Engineering Leadership at Veeam

Leading Software Engineering Teams at Cloud Scale across Veeam USA

After years in executive leadership, Mike Prosper wanted to move closer to the work of building software and developing engineers. Mike joined Veeam, the Data and AI Trust Company, in January 2025 in the United States. As Director, Software Engineering Mike leads the Control Plane team for Veeam Data Cloud, our software-as-a-service backup portfolio.

“We’re a critical backbone for all of Veeam Data Cloud’s products. My team builds and cares for the shared services that each backup team depends on.”

How Does a Director, Software Engineering Build for Scale at Veeam?

The Control Plane supports workloads ranging from Microsoft 365 to Microsoft Azure backup. For Mike, that breadth makes every release an opportunity to deliver reliable services at meaningful scale. “Veeam has 550,000 customers, and when you deliver something, you’re delivering it to a lot of people. Building for that scale is a rare opportunity not offered by many companies.” Mike’s team works mainly in Go, and Mike brings a consistent principle to the way the team designs services. “I enjoy finding the simplest solution to the most complex problem. Technology can be so over-engineered, but there’s a real beauty in simplicity. Software engineering is more art than science, and the art is finding the simplest solution.”

How Do Veeam Engineering Teams Collaborate Across Countries?

Early in Mike’s time at Veeam, Mike’s team partnered with a Microsoft 365 engineering team in Vietnam to move customers from a legacy system to a new one. The teams handled each migration individually while working across a wide time-zone gap. “Our communication needed to be tight and clear, and the documents we exchanged needed to be completely accurate. Being able to do that with only a couple of months of working together was a really big win for both Veeam and its customers.” The migration was one of many cross-team projects for the Control Plane, which provides shared services to Veeam Data Cloud product teams. Working at that breadth has also shaped Mike’s own development.

This is probably the largest organization I’ve ever worked for, with the largest number of interfacing teams working on different products. Learning how to give teams across the world the same context about what you’re working on has been a real learning experience.

Mike Prosper

Director, Software Engineering

How Is AI Changing Software Engineering at Veeam USA?

Mike’s role puts Mike close to the developers writing Veeam Data Cloud code, providing a direct view of how artificial intelligence is changing the team’s work.

“Being at the ground level, at this moment in time, with the dynamic change in AI and the software industry, is really valuable. I’ve gotten to see a lot of the transformation that software teams here at Veeam are making because of AI.”

Veeam’s investment in engineering tools has helped the team explore practical ways to use AI while continuing to build engineering skills.

“The budget and tooling we’ve been given has really unlocked our AI usage and our ability to keep up our skills as an engineering group.”

Mike has also seen AI-assisted development make it easier for more people to return to hands-on coding.

“With Claude Code, it’s easier to jump in. I’ve actually done more coding in recent months than I have over the last ten years. Engineers who were once skeptical are now experimenting, and people are really taking advantage of it.”

How Does a Director, Software Engineering Develop Engineers at Veeam?

Mike spends much of the week checking in with engineers, asking what the team needs and removing obstacles outside the team’s control. Mike gives engineers responsibility for shaping solutions rather than prescribing every technical decision.

“We’re identifying problems and letting our staff develop the solutions, giving them the freedom and, more importantly, the responsibility to do that. It helps them grow, and it helps us come up with better solutions.”

That approach was tested when the Control Plane needed one frontend that six global teams could share. Mike’s engineers researched the options and introduced a micro-frontend framework to the wider group.

“Our senior engineers coached other teams to help them implement it, and then continued to evolve it so that it would be highly performing and a seamless experience for users.”

Mike starts learning and development conversations by asking each engineer which skills the engineer wants to build next:

“Most engineers want to learn through experience. They want to solve hard problems and be part of a team with people better than them so they can learn from them. But they also want to teach, because one of the best ways to learn is to explain something to someone else.”

The team creates room for different kinds of development, from tackling complex technical work to building coaching, communication and presentation skills.

“Whatever you want to get better at, we can find a way to build that here.”

How Do Engineers at Veeam USA Switch Off From Work?

VeeaMe Days give employees dedicated paid time away from work. Mike values the shared pause the days create across the company.

“On a US holiday, the world still goes on, and I still get pinged sometimes. But on a VeeaMe Day, everything is silent. I just like to enjoy the silence and unplug.”

Mike usually uses the time to sleep in and meet his partner for lunch. Away from work, Mike also enjoys mountain biking.

Why Join Veeam’s tech team?

Mike values a leadership culture that asks engineering teams how products and processes can improve, then trusts the teams to find the right answer.

“Being asked by leadership about how to solve a problem is a good thing. Veeam’s leadership is constantly asking us, how can we do things better?”

Mike gives engineers the same latitude he receives, and connects that trust to a sense of belonging at Veeam.

“A company that trusts my judgment and gives me the freedom to find the solution I think is best. That, to me, is better than anything at making me feel like I belong.”

Mike looks for engineers who are ready to use that freedom with initiative and accountability.

“The people who thrive at Veeam have high agency. They take ownership of real challenges and they’re proactive about creating solutions.”

Ready to build cloud services at scale and grow through real ownership? Explore engineering opportunities at Veeam USA now.