About VDC
Design, technical execution, and leadership
Value Driven Careers exists for founders, business owners, and operators who need AI, software, design, and leadership to actually work together — not consultants who talk about transformation and disappear before anything ships. We design and build the work directly, and develop the people running it, individually or as a team.
Why VDC exists
Most AI advice is written for people who already have a platform team.
Justin was a founding engineer on a product within Navan that drives $100M+ ARR on its own — inside a business worth far more than that across all its products. He joined early, helped scale it through hiring, firing, new systems, and new features, and was part of the company's IPO — seeing firsthand the operational discipline, systems, and reporting it takes to get there. What he saw afterward, working with founders and operators directly, was a gap: the same caliber of technical execution, design, operational maturity, financial discipline, and leadership judgment that big companies build over years just wasn't available to growing businesses. VDC closes that gap — design and hands-on execution on one side, leadership development on the other.
Think
Figure out what actually needs to change before buying another tool.
Build
Ship the website, app, or automation that fixes the real bottleneck.
Lead
Coach the people running it so they can make calls without you in the room.
Scale
Turn what worked once into something your business can repeat without you.
The founders
An engineer and a designer, building together.
Value Driven Careers is run by a married team: Justin builds the technical and AI side, Abegail leads design and creative. Most projects need both — which is exactly why we work this way.
Justin Otero — Engineering & AI
A founding engineer on the expense product at Navan, where he helped scale engineering teams and systems processing more than $2.5 billion in annual transaction volume, contributing to $100M+ ARR and an IPO.
He has hired and interviewed hundreds of engineers and led teams through early-stage growth, product-market fit, and hypergrowth. He brings that depth to the technical execution, AI, and systems side of VDC.
Abegail Otero — Design & Creative
Abegail leads design and creative for VDC and its clients full time. Over 10+ years she has designed across UX, product, branding, and print — including healthcare systems used inside more than 50% of US hospitals (Omnicell), plus work touching Adobe, Coca-Cola, Cinemark, and Salesforce.
She designs human-centered experiences — believing design is a powerful way to serve others: to listen, to understand, and to make small improvements that ripple outward.
Where we've worked
Industries we've designed and built for.
Between the two of us, we've shipped design and technical work across regulated, high-stakes, and fast-moving industries — so we adapt quickly to yours.
Next step
Want to talk through what's actually slowing your business down?
No deck, no framework pitch — just a conversation about where AI, your systems, or your team's leadership needs the most attention right now.