Who Is Your Interim Head of Engineering?
Tom Smykowski is a product-minded engineer and technical leader with nearly two decades of experience in software product delivery, available for interim Head of Engineering engagements. He is the ideal hire for founders, CTOs, and executives who need immediate, high-caliber leadership to guide a team through a transition, scale a product, or modernize systems. Based in Poland and working remotely, Tom provides stability, strategic direction, and hands-on technical oversight for teams across the EU, UK, and US, ensuring continuity and momentum during critical periods.
An interim Head of Engineering must bridge strategy and execution seamlessly. Tom's background spans from founding his own SaaS company, Websoul, serving over 32,000 businesses, to staff-level roles at high-growth platforms like Croissant and Printify. This blend of entrepreneurial ownership and deep corporate engineering experience means he can quickly assess your technical landscape, align engineering efforts with business goals, and implement processes that drive productivity and quality. His focus is on taking ownership from discovery through production, making him a reliable steward of your engineering function during leadership gaps.
Hiring an interim leader is often a strategic move to maintain velocity while searching for a permanent hire or navigating organizational change. Tom's remote-first approach, honed through years of collaboration with international teams, ensures effective management across time zones. He steps into the role not just as a manager, but as a contributing engineer who understands modern stacks, including Vue.js, TypeScript, Supabase, and AI-integrated workflows, allowing him to make credible architectural decisions and mentor team members effectively from day one.
Why Hire an Interim Engineering Leader?
Organizations face numerous scenarios where an interim Head of Engineering provides critical value. These include sudden leadership departures, the need for specialized expertise during a product pivot or merger, preparing a team for a new permanent hire, or providing technical oversight during a founder-led phase. An interim leader brings immediate experience without the long-term commitment, offering a focused period of stabilization and strategic advancement.
Tom's interim leadership is characterized by a rapid diagnostic phase. He evaluates team health, codebase quality, deployment pipelines, and product roadmap alignment. This assessment, informed by his work with clients like GE Healthcare, Unilever, and Bunge, allows him to create a tailored action plan. Whether the need is to improve developer productivity, implement a design system as he did at Printify for 60+ frontend engineers, or establish AI-assisted workflows, he provides clear direction and measurable outcomes.
The financial and operational flexibility of an interim engagement is a significant advantage. It allows companies to access top-tier leadership, like Tom's staff-engineer-level expertise, without the overhead of a full-time executive salary or lengthy recruitment. This model is particularly effective for startups scaling rapidly, companies undergoing digital transformation, or established firms modernizing legacy systems. Tom's remote setup from Poland facilitates seamless integration with distributed teams, ensuring leadership is present regardless of physical location.
Core Responsibilities in an Interim Role
As your interim Head of Engineering, Tom assumes full responsibility for the engineering function's output and health. His primary duty is to ensure the team delivers value reliably and efficiently. This involves overseeing sprint planning, technical architecture reviews, and quality assurance processes. He acts as the bridge between executive vision and engineering execution, translating business objectives into actionable technical milestones and ensuring the team has the resources and clarity needed to succeed.
People leadership is a cornerstone of the role. Tom focuses on mentoring engineers, facilitating career growth conversations, and fostering a collaborative, psychologically safe team environment. He draws on his experience building and leading teams at Websoul and Fream to manage performance, resolve conflicts, and improve team dynamics. His goal is to leave the engineering team stronger, more motivated, and better structured than when he arrived, creating a solid foundation for an incoming permanent leader.
Strategic technical decision-making is another critical responsibility. Tom evaluates and approves technology choices, manages technical debt, and ensures scalability and security are prioritized. He brings expertise in modern frontend frameworks, full-stack development, and AI integration to guide these decisions. Furthermore, he represents the engineering department in stakeholder meetings, providing transparent updates on progress, risks, and resource needs to founders, product managers, and clients, ensuring alignment across the organization.
Proven Experience in Technical Leadership
Tom's qualifications for an interim Head of Engineering role are demonstrated through a track record of impactful leadership positions. As a Staff Software Engineer at Croissant, he worked in direct partnership with the CEO and CTO on compliance and collaboration features for a workplace platform, giving him firsthand experience in executive-level strategy and cross-functional leadership. This role required balancing technical depth with product and business considerations, a key skill for any Head of Engineering.
At Printify, Tom was instrumental in leading a major design system and rebrand initiative ahead of a significant merger, coordinating work across a frontend engineering org of approximately 60 engineers serving over 10 million merchants. This experience showcases his ability to drive large-scale, cross-team technical programs, manage stakeholder expectations, and deliver complex projects on time, a direct parallel to the scope of an interim leadership engagement.
His founder experience with Websoul, where he built a marketing automation fintech SaaS from the ground up, underscores his ability to own the entire product lifecycle. From architecture and hiring to scaling and operations, Tom has faced the challenges a Head of Engineering must navigate. His earlier work on industrial ERP systems at Insoft Serwis and complex mapping interfaces at Fream further solidifies his versatility across B2B, SaaS, and industrial software domains, making him adaptable to diverse interim leadership contexts.
The Interim Engagement Process
An effective interim engagement begins with a clear discovery and alignment phase. Tom initiates this with a deep-dive into your current challenges, team structure, product roadmap, and technical landscape. This process involves interviews with key stakeholders, engineers, and product managers, as well as a review of relevant documentation and code. The output is a shared understanding of the immediate priorities, success metrics, and a 30-60-90 day plan tailored to your specific situation.
Execution is characterized by transparent, action-oriented leadership. Tom integrates into your communication rhythms, whether daily stand-ups, weekly leadership syncs, or board meetings. He provides regular, concise reports on progress against goals, team morale, and technical risks. His hands-on approach may include pair programming with senior engineers to tackle complex problems, conducting code reviews to uplift quality, or drafting architectural RFCs to guide future development. This active involvement accelerates change and builds team trust.
The conclusion of an interim engagement is managed with equal care. Tom focuses on creating a comprehensive handover. This includes documenting processes instituted, decisions made, and a clear state-of-play assessment for the incoming permanent leader or management team. He ensures knowledge is distributed and not siloed with him. The ultimate aim is a smooth transition that leaves your engineering function more resilient, predictable, and aligned with business objectives than before his tenure began.
When This Is a Good Fit
This interim Head of Engineering service is a good fit if you are a founder, CTO, or executive leading a software team that needs immediate, credible leadership during a period of transition or heightened demand. It is ideal if you require someone who can combine strategic oversight with hands-on technical credibility, who can start quickly and integrate remotely with your EU, UK, or US-based team. If your goals include stabilizing team output, modernizing technology, improving development processes, or preparing the engineering function for its next phase of growth, Tom provides the experience and focused engagement to achieve them.