CH

Lincoln, Nebraska

Charlie
Hawk

Engineering leader who still ships.

Global Director of Data, BI, Analytics and App Dev at Wahl Clipper. Co-founder of Ocilot. Builder of The Tag Up. Fifteen years from IC to global director, and it all started with a Geocities page, marquee tags and all.

Portrait of Charlie Hawk

Now

What I’m building

The Tag Up

Live

Live college baseball scores, schedules, and standings. SEO-first Next.js, structured data throughout, and a real presence in Google results. A real product with real fans checking real scores. Read the story behind it

  • Next.js
  • SEO
  • Structured data

Ocilot

est. 2020

Co-founder of a Lincoln software development & consulting firm: design, full-stack development, and hosting for clients like GenerationV, Top Crop, and Dream Glove.

  • Design
  • Full-stack
  • Hosting

Baseball ratings research

Active

A college baseball rating system built to beat RPI, backtested across ten seasons of results (2016 to 2026) and still evolving. The nerdiest corner of the operation, and the bridge between the day job and the box scores.

  • Ratings
  • Backtesting
  • College baseball

The record

Experience

  1. 2023 – nowSterling, IL

    Global Director of Data, BI, Analytics and App Dev

    Wahl Clipper Corporation

    Global leadership across data, business intelligence & analytics, and application development for a 100-year-old consumer brand.

  2. 2020 – nowLincoln, NE

    Co-founder

    Ocilot

    Software development & consulting firm. See what we build.

  3. 2022 – 2023Lincoln, NE

    Director of Information Technology

    Nebraska Book Company

    Returned to lead IT across the organization.

  4. 2022Irvine, CA

    Director of Software Engineering

    Qmerit

  5. 2021 – 2022Irvine, CA

    Senior Software Engineering Manager

    Raiven

  6. 2018 – 2021Lincoln, NE

    Software Development Manager

    Nebraska Book Company

    Built an IT organization from the ground up with executive leadership: a multi-faceted team across mainframe, web, and API systems. Trained teams in Agile leadership and development, shortened idea-to-value, and broke down silos in favor of product-oriented teams.

  7. 2017 – 2018Lincoln, NE

    Senior Software Engineer

    Nebraska Book Company

    Warehouse, logistics, eCommerce, and operations: two web stores, a wholesale purchasing platform, and a warehouse system.

  8. 2012 – 2017Lincoln, NE

    Software Engineer

    Nelnet Diversified Solutions

    Designed, developed, and supported 12+ applications and services, most notably Workspace, an AngularJS app over iSeries and SQL services used daily by 500+ associates across two clients.

  9. 2010 – 2012Lincoln, NE

    Software Developer

    Kawasaki Motors Manufacturing

    Built a complete .NET warehouse system, from a part entering the building to a finished rail car leaving the test track, plus a vendor portal used by local and international suppliers.

The toolkit

How I work

Leading

Building engineering organizations from scratch, coaching teams into Agile habits that stick, and shortening the distance between an idea and value in production. Silos come down; product-oriented teams go up.

  • Engineering leadership
  • Team building
  • Agile transformation
  • Idea-to-value delivery

Data

The through-line of the career. It started with an enterprise reporting platform serving 1,000+ users at Nelnet; today data is the first word in the job title, leading global data, BI & analytics at Wahl. Off the clock, it looks like a rating model backtested across ten seasons of college baseball.

  • SQL
  • Snowflake
  • BI & analytics strategy
  • Data modeling
  • Backtesting

Building

Still hands-on, from .NET warehouse systems to a Next.js app with a real Google footprint. Currently deep in SEO, structured data, and applied AI.

  • C# / .NET
  • JavaScript
  • Next.js / React
  • HTML & modern CSS
  • Web APIs
  • Docker
  • SEO & structured data
  • Applied AI

The program

Education