Blake Scrivner

Inspirer
DISC Type : id

Director of Core Engineering at Expel

Portland, Oregon, United States

Overview

Blake is an engineering leader at Expel with over 12 years of experience specializing in SRE and Platform Engineering. He has a proven track record of driving reliability and efficiency, notably achieving over 99. 95% availability at Zendesk while reducing observability expenses by $15 million. He holds a Computer Science degree from San Jose State University.

After two decades in tech, Blake took a two-year sabbatical to recharge, during which he advised an AI startup and volunteered. He is recognized by colleagues for his positive attitude, technical expertise, and calm, enjoyable guidance, with a particular talent for mentoring junior engineers and getting the best out of his staff.

Unique fact: Blake transformed Blackboards on-premise software, which required over 24 hours of downtime for upgrades, into a zero-downtime AWS SaaS offering.

Personality Overview

Fast Adopter

Generous

Confident & Optimistic

They usually prefer to drive the conversation.  They measure a product on its merit but can be influenced by strong testimonials. They respond well to objective pitches but also attach some value to relationships.

Topics They Care About

SRE & DevOps
His career is built on SRE principles, having built and scaled reliability engineering organizations from the ground up at companies like Zendesk and now leading SRE at Expel.
Scaling Eng Teams
He has extensive experience building and directing globally distributed engineering organizations of up to 75 people, focusing on infrastructure, security, and developer experience.
Cloud Cost Management
He successfully reduced Zendesk's annual observability operational expenses by $15 million, demonstrating strong capabilities in managing large-scale cloud budgets and establishing governance.

Media Appearances

Blake has no verified media appearances

Work History

12-2025
Director of Core Engineering at Expel
9-2023 - 12-2025
Gap year at Career Break
1-2023 - 9-2023
Sr Director of Engineering Services at Zapier
9-2021 - 12-2022
Sr Director of Engineering, Reliability at Zendesk
1-2018 - 8-2021
Director of Engineering, Reliability at Zendesk

Education

Blake has no verified education history

More Information

Social Presence :

Prographics :

Exp : 9 Location : Portland, Oregon, United States Job Level : Mid-senior Designation : Director of Core Engineering at Expel
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Insights For Selling To Blake

During A Call Or A Meeting

DO's

  • Get them to a point where they are ready to bat for your product internally
  • Acknowledge their status and position during the conversation
  • Look like someone who is on top of their game

DONT's

  • Don’t be too verbose or overly friendly; a little bit, however, is fine
  • Don’t keep repeating the same information, it could make them impatient
  • Avoid focusing only on the product or its ROI, keep building trust subtly

When Cold Calling

When Writing An Email

While Negotiating & Closing

    The secret to closing fast with Blake is

  • Confidence in the product’s value is critical, followed by relationship and a sense of achievement.
  • Will you ever get a clear answer from Blake

  • They will not hesitate to say no if they do not develop conviction.

Insights For Deal Planning

    How fast (or slow) will Blake move?

  • They can take fast decisions if they develop conviction in the product and find you trustworthy.
  • Can Blake take some risk or not?

  • They have the capability of taking risky decisions if necessary.

You And Blake

Personality Compatibility


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