Chris Schneider Email Address

Software Engineering Executive

LLamasoft supply chain design software helps organizations worldwide design and improve their supply chain operations.

Going on 25+ years in the IT industry performing a variety of roles ranging from hands-on technical to ProServ and Engineering executive management. I took an unexpectedly long break starting in March ’19 after an exciting five year run at LLamasoft and thanks to a worldwide pandemic, had plenty of time to consider my second act. I was about 18 months into Netflix’s catalog, when I finally got around to updating my LinkedIn profile to “temporarily retired”. I’m usually much more active on LinkedIn, but anything related to work was uninteresting compared to…well…about 50 binge worthy TV shows. Before updating my status, I had received countless inquiries asking if I knew any qualified candidates. Though I often used LinkedIn to find candidates, its primary purpose has been to get myself a better job. As I updated my profile to prevent such inquiries going forward, it dawned on me that the real power of this network isn’t to support my own narrow career, but in the thousands of jobs my contacts are trying to fill. In my last several roles as an engineering manager, I struggled to find qualified candidates for virtually all technical positions. Entry level applicants were especially difficult as we competed with much larger intern and university recruiting programs. Computer Science graduates were turning down our offers of $90K+ with stock options! In response, we hired many people from local coding bootcamps, and when they didn’t have qualified candidates, we hired recent high school grads. One day during a re-watching of Ozark, I got an email ad for Skill Samurai, a franchise that specializes in STEM education, with a particular emphasis on career development. While attempting to raise 3 children, I experienced first-hand the lack of educational offerings available teaching students the technology being used to build real enterprise software. There were several schools offering traditional 12-and-under STEM curriculums, but none that progressed students interested in making STEM a career, how to get to the next level. It was clear after meeting the CEO, Jeff Hughes and owners of Skill Samurai, their business was perfectly suited to prepare high school students to fill the jobs I was avoiding inquiries about. So my second act is to teach STEM and software engineering to kids in Michigan, starting in Detroit, with a focus on helping high school graduates start a career in IT. I hope everyone who read this far is doing well while things get back to normal. Cheers, Chris