Senior technical leadership. In your office or remote.
I'm Joe Ybarra and Focal55 is my consulting business. I am an engineering delivery leader with 20+ years modernizing software for businesses including Fortune 500s. I work with agency owners, founders, and engineering teams as an elite, hands-on freelance engineer and technical director. Based in Manhattan, I can come straight into your NYC office to whiteboard, untangle complex architecture, or roll up my sleeves and produce high-quality code.
How I Work: Scrum Cadence & Embedded QA
I don't deliver black-box code or disappear into a silo. I embed directly into your sprint cycles — bringing 20+ years of structured Scrum delivery, automated CI/CD gating, and end-to-end quality engineering so your team ships clean, tested software on a predictable cadence.
- • Sprint Planning & Estimation: Defined sprint backlogs with transparent scope, risk analysis, and realistic commitments.
- • Strict Definition of Done (DoD): Every ticket requires clean code review, automated test coverage, and staging verification before sign-off.
- • In-Person or Embedded Remote: On-site whiteboard planning in your Manhattan office or daily async standups in your Slack and Linear/Jira.
- • Sprint Demos & Retrospectives: Continuous visibility into running software at the end of every cycle, with rapid feedback loops.
Scrum Architecture & Technical Direction
Setting the technical foundation, de-risking complex epics, and steering sprint velocity.
Hands-On Feature Engineering
Writing clean, resilient code alongside your team to unblock milestones.
Automated QA & Test Engineering
Embedding quality directly into the SDLC so defects never escape to production.
CI/CD & Zero-Downtime Release Engineering
Ensuring predictable, repeatable deployments with automated safety checks.
20+ Years in the Trenches
Joe Ybarra
Freelance Technical Director & Engineering Delivery Leader
I live and work in Manhattan. Over the past 20+ years, I've led massive platform transformations for Fortune 500 enterprises like Prudential and PGIM, scaled cross-functional engineering pods, and embedded modern AI-assisted SDLC workflows into production.
I bring that exact enterprise caliber to agencies, startups, and product teams as a senior freelance technical partner. Whether we whiteboard at your office in NYC, meet over coffee, or work async in GitHub, you get a dedicated partner who cares deeply about architecture, velocity, and real business results.
CAREER & LEADERSHIP TIMELINE
Fortune 500 & Agency HistoryDirector, Tech Lead — Digital Marketing
Prudential Financial & PGIM
- • Led a $5M+ enterprise platform transformation, migrating the core digital presence to Adobe Experience Manager (AEM).
- • Drove release cadence from monthly to bi-weekly — 2× deployment frequency — via parallel branching and streamlined delivery governance.
Principal Consultant & Tech Lead
Capco (Client: Prudential & PGIM)
- • Helped win the Adobe Experience Manager migration off Drupal/Angular — foundation of the $5M+ transformation — through technical advisory on complex regulatory requirements.
- • Scaled and led two Agile pods (9 each, 18 engineers) across engineering, QA, and product, delivering BAU, enhancement, and integration objectives.
Director of Engineering
Thinkbean, LLC
- • Progressed from frontend developer to backend engineer to Director of Engineering, growing into full ownership of technical strategy, architecture, and delivery.
- • Implemented a structured design-to-engineering handoff process that aligned design and development, reducing rework and improving delivery fidelity.
Founder & CEO
Focal55, Inc (Software Development Agency)
- • Founded and ran a software development agency for 8 years, owning all operations — sales, delivery, hiring, and P&L — scaling to a peak team of 5 and a best year of $200K revenue.
- • Delivered for clients across education, travel, manufacturing, food, and fine-art printing — including UCLA, Fox Rent A Car, and Tampico Spice.
CORE COMPETENCIES & TECHNICAL STACK
AI & Agentic Delivery
- › Claude Code & agentic orchestration
- › Multi-agent workforce design
- › Prompt engineering
- › AI-assisted SDLC
- › Model-tiered cost controls
Engineering Leadership
- › On/offshore team leadership & mentorship
- › Delivery governance & SDLC
- › Cross-functional collaboration
- › Executive & stakeholder alignment
- › Engineering culture development
Platform & Cloud
- › Adobe Experience Manager (AEM)
- › Microsoft Fabric & data platform
- › AWS cloud architecture
- › CI/CD & release engineering
- › Scalable system design
Full-Stack Development
- › TypeScript, JavaScript & Python
- › React & modern frontend
- › Backend development (Java, PHP)
- › Drupal, Contentful & headless CMS
- › Code review & test-driven development
Looking for my formal CV for an executive advisory role, vendor onboarding, or full resume?
Open Full Interactive CV Page →Common Questions & Engagement Details
Clear answers on how I collaborate, Scrum & QA standards, Manhattan in-person availability, and mutual NDA protocols.
Who is Joe Ybarra and what is Focal55?
Can Joe work on-site at our office in Manhattan?
How does Joe embed into our Scrum sprint cycles and QA?
What types of companies and teams does Joe work with?
How are confidentiality, NDAs, and intellectual property handled?
What is the typical turnaround time to kick off an engagement?
Let’s talk about your project.
I'm based right here in Manhattan. We can grab coffee, I can come to your office to whiteboard with your team, or we can jump on a quick Zoom call. Tell me about what you're trying to build or unblock.
- ✓ In-person office visits in NYC — Available across Manhattan, Brooklyn, or anywhere in the city.
- ✓ Direct with me — No account managers, recruiters, or delegated junior developers.
- ✓ Mutual NDA signed upfront — Total confidentiality before looking at private code or proprietary roadmaps.
- ✓ Honest feedback within 24 hours — I'll tell you straightforwardly if I can help and the fastest path to ship.