Clarity over Process
Clear decisions, clear rationale, clear ownership. Good process comes after understanding what problem you're solving.
Senior Engineering Manager
Engineering leader • AI-native platforms • data security.
Darko Vidaković Engineering leader & builder.
I turn hard technical problems into shipped products and scattered teams into focused ones. Right now I'm leading a next-gen, AI-native data-security platform.
About
Builder. Leader. Collaborator.
I'm a builder and a leader with 12+ years across engineer, tech lead, and engineering manager. I now lead a ~15-person organization across four teams, driving a next-generation platform architecture and an AI-native, agentic platform. I thrive at the intersection of engineering rigor and product pragmatism, solving hard problems while keeping teams focused on what matters.
I'm drawn to teams and cultures that value clarity, trust, and growth. Outside work, I spend time with family, playing music, and reading deeply about the craft of building software and leading people.
Philosophy
How I think about the work.
Grow People, Not Just Product
The strongest teams are built by investing in engineers: their skills, judgment, and ownership. This compounds.
Pragmatism First
Ship what works. Iterate. Over-designing and delay cost more than technical debt. Know which shortcuts you can take.
High Trust, High Standards
Set clear expectations and get out of the way. Empower engineers to make decisions; hold them accountable to outcomes.
Leverage over Effort
The best leaders multiply their teams. Increasingly that means using AI to remove toil, not just shipping more code.
Strengths
What I bring to the table.
Scaling Engineering Organizations
IC to leading leaders. Hiring, org/pod structure, culture, and sustainable growth. Grew a team from ~4 to ~19, building a layer of leads.
AI-native Engineering Leadership
Leading the design and delivery of an agentic platform (MCP, secure skill workflows). Steering AI from experiment to product.
Platform Architecture at Scale
Converging multiple products onto one architecture. Making and owning hard technical bets.
Technical Depth + Leadership
Full-stack credibility (products built that are still in production) that earns the room to lead.
Engineering Culture & Growing People
Clarity, trust, and high standards. Mentoring and developing senior talent, with ~7 promotions to Senior/Staff/Principal.
Experience
Where I've built things.
Senior Engineering Manager
CyberhavenLead a ~19-person engineering organization (4 teams) building Cyberhaven's data security platform. Driving a next-gen architecture converging DSPM, DLP, and AI Security, and leading an exec-sponsored AI-native agentic platform (MCP, secure skill workflows, AI chat). Joined as an IC and rose through tech lead and manager to Senior EM.
Engineering Manager → Senior Software Engineer
Nutanix (via Frame)Frame (a cloud platform for virtual desktops) was acquired by Nutanix. Built core frontend for Frame's Control Panel and Nutanix's NC2 cloud cluster management (still in production), then grew and led a full-stack team as Engineering Manager.
Software Engineer
MicrosoftWorked on Sway in the Office team. Owned features across the web and mobile platforms.
Software Engineer
NordeusGaming. Built prototyping tools and developer infrastructure to unblock the product team.
Newsletter
Writing on engineering leadership.
Occasional essays on building teams, systems, and products that last.
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