About

The coach, not the star.

I'm a people-first coach with broad technical literacy. I don't need to be the best designer or the best coder on the team. My job is translation between design, engineering, and product, so nothing gets lost between them.

Portrait of Rodel Oiga
Rodel Oiga · Brooklyn, NY

Where I've been

2024 to now (LLC formed 2026)

Lēdor Labs, Principal · Brooklyn, NY

  • Fractional technology program leadership for organizations that need senior program thinking without a full-time hire
  • AI adoption diagnostics, decision frameworks, and workflow tooling
  • Substantive project work includes designing a project-management application and directing its build
2018 to 2024

School of Visual Arts (MFA Interaction Design), Senior Systems Administrator / Creative Technologist · New York, NY

  • Ran infrastructure and AV for creative programs
  • Managed a $100K annual technology and hardware budget in the MFA program, including acquisition of a Bambu Lab X1 Carbon 3D printer
  • Supported faculty and students working with AR/XR, robotics, and experimental media
  • Mentored students through creative problem-solving
2013 to 2018

School of Visual Arts (BFA Photography and Video), Senior Systems Administrator · New York, NY

  • Delivered operational and technical leadership for academic technology spaces supporting 500+ active users
  • Authored capital project proposals, including a 3D rapid prototyping lab, audio recording room, and production studio
  • Managed the vendors behind the build-outs across both programs: Spectra Audio Design Group as the commercial integration partner, and Backhaul for infrastructure cabling
2006 to 2013

Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT Library), PrintFX/FabLab Coordinator · New York, NY

  • Ran day-to-day operations of the FIT Library's full-service digital print bureau
  • Ran the bureau like a restaurant kitchen, back of house production and orders flowing as tickets, years before I had words for the model. Instructor-required lab use and at-cost pricing drove the volume; digitized ordering expanded the throughput behind it. Revenue grew from $30K to $160K a year
  • Pooled departmental funding to build the FabLab with shared equipment: Universal Laser Systems laser cutters and Stratasys and Formlabs 3D printers
  • The bureau's extra funds went back to the school, and the IT department bought equipment it needed

How I operate

I call it Tactical Humanism: rigorous, systems-level execution paired with radical empathy. Empathy isn't a soft sentiment in this model. It's an operational requirement. I engineer environments, workflows, and tools so that doing the right thing for people is the path of least resistance. It rejects both the technocracy that treats people as throughput metrics and the culture talk that never builds the scaffolding to protect them.

01Prototype as persuasion

When the conversation stalls, I get the thing built. A sketched form layout beat a written argument for digitized ordering. A working Jamf server beat a proposal for device management. Reacting to reality beats reacting to documents.

02Improve the wheel

My strength is making the wheel better, not inventing a new one. I look for the leverage point in the system that already exists: the ordering process, the funding model, the handoff between teams.

03People first, then systems

Technology fails at the handoffs between people. I design for the humans in the loop: the student filling out the form and the worker reading it, the faculty member and the IT team. Fellowship and psychological safety aren't soft extras. They're how good work gets done.

Credentials

PMP and CSM certified, plus AI for Scrum Masters through Scrum Alliance. B.S.B.A. in Business Administration and Management Information Systems, University of Central Florida.