Sterling Morrison · Detroit
I build the technology between a company and its customers: servicing, marketing and messaging, CRM and customer data, and the AI agents now running inside them. Six years leading that engineering at Ally across five lines of business. Since 2022, leading it at Fanatics across every channel a customer touches. Through Sterling Blake Partners, I do this work from the client’s side of the table for banks, lenders, fintechs, and high-volume consumer brands.
About
At Ally I was Principal Engineering Manager for the omni-channel consumer and back-office platform: chat, IVR, web, mobile, and email across five lines of business, with architectural oversight of three Salesforce instances and more than 5,000 users, leading a team of up to 40 engineers and vendor staff. When Ally added a line of business, my team built the servicing and channel platform it launched on. Ally Invest after the TradeKing acquisition. Ally Home with Better.com. Ally Lending from the Health Credit Services acquisition. The Ally Credit Card from the Fair Square Financial acquisition.
Since 2022 I have been Senior Staff at Fanatics, technical lead for a group of up to 40 engineers on software engineering and AI-agent implementations across the customer-facing and internal stacks for servicing, operations, and marketing: desktop, chat, SMS, email, IVR, social, and mobile, on a volatile, high-volume event-driven architecture.
Alongside that, I was a partner at New Collar for six years, where I sold and delivered dozens of web, Salesforce, and AWS projects for mid-size businesses. I also build products of my own: I co-founded Audizer, a SaaS product for music production, and Posture 12 is live on the App Store and Google Play today.
Sterling Blake Partners is a one-principal practice. When a program needs more engineers than one principal, they are contracted under the same agreement, and I remain the single person accountable to you for the result.
Sound familiar
How I’m used
An architecture choice that costs millions if it is wrong. An AI agent that will not leave pilot. A vendor or platform selection. A second opinion on someone else’s plan. Two to four weeks, a written answer, and evidence behind the decision that carries your name.
The technical owner’s representative on a program an integrator is delivering, or the standing advisor to the leader who owns the platform. I have sat where you sit, directed in-house and vendor teams inside a bank, and know what a statement of work leaves out. The job is to make the initiative land and make the decision to back it hold up. When a program calls for a full-time seat, that is a conversation, not a line on a website.
I build. When a program needs more hands than one principal, additional engineers are contracted under a single agreement and a single accountable lead. When it needs a large firm, I will help you select one and manage it, and you keep an owner’s-side lead throughout.
Nothing lives only in my head. Every engagement runs on written architecture, a decision log, and a handover plan from the first week, so your program does not depend on any one person, including me. Scoped, with a defined end, and you know the cost before we start.
Fit
A large integrator brings forty people across six workstreams, a rate card, and a bench that absorbs turnover. That is real value, and on a serious program you may need it.
What the integrator cannot bring is a person on your side who has run this system from the owner’s chair, will write the architecture the firm builds to, read the statement of work for what it leaves out, and still be accountable to you in month six. That is the seat I take. On most serious initiatives the right answer is both: I lead or oversee, a firm delivers, and you keep one accountable owner who works for you.
If your problem needs a firm and not me, I will say so on the first call and point you to ones that do it well.
Track record
Principal Engineering Manager. Architecture, development, and delivery for chat, IVR, web, mobile, and email. Three Salesforce instances, more than 5,000 users, a team of up to 40.
Ally at the time: more than 10.5 million customers, 2.7 million deposit customers, about 11,600 employees.
Servicing and channel platform for the brokerage after the TradeKing acquisition was folded into the bank.
260,000 funded accounts and $4.5 billion in client assets at acquisition. 518,000 active accounts and $12.8 billion by 2022.
Servicing for the mortgage business launched with Better.com.
$10.4 billion in direct-to-consumer originations in 2021. Mortgages in 46 states.
Servicing for point-of-sale lending built from the Health Credit Services acquisition.
$2.1 billion in originations, 460,000 active borrowers, and 3,400 merchants by 2022.
Servicing for the card business launched from the Fair Square Financial acquisition.
693,000 cardholders at close. One million active cardholders and $1.6 billion in balances a year later.
Senior Staff. Customer-facing and internal stacks across desktop, chat, SMS, email, IVR, social, and mobile, on a high-volume event-driven architecture. Technical lead for a group of up to 40 engineers.
Fanatics: a database of more than 100 million fans, $8.1 billion in 2024 revenue, and a contact center of more than 1,000 agents handling several million contacts a year.
Partner. Sold and delivered web, Salesforce, and AWS implementations. React, Node.js, Salesforce, AWS.
Automated mixing and mastering workflows. Work produced with it was released through Warner Music Group and Atlantic Records.
Built and shipped alone. iOS and Android, in the stores now.
Scale figures come from public filings, earnings releases, and published case studies. They describe the size of the businesses I worked inside. Team sizes are my own. Employer names describe my experience and are not affiliations of Sterling Blake Partners.
How it starts
Thirty minutes on what is on the table. I will tell you honestly whether I am the right person for it.
The first seat above: a short, scoped look at the system with a written answer you can act on with or without me.
The second or third seat, if the assessment earns it. Defined scope, defined end, one person accountable.
Start a conversation
Five short questions, about two minutes. I reply within two business days. Your answers go to me and nobody else.
