About Me
I'm Tim Johns, and I live in Lynnwood, Washington, but I grew up in Apple Springs, Texas - a tiny community in East Texas.
I went to Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches in the early 90's.
What I Do Now
Currently, I'm a Senior Engineering Manager at doxo in the Greater Seattle Area, where I lead a high-performing front-end engineering team, help develop and operate the front-end applications hands-on, and do my best to help shape the culture.
I come to the table with experience hiring and leading several early-stage engineering teams, intentionally curating engineering culture, hands-on full-stack development and operations experience, early CTO-level strategic thinking, product development experience from idea through launch and beyond, and a particular affinity for troubleshooting difficult problems of any variety - technical or otherwise.
The Entrepreneurial Journey
Epic Road Trip Planner
My most recent entrepreneurial endeavor was founding Hillwood Park in early 2023 to build Epic Road Trip Planner - a web application that helps people plan and coordinate road trips without the stress.
The idea came from planning a family reunion in Montana in remembrance of my father, who grew up there and used to tell us great stories about Montana from the 40's and 50's. Each of us four kids are now grown adults, many with families of our own, scattered around the U.S. leading busy lives. Coordinating this get-together was part fun, part challenge, and part stress.
I LOVE a good road trip, and tend to embrace a certain level of spontaneity. The trick when there are multiple folks involved, however, is making sure everyone knows who's going to be where, when, and what we're going to be doing, so that one person's spontaneity doesn't turn into another person's stressful lack of communication.
I've also been lucky enough to be very very early with a couple of magical founding teams, including eight wonderful years at Tiller (which I still love and highly recommend). Before that, I was also a solo founder myself, twice - one was a mediocre success bootstrap (DriverDev), that I ran for five years before shutting it down in 2005 on our single most profitable day ever because I didn't think I knew how to scale it further (yeah, self-doubt got the best of me on that one). I didn't carry that self doubt with me into my next solo venture in 2013 (Remote Insight), but wasn't able to get that one funded or bootstrapped off the ground before I ran out of personal funds.
The lesson learned across the board? A great founding team is an obvious advantage. And self-doubt will Mess.You.Up.
Trail Magic and Search & Rescue
When I'm not writing code or planning road trips, you might find me doing trail magic for Pacific Crest Trail hikers. I'm a trail angel, and my trail name is Tour Guide (yes, there's a story there too). A couple of times a year, I provide rides to and from PCT trailheads, mostly in Western Washington, and occasionally show up with a cooler full of cold soda for hungry hikers.
From 2001 to 2018, I served as a volunteer with Snohomish County Volunteer Search and Rescue, as a generic ground-pounder in the field. That extremely rewarding experience taught me a lot about working under pressure, making decisions with incomplete information, and the importance of clear communication in high-stakes situations.
Personal Stuff
I'm a dad to four amazing mostly adult children, one of whom has Type 1 Diabetes. Both being a dad in general as well as having a kid with a chronic health condition has had a profound impact on how I see the world, healthcare, innovation, and hope. It continues to shape my perspective on disruption, market forces, and the power of passionate entrepreneurs to change the world.
I'm passionate about privacy and security, believe deeply that representation matters tremendously to the health of teams, and I'm particularly inspired to work with folks currently underrepresented in the tech startup space. Just about every demographic metric that I am in is OVERrepresented in that space, and it's part of my personal mission to help resolve that.
Let's Connect
You can find me on GitHub, LinkedIn, and Bluesky, or you can reach me at tim@timjohns.com.
If you're an inspired founder on the brink of starting, executing, or scaling something remarkable that "just_makes_sense", I'd love to hear from you. "Just makes sense" is hard to quantify, but here's my attempt: If it clearly solves a significant pain point that I have myself or can easily envision, and I can see one or more paths to delivering on solving it with unit economics that scale rationally, then it "just makes sense."
Let's GO!
-Tim