I've never fit neatly into one department. That became the advantage.
Detroit-based digital strategist, product owner, implementation consultant, and Managing Director.
Brendan Schmidt
Open to select opportunities
The story
Detroit, Michigan
Implementation Consultant, Outcomes
Managing Director, The North
Product Owner, HoundStack
Open to select opportunities
I started in mortgage operations, processing documents where a small mistake is a regulatory problem and a client's closing date. Then trust and safety, making policy judgments at volume and explaining them to people who did not agree. Then enterprise field technology, standing in restaurants and retail locations at five in the morning making sure a point-of-sale system would be live before the doors opened. Now pharmacy software implementation, consulting, product ownership, and running a business.
For a long time that looked like a résumé that could not decide what it wanted to be. It reads differently once you notice what those roles have in common. Every one of them sits at the seam between how something is supposed to work and how it actually works when real people use it.
That seam is where most business problems live. A company has a strategy and a set of daily habits, and the two do not match. It has a website that promises responsiveness and an intake process that takes four days. It has software that works in the demo and a location where the network does not cooperate. The interesting work is almost never on either side. It is in the gap.
that seam is basically the whole job
What I do now is close that gap deliberately. I sit with a complicated business, find the thing that actually matters, build the structure around it, and stay until it works in production. Sometimes that is a website. Sometimes it is a product specification, a billing model, a training session, or an uncomfortable conversation about what the company is really selling.
I am based in Detroit. I work with owner-operated businesses, nonprofits, software teams, and enterprise clients, and I move between a boardroom conversation and a terminal window without much ceremony about either.
How I work
Start with the operation, not the artifact
Before designing anything I want to know how the work actually gets done today, including the parts that only exist as a habit or a spreadsheet. The deliverable follows from that.
Write it down before building it
Most disagreements are discovered late because nobody wrote the edge cases down. I would rather spend a week on requirements than a month on rework.
Design for the worst conditions
The demo environment lies. Field work taught me to plan for poor signal, tired staff, and the day something unexpected shows up, because that day always comes.
Hand it over properly
If a client needs me to keep their system alive, I built the wrong thing. Documentation and training are part of the work, not an invoice line at the end.
Seven things I actually mean.
Each one is here because it changes a decision, not because it looked good on a list.
- Clarity
- If I cannot explain the plan to the person who has to execute it, the plan is not finished. Most of what looks like a technology problem is an unclear-explanation problem.
- Ownership
- I would rather be the person accountable on launch day than the person who delivered a document. Being there when it goes live changes what you specify.
- Fairness
- Two years of policy work made this concrete. Apply the same standard to every case, and explain the reasoning even when the answer is unwelcome.
- Curiosity
- The best product decisions I have made came from spending an unreasonable amount of time on an industry other people found boring.
- Practicality
- A working system that the team actually uses beats an elegant one they route around. I optimize for the version that survives contact with a busy Tuesday.
- Respect
- For the technician in the field, the office staff doing the data entry, and the community an organization serves. They know things the strategy deck does not.
- Continuous improvement
- Launch is the middle of the project. What I want to know six weeks later is what people actually did, and what to change because of it.
The short version.
- 2020 to 2022Rocket MortgageRegulated documentation and client conversations.
- 2022 to 2024AccentureTrust and safety at volume, and the knowledge system behind it.
- 2024 to 2026Global PaymentsEnterprise deployments in the field, domestic and international.
- 2026 to PresentOutcomesPharmacy software implementation.
- OngoingThe NorthManaging Director.
- OngoingHoundStackProduct Owner.
The tools, honestly rated.
A logo wall implies equal expertise in everything on it. Three honest tiers instead: where I build directly, where I have shipped real work, and where I direct the work without claiming to be the specialist.
Deep
Daily working knowledge. I build and troubleshoot in it directly.
WordPress · POS and kiosk systems · NEXTEP · Xenial
Hands-on
I have shipped real work with it and can do the implementation myself.
Webflow · HTML · CSS · Shopify · WooCommerce · Stripe · Cloudflare · Vercel · GitHub · Jobber · Google Ads · Meta advertising · Adobe Photoshop · Networking and TCP/IP
Strategic
I can scope, direct, and evaluate the work without claiming to be the specialist.
Supabase · After Effects · SQL
Two ways to start a conversation.
Whether you are hiring, collaborating, or trying to fix something operational, it helps to know which one this is.
Open to select opportunities
Working with me
Full-time roles, contract work, project collaboration, speaking, and introductions. This one comes straight to me.
Hiring The North
Digital strategy, business systems, customer journeys, websites, automation, and operational infrastructure. Delivered through The North.