James Brown is BetterComp's Vice President of Engineering. Based in Boulder, Colorado, James joined the BetterComp team in April 2025 and plays an integral part in how BetterComp continues to innovate. We sat down with James to learn more about his role and life outside of work!
Can you share a brief overview of your professional background and how you ended up in your current role?
I started my career consulting for SMB and enterprise engineering teams and was quickly drawn to the rapid rate of innovation in the startup space. As the breadth of my ownership increased I found a deep interest in people and culture. I’ve since spent the past 15+ years scaling engineering teams. The confluence of technical problems, culture, and people is where I love to be!
Describe your role at BetterComp:
As the VP of Engineering I am responsible for the efficient delivery of customer value through high quality software and infrastructure. I wake up early (5:00 AM) and get a jump start on the day spending about an hour catching up on Slack and email messages. I then spend an hour listening to audio books (largely psychology and AI these days) while I run/cycle. I then spend a few hours in meetings planning and coordinating efforts across teams and 1:1s with my team. I intentionally batch my calendar to have more meetings in mornings and earlier in the week leaving me blocks of creative time most afternoons and later in the week. To keep noise and context switching at a minimum, I also operate with my inbox/Slack at 0, meaning designated times I clear them out so I only leave messages needing response.
What is your favorite part about your job? About working at BetterComp in general?
That confluence of technical problems, culture, and people are where I thrive so I am on cloud 9 here! We have some amazing technical problems to solve, especially with the push into AI/ML driven solutions in addition to an amazing culture and people that we need to scale!
What do you like doing when you’re not at work?
My career is incredibly important to me and I get a great deal of fulfillment from it, but when I am not engaged with work I split my time between my wife Bonnie, and our dog Lady, and Mountaineering. Mountaineering requires a pretty consistent training schedule so keeps me very busy climbing, running, cycling, etc.
How do you continue to learn and grow in your role? Are there any particular skills or areas you're currently focused on improving?
I’m always improving but tend to apply a version of constraints theory to where so I’m always focused on the most impactful thing for me. Tactically that is learning our platform and understanding our customers at the moment.
If you could give one piece of advice to someone just starting in your field, what would it be?
Develop the skills to learn quickly with a continuous learning mindset. Our industry moves too fast and too many people get stuck on learning specific technologies over developing the skills to learn more effectively. Adopt a First Principles approach coupled with Systems Thinking to quickly and effectively understand new ideas, concepts, and problem spaces. Also, learn to use “AI” and do so in a way that you actually understand it and can leverage it to make you more impactful.
Share a few fun or surprising facts about yourself that your colleagues might not know.
A few fun facts about me:
- I’ve climbed all 58 peaks over 14,000 ft in Colorado, Matterhorn in Switzerland, and Pico De Orizaba in Mexico.
- I played poker for a living after high school for a couple years which ultimately paid for my move to California,.
- I received the largest youth entrepreneurship grant the state of MN issued when I was 16 years old to start a skate park in the town I lived in. Utopia skate park is still there today, free, for kids to use!
What’s your favorite book/movie/TV show and why is it your favorite?
The Righteous Mind is a book by Jonathan Haidt that outlines the challenges people have disagreeing effectively. Strongly backed with studies it is a book that everyone should read to help us better understand each other and ultimately foster more inclusive environments to respectfully agree and disagree.
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