About

I'm Doug Skinner. I lead software and infrastructure engineering teams at Parexel AI Labs, where we build internal applications that combine everyday CRUD with applied AI to make the company easier to work for. My teams handle cloud infrastructure, frontend and backend development, and data integrations — the full stack of getting an AI-powered tool from idea to production.

What I think about

Most of my day is spent at the intersection of three things:

• Applied AI in internal tools. Not chatbots-for-the-sake-of-chatbots, but figuring out where LLMs and other AI actually make internal software better — and where they don't.
• Internal application development. The craft of building tools for the people you work with. Internal apps have different constraints than products, and I think we under-invest in treating them seriously.
• Engineering leadership. Managing teams, growing engineers, and making decisions about what to build and how. I've ridden the engineer/manager pendulum a few times — IC to lead to manager to director — and landed on the management side with my hands still on the keyboard.

This site is where I write about those topics. Expect long-form essays, shorter notes, and the occasional project showcase.

Background

Before Parexel, I was a Lead Software Engineer at CommerceHub where I managed two teams owning SSO infrastructure and new user signups. I started there as an individual contributor and made my first jump into management. My background is in backend engineering, and I still write code — this site is built with a static site generator I'm writing from scratch, because sometimes the best side project is the one that's just fun to hack on.

Get in touch

The best way to reach me is email.