Darrin Johnson
Organizations bring me in when they can feel something isn’t working but can’t quite name it. I help them define what success looks like — the platforms, the teams, the decision-making — and then build what’s needed to continue that success when I am gone. Not a slide deck. The actual capability.
Enterprise platforms, product operating models, and the organizational architecture that makes them governable.
What I Do
See with Clarity
Most organizations don’t have a strategy problem. They have a visibility problem. I surface what’s actually happening so leadership stops guessing and starts acting.
Build What Lasts
I’ve built product teams from zero at five organizations. Not by importing a framework — by listening to what’s broken, hiring for character, and building practices that stick after I leave.
Find the Signal
The signal is usually already in your data, your users, your operations. I find it and turn it into something that generates money. A repositioned 911 platform. A market nobody else saw. A channel strategy that drove half the sales.
Both or Neither
The platform and the org chart are the same problem. I work on both because one without the other doesn’t hold.
How I Work
Systems Diagnosis
I trained as a physicist. I still think in forces, constraints, and dependencies — I just apply it to platforms and organizations instead of particles.
Governance Without Bureaucracy
Principled guardrails that accelerate delivery rather than constrain it. Structure should create freedom, not paperwork.
Executive Translation
I can talk to the engineer and the CIO in the same meeting without switching slides. That’s not a soft skill. It’s the skill.
Ground-Truth Validation
I’ve read server logs at 2AM, drive-tested devices on highways, and taught myself shell scripting to keep a system alive when I was the last person standing. When I advise, it’s from the details up.
Who I Work With
CIOs & IT Leaders
Modernizing legacy platforms at enterprise scale — navigating the politics, architecture, and organizational change that comes with it.
Founders & Product Leaders
Scaling B2B products past early traction into repeatable operations, sustainable teams, and defensible revenue.
Organizations Without a Product Practice
Building product management capability for the first time — the roles, rituals, and operating model that make it stick.
Emerging Leaders
Stepping into broader scope, ambiguity, and cross-functional complexity — and learning to lead through it rather than around it.
If you need someone to validate a decision you’ve already made, I’m probably not your person. I’m most useful when you actually want to know what’s true.
get in touch ↓Convictions
Build for the organization you’re leaving behind, not just the problem in front of you.
Understanding precedes architecture. I don’t redesign systems I haven’t listened to first.
Complexity isn’t the enemy. Confusion is. Make the system understandable and the direction is obvious.
Selected Impact
Grew a platform product from v1 to $7M annual revenue — including a channel strategy that drove 50% of total sales.
Applications brought into a governable model for enterprise modernization and service ownership.
Expanded a connected-home user base tenfold by discovering an adjacent B2B market through user research, creating $1.8M in recurring revenue.
Reduced cross-team planning time by consolidating eight product teams into a shared planning increment process.
Built product teams and practices from scratch at five organizations — hiring, coaching, and establishing operating models that outlasted my tenure.
Selected environments
Retail · Telecom · Media · IoT · SaaS · Rail Safety · Wireless · Enterprise Platforms
Selected roles
Director of Product · Group Product Manager · Platform Lead · Strategic Advisor · Transformation Lead
Selected organizations
T-Mobile · Costco · Microsoft · Sears · Sinclair · AT&T · Clearwire · BSQUARE
I’m selective about the problems I take on. If yours is messy, high-stakes, and consequential — that’s where I do my best work.
or reach me at darrin@darrinj.cv