they need to be trusted to figure it out. I hire well, set clear direction, and then get out of the way — staying close as someone who amplifies rather than audits.
Experience
Orchestrating teams, processes, and technology.
I am a technology executive who has led the creation of software products across travel, digital marketplaces, customer experience, and work management. My career focuses on blending product vision, architecture, and high-quality delivery to bring complex systems to life.
Seventeen continuous years of senior engineering leadership — four consecutive roles, each at a globally recognised brand.
Head of Engineering, Automation Platform
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- Doubled the Automation Platform team from 45 to 90 engineers in 2 years.
- Modernised infrastructure to scale from 1 to 10 billion transactions a month.
- Delivered a stateful business process engine integrated with Atlassian's AI.
- Led strategy renewal balancing scalability, features, and system of work.
Senior Director of Engineering, Developer Platform
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- Developed strategic vision for a new internal integration platform.
- Revitalised public API experience and documentation.
- Delivered Salesforce, Shopify, and Slack integrations.
- Expanded App Marketplace embedding into more Zendesk products.
Senior Engineering Manager
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- Grew customer base to 8 million and author earnings to over $500m.
- Migrated to AWS and increased deployment rate to 20/day.
- Scaled development team from 9 developers to 6 teams (~40 developers).
- Evolved architecture to handle 200+ million page views/month.
Software Development Manager
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- Grew engineering from one team to six, spanning 30+ developers.
- Built Lonely Planet's first in-house iPhone and iPad mobile team.
- Led a DevOps transformation, embedding operations into every product team.
- Unified content distribution across digital and print platforms.
Building
What I'm building now.
AI-native products built with AI dev workflows. Going deep on what's possible when you build the tool (Aigon), then use it to build everything else.
Farline AI
AI-powered project planning — model scenarios, forecast delivery timelines, and answer scheduling questions in seconds.
Aigon
CLI-first AI engineering workflow — run Claude, Gemini, Codex, and Cursor as competing agents on the same spec. Used to build all of these products.
Who's Up Next
iOS app using on-device AI facial recognition to track whose turn it is. Point your camera at your group — a FaceNet neural network figures out who's there and who's up next.
When Swell
Surf forecast app — set your ideal conditions per spot and get alerted when the ocean delivers. Personalized scoring, 7-day forecasts, board tracking.
Contact
Open to strategic conversations.
For leadership roles, advisory work, or collaboration opportunities: [email protected]