Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders S12 Bonus: Johnny Halife, Southworks
Feb 9, 2026
Johnny Halife, founder and CEO of Southworks, built rapid-response engineering teams after starting his career at Microsoft. He talks about the navy-seal style FIRE teams and specialist dev squads. He explains applying startup product experimentation to legacy industries. He shares hiring values like curiosity and the future of human and AI collaboration in hybrid teams.
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From Microsoft To Southworks
- Johnny Halife recounts starting at Microsoft Engineering and working behind the scenes to shape products.
- That experience led him to ask why they helped only Microsoft and sparked the creation of Southworks.
High-Impact Short Teams
- Southworks' flagship is a short, high-impact 'FIRE team' of senior engineers overseen by an architect working in measured weekly sprints.
- They pair that with specialist and embedded 'dev squad' offerings to balance rapid fixes and long-term familiarity.
Product Empathy Changed Perspective
- Working at Mural shifted Johnny's view from pure technical craft to product and user empathy.
- That empathy enabled Southworks to better serve startups by understanding real user needs, not just tech stacks.