Vladimir Weinstein

Executive coach for engineers and engineering managers. Independent, by appointment.

Thirty years leading engineering at Google and IBM. Now coaching the people who do the work — full-time, deliberately independent. Strong on interview preparation, the IC-to-manager transition, and the leadership work nobody trains you for. Book a session ↓

1.0 background

based

San Francisco, CA

blogs

grumpymanager.com
oldmanandai.com

After thirty-plus years leading engineering teams at Google and IBM, I now work full-time as an executive coach and mentor — helping technical professionals accelerate their careers. My background spans internationalization, education technology, and AI-driven productivity.

Since leaving Google in October 2025, I have dedicated myself exclusively to coaching engineers and managers through career transitions, interview preparation, and the leadership challenges that don't appear in any textbook. Approach: deep technical understanding paired with strategies that have actually worked — for me and for the people I have led across Mountain View, New York, Zürich, Berlin, and Mexico City.

1.1 the change, in diff

~/career/2025-10.diff

−

Sr. Engineering Manager, Google · Education & AI Activation

−

19 years inside Big Tech

Independent Executive Coach & Leadership Consultant

Full-time coaching · by appointment · global remote

1.2 career, in full

2025-10 →	Independent · Executive Coach & Leadership Consultant. Executive coaching and mentorship for technical leaders navigating career transitions. Interview-preparation coaching for engineering and management roles at top tech companies. Leadership development and team-building consulting.
2024 – 2025-10	Google · Sr. Engineering Manager, Education & AI Activation. Designed and shipped last-mile AI tooling to supercharge Google engineers' productivity. Managed transition of the engineering team from engEDU into Core Developer Transformation. Helped build out the engineering organization in Mexico City.
2017 – 2024	Google · Sr. Engineering Manager, engEDU Platforms. Managed engineering teams designing, implementing and maintaining infrastructure for external and internal education. Built ELMS — scalable LMS/CMS for CS First and Applied Digital Skills, reaching millions of learners. Developed Grasshopper.app — mobile application for learning JavaScript. Led development of Primer — mobile-based business-skills education platform. Built and managed a remote engineering team in Berlin.
2013 – 2017	Google · Sr. Engineering Manager, i18n & Localization Infrastructure. Managed multiple engineering organizations totaling forty-plus software engineers. Led the Core Libraries team — ICU (icu.unicode.org) and Google's copy infrastructure (Chrome, Android). Led the Europe i18n team in Zürich — phone numbers (libphonenumber), addresses, entity recognition. Managed the localization infrastructure team enabling all localization across Google products. Built volunteer-based crowdsourcing infra: Crowdsource (mobile), YouTube captions, Translate Community. Facilitated Google classes and coached trainers.
2007 – 2013	Google · Engineering Manager, Internationalization. Started with the core libraries team and four reports; established the European i18n team. Grew and developed internationalization infrastructure across Google products.
2006 – 2007	Google · Sr. Software Engineer. Worked on core internationalization infrastructure and libraries.
1999 – 2006	IBM · Sr. Software Engineer, ICU4C / ICU4J. Engineer on ICU4C and ICU4J (icu.unicode.org). Team Lead on ICU4C — the C/C++ Unicode implementation library. Contributed to Unicode and internationalization standards.

1.3 systems shipped

ICU	Unicode and internationalization library powering Chrome, Android, Java, and most of the modern web. icu.unicode.org
libphonenumber	Phone-number parsing and validation used across Google products and the broader ecosystem.
Grasshopper	Mobile app for learning JavaScript. Reached millions of learners on iOS and Android.
Primer	Mobile-first business-skills education platform.
CS First	Computer-science curriculum for K–12; large global footprint.
ELMS	Scalable LMS/CMS infrastructure powering CS First and Applied Digital Skills.

1.4 pedagogy & mentorship

Twenty years of building things that teach things; the coaching practice is the same instinct, applied one person at a time. Three lenses on the same work:

Learning at scale	Led the teams behind Grasshopper, Primer, and CS First. Built scalable infrastructure reaching millions of learners globally — from coding to business skills.
Technical pedagogy	Directed the engineering of Google's internal and external education platforms (engEDU). Focus on making complex technical concepts intuitive and accessible at every level.
Legacy of growth	Thousands of hours mentoring engineering leaders inside Google. Designed growth frameworks rather than giving ad-hoc advice — the same approach the coaching practice now runs on.

2.0 what I do

Three lanes, in order of demand:

lane	for	format
Interview preparation	Eng & Mgr roles at top tech	Mock interviews, resume review, negotiation
Career strategy	IC-to-manager, promo, pivots	Roadmap, readiness, narrative
Leadership development	New & senior managers	Difficult conversations, team culture, burnout

2.1 quoted

“Engineering leadership without the toxic positivity.”
— from The Grumpy Manager, the blog

3.0 vitals

30+	Years in industry · Google + IBM + Independent
40+	Engineers led, across four continents
18+	Years interviewing and calibrating at Google
3	Education products shipped: Grasshopper, Primer, CS First
5	Cities I have built or led teams in: Mountain View, NYC, Zürich, Berlin, CDMX

3.1 stack

Domains and tools the practice draws on.

Internationalization Localization Education tech AI & productivity Infrastructure engineering Project management Team leadership Communication & teaching Facilitation & coaching Inclusive teams Remote team management

ICU libphonenumber Blockly Grasshopper iOS / Android Python C / C++ Java JavaScript TypeScript

4.0 writing

Two blogs, both free, both ongoing.

The Grumpy Manager

Engineering leadership without the toxic positivity. Twenty-plus years inside Big Tech, candidly — the parts of the job they don't put in onboarding decks.

grumpymanager.com →

Old Man and AI

Notes on emerging tech from someone who has been in the room before. Less doom, less hype, more pattern matching.

oldmanandai.com →

5.0 book a session

Two formats. Pay first, schedule immediately. Stripe.

$ book --duration=60min --rate=$220

# deep-dive · mock interview · executive coaching

→ stripe.com/.../60min

$ book --duration=30min --rate=$120

# laser session · resume · targeted question

→ stripe.com/.../30min

Also available via IGotAnOffer.

6.0 contact

For booking, use the CLI block above. For everything else:

email: weiv@weivco.com
linkedin: /in/vladimirweinstein
github: github.com/weiv— a bit livelier lately
x: @weiv
writing: grumpymanager.com · oldmanandai.com
based: San Francisco Bay Area, California