Dermot Dooley

Senior Engineering Leader

Engineering leader with 15+ years experience building high-performing teams in Irish tech. Track record of delivering complex technical programmes at pace while creating engineering cultures where people grow, stay, and do their best work - grounded in clear career progression, psychological safety, and a sharp commercial lens.

hello@dermotdooley.com

Interim Director of Engineering

Oct 2024 – May 2025 | CarTrawler, Dublin, Ireland

Stepped in during a critical leadership transition to own the Engineering, Architecture, and Insights functions across a 10-squad department - stabilising delivery pipelines and maintaining 100% project delivery throughout.
Represented Engineering at C-Suite level as part of the Product & Technology Leadership Team, owning departmental strategy and managing executive stakeholder relationships during a period of significant organisational change.
Defined and executed the Departmental Engineering Strategy, aligning technical roadmaps directly to commercial objectives and ensuring the platform was positioned for long-term scalability.

Established departmental operating cadences - OKRs, Agile frameworks, and leadership forums - creating clear alignment between technical teams and executive strategy.
Championed diversity and inclusion through active sponsorship of Women in Tech initiatives, contributing to a stronger, more representative engineering culture.

Senior Engineering Manager

Feb 2019 – Oct 2024 | May 2025 – Present | CarTrawler, Dublin, Ireland
(Role resumed post-Interim Director period)

Lead and mentor 21–30 engineers across multiple squads, including Engineering Managers and Tech Leads, with accountability for org design, career development, and long-term team strategy.
Drive continuous delivery of major partner integrations - easyJet, AFKLM, American Airlines, and Uber - alongside foundational platforms including a Campaign Management System and Customer Portal.
Scale engineering capacity dynamically (+/- 20 headcount), balancing full-time staff development with strategic use of trusted contracting partners.
Delivered a car imagery overhaul - leading technical strategy through to execution - resulting in annualised savings of €200k and a measurably improved user experience through 3D model integration.
Reduced AWS infrastructure costs by 10% (€120k) through targeted performance and cost optimisation, alongside launching SnowPlow Advanced Analytics to improve data-driven decision-making.

Introduced a new organisational structure and Engineering Levels Framework, standardising career progression across the department.
Modernised legacy integration documentation from a broken Sphinx setup to Astro Starlight, using AI tooling to accelerate delivery and restore a critical partner resource.
Established Engineering Days, brown-bag sessions, and in-office competitions to build a stronger Product & Technology culture and improve team engagement.

Engineering Manager – Multiple Teams

Oct 2017 – Feb 2019 | CarTrawler, Dublin, Ireland

Led cross-functional teams of 10–14 engineers, clearing a critical backlog of partner requests and materially improving delivery throughput.
Improved release cadence through process discipline and architectural decoupling, reducing technical debt and shortening the delivery cycle.
Built a centralised design system and logo library, eliminating redundant front-end work and establishing consistent brand standards across partner integrations.

Front End Developer

Apr 2013 – Oct 2017 | CarTrawler, Dublin, Ireland

Built and maintained customised partner websites, supporting B2C brands. Improved performance and visibility through optimisation, dashboards, and standardisation projects.

MSc Creative Digital Media

2014 – 2017 | Technology University Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

BSc (Hons) Multimedia in Computer Programming

2006 – 2007 | IADT, Dun Laoghaire, Dublin, Ireland

BSc Computing in Multimedia Systems

2003 – 2006 | IADT, Dun Laoghaire, Dublin, Ireland

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