Great engineering is still about people, craft, and judgment.
I'm Keenan Johnson. I help founders and engineering leaders in hardware, robotics, and deep tech build strong teams and ship hard things. I work both sides of the problem with you: the engineering itself, and the people and process around it.
Tell me about what you're buildingWHAT I THINK
Before we talk about working together, here's what I believe about building things with engineering teams, especially right now.
There's a popular idea going around that headcount is disposable and AI will soon handle the rest, so it doesn't much matter who you hire or whether they stay. I think that's backwards. The more capable our tools get, the more everything comes down to the judgment and taste of the people using them. If you see your engineers as interchangeable parts, I'm the wrong person to call.
Going fast for the sake of going fast is dumb, it's just motion. Going fast because you've thought the work through and can pull your milestones in early on purpose is a completely different thing, and it's one of the best things a team can do. The goal was never to move slow or to move fast. It's to know what you're doing, then move as quickly as that lets you.
Sure, you can brute-force a hard problem with an army of hungry young engineers and a bottomless budget, if you happen to be the richest company on earth. Almost nobody else gets to run that play. For the rest of us, results come from judgment, experience, and knowing how to point a team at the right problem and get the best work out of the people you already have. That's the part I care most about, and it's the part that keeps getting written off.
If those ring true to you, we'll probably get along. If they don't, no hard feelings, I'm likely not your guy.
WHO YOU'D BE WORKING WITH
You'd be working with me directly.
I've spent my career building hard things and leading the teams that build them. I wrote mission-control software for spacecraft at SpaceX, co-founded Impossible Aerospace and led the 25-person team behind the world's longest-flying electric aircraft, and built the software team for an autonomous underwater vehicle. Since then my work has spanned nuclear fusion, in-orbit refueling, and electric hydrofoil ferries, along with a lot of sensing, including Ribbit Network, the open-source greenhouse-gas sensor network I founded. I also spent a year advising more than fifty climate-tech startups.
My background is in electrical and software engineering for hardware systems, and I've always worked as a generalist. I care about the engineering, the people, and the process in equal measure.
Bread Board Foundry is my small team, where we build software tools for hardware engineering teams. Every engagement runs through it, so you get me plus a tight crew that lives in this world. I take on a select group of clients at a time, from early startups to large public companies, and I only say yes when I think I can make a real difference.
HOW I HELP
Every engagement is shaped around what your team needs right now. A few of the ways I've worked with teams:
- →Interviewing and hiring engineers, and building a hiring process for a team that's scaling
- →Technical design reviews, from satellite electronics to robotics software
- →Building technical roadmaps, including tests, risks, and headcount
- →Setting up how a brand-new engineering team works day to day: its processes, meetings, and tools
- →Stepping in as interim engineering lead while a team finds its footing
- →Running internal classes and workshops on engineering topics
- →Coaching first-time managers and executives
- →Standing up testing, simulation, and software-update frameworks for hardware products
- →The occasional panic de-escalation when a launch or a deadline is on the line
That work usually takes one of two shapes. Either a focused project with a clear start and end, like a design review or a roadmap, or an ongoing relationship where I'm a steady thinking partner and coach you can pull in when a hard call comes up. We sort out which one fits on a first call.
LET'S TALK
If you think we might be a fit, tell me a bit about your team and what's on your mind. I read every message myself. If I'm not the right person for the job, I'll usually point you to someone who is.
I'll reply within a few days.