I lead engineering teams in security and cloud. Right now at Microsoft, on Microsoft Defender for DevOps — building the platform that watches over how the world’s code actually gets deployed. That question above is the one I’m trying to answer every day.
Before management I wrote software for a living, and I still do, in small, stubborn ways. I’ve been in this long enough to have strong opinions, and still curious enough to be wrong in front of my team when I am.
The short version: I want people who work with me to do the best work of their career, and to feel human while they’re doing it. Everything below is how I try to earn that — in any era, but especially this one.
", "principles": { "tag": "how I lead", "heading": "Six principles.", "items": [ { "num": "01", "heading": "Empathy is the specification.", "body": "Before we ship anything hard, I ask what it will take from the people doing it. If that answer is more than the work is worth, we redesign before we build. Caring about the humans is not separate from caring about the work — it’s where the work starts." }, { "num": "02", "heading": "Clarity over consensus.", "body": "Teams don’t need everyone to agree. They need to know what’s being decided, who’s deciding it, and why. I write decisions down in the open so the trail is traceable a year later — and so the people who weren’t in the room know exactly what happened." }, { "num": "03", "heading": "Coach in the room. Contribute in the work.", "body": "A manager who doesn’t review PRs, doesn’t sit in the incident channel, doesn’t know the feature flags isn’t leading — they’re selling. I try to be the first reviewer, not the final approver. The people around me should feel I’m in the trench with them, not above it." }, { "num": "04", "heading": "Own the failures. Give away the wins.", "body": "When something breaks, I take it on publicly. When something ships, I name the people who built it, loudly and specifically. Trust compounds in the direction of the person who does this consistently." }, { "num": "05", "heading": "Systems over heroics.", "body": "The team I want to build doesn’t sprint toward fires — it builds the things that make the next fire smaller. Severity models, on-call protocols, decision trails, dashboards. Most of leading is designing the structure that lets the team run without me in the room." }, { "num": "06", "heading": "Respect the person before you respect the role.", "body": "Titles are bookkeeping. People have bad weeks, full lives, and private battles I will never know about. I lead to the person in front of me first — the org chart second." } ] }, "practices": { "tag": "in the trenches", "heading": "How I actually show up.", "items": [ { "kicker": "1:1s are the work", "body": "1:1s are the work, not a detour from it. I try to keep every one, on time, every week. If I have to move one, I reschedule before I cancel. The person I’m meeting with matters more than the meeting that could replace it." }, { "kicker": "Decisions in writing", "body": "Every decision with context lives in a doc my team can read — forever. If it isn’t written, it didn’t happen, and someone will undo it next quarter wondering why we did it this way." }, { "kicker": "Hands in the code", "body": "I read PRs. I run the build. I click through the feature before the review meeting. I haven’t unlearned how to read a diff and I don’t plan to." }, { "kicker": "Wrong out loud", "body": "I’m wrong often. I say so first, in the room, before someone has to correct me. That one habit has done more for the safety of my teams than anything else I’ve tried." }, { "kicker": "Skin in the game", "body": "I won’t ship an OKR I can’t personally defend on the 2 AM incident call. If a goal is worth committing the team to, it is worth me being accountable for its worst day." }, { "kicker": "Celebrate specifically", "body": "Vague praise is indistinguishable from flattery. When a teammate ships, I name what they did, what it meant, and why it was hard. Everyone deserves to be seen exactly." } ] }, "longQuiet": { "tag": "the long quiet work", "text": "Most of my career has been spent building security where it’s needed — not where it’s seen." }, "how": { "heading": "how I show up", "items": [ { "line": "Empathy and Gratitude come first. Look for other perspectives and the rest compounds." }, { "line": "Learn the hard things once. Engineer the process for everyone and improve together." }, { "line": "Demos > docs. Show the value, don't just talk about it." }, { "line": "Trust through safe accountability. Set direction, make it safe to fail, let people grow." }, { "line": "Be in the arena. Build with your team. Inspire by doing." } ] }, "career": { "tag": "the arc", "yearStart": 2006, "yearNow": 2026, "cards": [ { "year": 2026, "yearLabel": "~ 2025-2026", "kicker": "01", "icon": "graph-nodes", "title": "The CISO Security Graph", "role": "Group Engineering Manager", "tagline": "Microsoft CISO · cross-org security · AI defense", "desc": "Building the de facto internal Microsoft security graph. All Microsoft security teams defend at the scale and speed of AI. Leading the engineering team from the data ontology up: data quality, AI-enabled experiences, solutions to keep ahead of attackers. The graph every security team builds on." }, { "year": 2025, "yearLabel": "~ 2024-2025", "kicker": "02", "icon": "shield-check", "title": "M365 Security", "role": "Group Engineering Manager", "tagline": "Security