Jones Pavan
Sr Director of Software Engineering
at Blackline Systems
Engineering leader with a 20+ year track record of delivering at scale—modernizing platforms, embedding AI into financial systems, and leading globally distributed teams through complex transformations. I operate at the intersection of architecture, execution, and business impact.
- Platform Modernization & Scale: Reduced incidents by 80% through microservices and DevEx improvements; rebuilt orchestration systems for 17M+ media assets.
- AI Integration & Data Innovation: Embedded Vertex AI into SEC reporting workflows, automated footnotes and compliant financial report generation, and built Spark-based engines to detect anomalies in financial data.
- Team Building & Global Execution: Led orgs of 100+ engineers across 3 continents, managed $10M+ budgets, and improved delivery velocity through org redesigns, CI/CD discipline, and stakeholder alignment.
Articles by Jones Pavan

7 Steps to Build a Product That Sells Itself

The Founder’s Mental Health Playbook: What I Learned After Nearly Burning Out
A hard-won guide to staying mentally healthy while building a startup I founded Stitcher, the podcast platform, in 2007 and ran it for seven years until we sold in 2014....

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) for Early Stage Companies
In our latest session from the Mucker Growth Series featuring Ethan Smith from Graphite, we explored AEO, a significant new approach for optimizing visibility in AI-driven search, particularly relevant as...

Startup Guide to AI Visibility: Be the Brand ChatGPT Recommends
Introduction Today, users aren’t just searching on Google. They’re asking ChatGPT, Claude, Google’s Gemini, Perplexity, and other AI systems for advice. AI visibility is the new frontier of brand awareness....

Practical Uses of AI & Automation for Startup Operations
In a recent Mucker Growth Series session, we invited Rock Vitale, Founder & CEO of Easie, to share how he’s helped early-stage teams move from manual, fragmented workflows to streamlined,...

2025 New York Tech Week Recap Of Mucker Sessions
Last week during New York Tech Week 2025, we joined more than 1,000 events hosted by founders, investors, and VCs. This post is a full Mucker recap of the three...