How things are made

One of my all-time favorite television shows is How It's Made, a Canadian documentary series which explores how everyday items are manufactured. From artist studios and artisan workshops to assembly lines and Rube Goldberg-like manufacturing machines, the show visits the birthplaces of basketballs and boxing gloves, snack cakes and syrup, mowers and motorboats. As someone who's made a career out of engineering software, I remain somewhat envious of those who engineer things.

Of course, I'm not going back to school to study mechanical engineering. But after fifteen years at Google, I am excited to share that I will be joining nTop (formerly nTopology) as its CTO, starting Wednesday, March 5, 2025.

What is nTop?

nTop is a pioneer in advanced mechanical engineering software and computational design. nTop customers design and build airplanes, rockets, race cars, turbines, drones, medical devices, and more, from intricate parts to whole systems. Unlike other products in this category (such as Autodesk Fusion 360, Ansys, Dassault CATIA, or Siemens NX), nTop ties together:

• parametric modeling with implicit geometry
• high-performance rendering and physics simulation with GPU acceleration, and
• automated model optimization and computational design with distributed computing and AI/ML

This powerful combination reduces file sizes from gigabytes to megabytes, simulations from hours to minutes, and design iterations from months to days. With nTop, engineers can make sweeping, interactive design changes instantly and see how they impact the physics in seconds. When customers see how they can engineer better products faster with nTop, fireworks go off. It’s humbling and inspiring to work on such a beautiful, powerful, impactful product and also walk our customers’ factory floors where their designs made with nTop become real, physical things.

Why this matters to me

This opportunity resonates with me at several levels:

1. Technology with purpose: I've always been drawn to technologies that fundamentally change how people work and create. nTop isn't just incrementally better software: it's a paradigm shift in computational design that enables engineers to explore solutions that were previously impractical or impossible. It radically reduces time to market. It makes complex engineering and model optimization more accessible, more visual, more interactive, and more assured. CAD has been around for roughly 60 years — but not like this.
2. People with passion: The team at nTop brings together world-class experts in computational geometry, physics simulation, advanced manufacturing, and software engineering — all united by a shared vision of transforming how things are designed and made. During my conversations with the team, I've been struck by their depth of domain expertise combined with genuine excitement about the possibilities ahead. These are difference-makers.
3. Atoms, not bits: My time in sustainability at Google revealed the profound satisfaction that comes from working on problems that shape the physical world. nTop accelerates this journey by empowering engineers who are designing everything from more efficient jet engines and energy turbines that reduce carbon emissions to implantable medical devices that improve lives. The software may be digital, but its impact is tangibly physical.
4. Customer connection: Throughout my career, some of my most rewarding moments have come from direct engagement with customers — understanding their challenges, addressing their reservations, onboarding their teams, observing our products in use. At Google, to be honest, we didn’t get much of that. At nTop, I'll be face-to-face with engineers and designers who are pushing the boundaries of what's possible in their respective fields, walk their factory floors, and partner shoulder-to-shoulder with them to help engineer better products faster.
5. Integrated strengths: This role allows me to bring together multiple threads of my professional experience — technical leadership, product strategy, team building, and cross-functional collaboration — in a unified context where they can create maximum impact. Rather than compartmentalizing these skills, nTop offers an environment where they can mesh and reinforce each other. The scale and stage of the company means I can be both strategic and hands-on, both visionary and practical.
6. Applied experience: After fifteen years at Google, I've developed perspectives on scaling engineering organizations, navigating technological transitions, and building sustainable innovation cultures. nTop is at an inflection point where this experience feels particularly relevant and complementary — large enough to have real market impact but still nimble enough that individual contributions matter significantly. The challenges ahead feel like ones I'm uniquely prepared to help address.
7. Trust and relationship: Over the last two years, I've had the chance to build relationships with the nTop leadership and watch the company grow and evolve to where it is now. Joining the leadership team of an existing company isn't easy for either party involved, but doing so on a foundation of friendship and trust built over time makes it a whole lot easier. This relationship gives me a running start and allows me to tackle ambitious goals from day one.

And if all that weren’t enough, this is also apparently the stuff of my dreams. Last week I was cleaning out some old documents at Google, and I found an old survey that I filled out for team-building exercise back in 2019. It asked, "What is your dream job?" My answer? "Musician. Urban planner. Manufacturing engineer." Well, my music career isn’t taking off, but moving from Sidewalk Labs and Google Earth to nTop seems pretty on point.

Looking ahead

To be clear, this new role brings both exciting possibilities and meaningful challenges. I'm stepping into an organization at a critical growth stage, where my decisions will shape not just the technology but the culture and future direction of the company.

Some of my top priorities will be:

• Building and scaling an engineering organization that maintains its innovative edge while increasing its delivery capacity
• Accelerating our AI/ML capabilities to further enhance computational design possibilities
• Fostering stronger connections between our technical teams, cross-functional partners, and our customers to ensure we're solving the right problems
• Creating systems that allow us to move quickly while maintaining the quality and reliability our customers depend on

I'm also aware of the learning curve ahead. While my background in engineering leadership transfers well, I'll be immersing myself in new domains — computational geometry, physics simulation, additive manufacturing — while working with experts who have spent careers in these fields. I'm approaching this with both confidence in what I bring and humility about what I need to learn.

The transition from a company the size of Google to a growth-stage company like nTop brings its own set of adjustments. Resources will be more constrained, processes less established, and the margin for error narrower. But with these constraints comes agility, directness, and the ability to see the impact of decisions more immediately. I'm looking forward to this change of pace.

But that's not all…

I'm also excited to share that I'm making significant progress on my book (working title: "Power Band: Nine Career Stages from Getting Started to Giving Back"; target publishing date: 2025Q4/2026Q1). This project has been a labor of love, distilling my experiences and observations about career development into a framework I hope will be useful to others navigating their professional journeys.