data · M365 · AI-aligned", "desc": "Took over and expanded the central security data platform for Microsoft 365 Security, supporting internal security teams with critical, opinionated 1P security data to help secure M365 products proactively. Pivoting into data. Aligning with AI." }, { "year": 2024, "yearLabel": "~ 2021-2024", "kicker": "03", "icon": "lock-code", "title": "Defender for DevOps", "role": "Group Engineering Manager", "tagline": "1P learnings · 3P product · built v1", "desc": "Built Defender for DevOps from initial ideation phase through V1 GA. Took the learnings from 1P Microsoft engineering systems and shipped them as a product helping customers protect their pipelines from attack surface and insider risk. Translating internal craft into customer-ready software." }, { "year": 2020, "yearLabel": "~ 2019-2020", "kicker": "04", "icon": "growth-people", "title": "Leaning into security", "role": "Group Engineering Manager", "tagline": "1ES · Linux + containers · red team", "desc": "Aligned with Microsoft's 1ES, expanded the engineering system to support Linux and containers, and partnered closely with red teams to secure DevOps. Invested in SBOM, container management, and package management. A 2015 US patent on restricted-data cloud deployment carried into the work. Security became the priority." }, { "year": 2014, "yearLabel": "~ 2013-2018", "kicker": "05", "icon": "trending-up", "title": "Azure at scale", "role": "Principal Engineering Manager", "tagline": "Engineering systems · sovereign clouds · 20,000 engineers", "desc": "Scaled the Azure engineering pipeline so 20,000 engineers across 1,600 services could focus on product code, not DevOps. Built security in as a first principle: codesigning, credential scanning, vulnerability scanning by default. Led a team of 50 supporting 4M+ builds a year across sovereign cloud deployments. Founding became operating. At the scale of cloud computing." }, { "year": 2009, "yearLabel": "~ 2008-2012", "kicker": "06", "icon": "cloud", "title": "Azure begins", "role": "Senior Engineering Manager", "tagline": "CloudES · Azure engineering systems", "desc": "Azure launched. Our team set out to build its engineering pipeline. Took many independently-built, messy systems across the new cloud org and collapsed them into one centralized managed DevOps pipeline, driving efficiency, security, and compliance at scale. The team became CloudES. The system became OneBranch." }, { "year": 2007, "yearLabel": "~ 2006-2007", "kicker": "07", "icon": "cog", "title": "Build Engineer, day one", "role": "Build Engineer", "tagline": "Hosted Exchange + BPOS · enabling the team", "desc": "Started on Hosted Exchange and BPOS (Business Productivity Online Suite). Engineered the first consistent engineering platform. Found my passion. Productivity and automation. Doing something more than once is wasting everyone's time." } ] }, "photography": { "tag": "photography", "title": "MKippen Photography", "lead": "Started with cars. Expanded into portraits and over 100 weddings. These days I mostly shoot for the joy of it, but still love the craft. Especially when cars, light, motion, and detail come together.", "cta": "Visit mkippen.com", "ctaHref": "https://mkippen.com/", "photos": [ { "src": "/content/about/photography/photo-01.jpg", "alt": "Classic Porsche photographed low on the road", "width": 1800, "height": 1068, "orientation": "landscape", "focal": "object-position: 28% 60%;" }, { "src": "/content/about/photography/photo-02.jpg", "alt": "Volkswagen MK1 photographed in warm light", "width": 1800, "height": 1200, "orientation": "landscape", "focal": "object-position: 85% 60%;" }, { "src": "/content/about/photography/photo-03.jpg", "alt": "Outdoor wedding ceremony with sweeping sky", "width": 1800, "height": 1200, "orientation": "landscape", "focal": "object-position: 50% 70%;" }, { "src": "/content/about/photography/photo-04.jpg", "alt": "Bride with bouquet, soft light, full-length", "width": 1200, "height": 1800, "orientation": "portrait", "focal": "object-position: 50% 30%;" }, { "src": "/content/about/photography/photo-05.jpg", "alt": "Toddler portrait, looking up to camera", "width": 1199, "height": 1800, "orientation": "portrait", "focal": "object-position: 50% 35%;" }, { "src": "/content/about/photography/photo-06.jpg", "alt": "Volkswagen Golf parked against a hillside at dusk", "width": 1800, "height": 1200, "orientation": "landscape", "focal": "object-position: 80% 70%;" }, { "src": "/content/about/photography/photo-07.jpg", "alt": "Tattooed bride and groom, leaning against weathered siding", "width": 1200, "height": 1800, "orientation": "portrait", "focal": "object-position: 45% 28%;" }, { "src": "/content/about/photography/photo-08.jpg", "alt": "Bride looking back over her shoulder, warm window light", "width": 1200, "height": 1800, "orientation": "portrait", "focal": "object-position: 50% 35%;" }, { "src": "/content/about/photography/photo-09.jpg", "alt": "Mike's VW on the cover of Performance VW magazine", "width": 1260, "height": 1800, "orientation": "portrait", "focal": "object-position: 50% 45%;" } ] }, "contact": { "tag": "contact", "question": "Want to work together, or just want to talk?", "email": "mike@sm2gk.com", "emailHref": "mailto:mike@sm2gk.com", "pgpLabel": "pgp fingerprint", "pgpFingerprint": "4F7B · C2E9 · 71AD · 33F5 · A6D2 · 0B88 · E14C · 9F2A" }, "footer": { "sig": "— mk", "back": "◂ projects" } }