Phil Burrows

Observer
DISC Type : ic

Head of Platform & Infra Engineering at Brex

Memphis, Tennessee, United States

Overview

Phil Burrows is an engineering leader at Brex, heading the Platform and Infrastructure Engineering team. He has extensive experience building and leading distributed teams to run applications at scale, with a technical background that includes a Triplebyte certification and expertise in Elixir and Google Cloud Platform.

Phil is a passionate advocate for open-source software, having authored and released multiple libraries to the Elixir community. He actively shares his technical knowledge and explorations on his personal blog, covering topics from Elixir to his more recent work with the Rust programming language.

He once rewrote a high-throughput API from Ruby to Elixir, which cut operational expenses by over 80% while significantly increasing capacity.

Personality Overview

Assertive

Curious

Example Seeker

They ask a lot of questions and rely heavily on information and collaterals.  They are generally good communicators and can be hard to convince. They can sound friendly and charming but can quickly change gears to become inquisitive and probing.

Topics They Care About

Platform Engineering
As the Head of Platform & Infra Engineering at Brex, he is focused on building foundational systems and improving developer efficiency, saving millions in infrastructure costs.
Open Source Software
Authored and maintains multiple open-source libraries for the Elixir language, specifically for integration with Google Cloud Platform, and has spoken at conferences on the topic.
Elixir & Rust
Demonstrated deep expertise in Elixir by re-architecting systems for massive performance gains and is now actively blogging about his new explorations in Rust.

Media Appearances

Phil has no verified media appearances

Work History

4-2022
Head of Platform & Infra Engineering at Brex
8-2020 - 4-2022
Engineering Leader at Meta
1-2019 - 8-2020
Director Of Engineering at VitalSource
9-2006 - 4-2007
Graphic Designer at First Community Bank
1-2019
Tech Lead Manager at VitalSource

Education

2002 - 2006
Bachelor of Science (BS) from Harding University

More Information

Social Presence :

Prographics :

Exp : 7 Location : Memphis, Tennessee, United States Job Level : Mid-senior Designation : Head of Platform & Infra Engineering at Brex
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Insights For Selling To Phil

During A Call Or A Meeting

DO's

  • Invite them for a social do but don’t rely solely on the relationship
  • Share testimonials from known people and give multiple examples of product value
  • Help them understand the risk aspect fully while inspiring confidence

DONT's

  • Don’t try to rush them into a decision, provide all necessary information first
  • Don’t brush off any concerns, take all questions seriously
  • Don’t be too objective but make sure to pad your storytelling with data points

When Cold Calling

When Writing An Email

While Negotiating & Closing

    The secret to closing fast with Phil is

  • Proven value, strong testimonials are important for them, rapport can impact decisions a little.
  • Will you ever get a clear answer from Phil

  • They are practical and friendly, don't expect a clear-cut response often.

Insights For Deal Planning

    How fast (or slow) will Phil move?

  • They like to be detailed and take their time to arrive at decisions.
  • Can Phil take some risk or not?

  • They weigh all decisions systematically and are unlikely to take many risks.

You And Phil

Personality Compatibility


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