About Matthew Stublefield
I'm a product management consultant, certified grief counselor, and perpetually curious human based in Springfield, Missouri. I've spent 20+ years building products, leading teams, and fixing delivery problems at CoinDesk, across the Atlassian ecosystem, and with enterprise organizations on four continents. I'm the founder of Fieldway.
That's the professional summary. Here's the real story.
How I Got Here
I didn't follow a straight line into technology. I studied Religious Studies and Poetry in college. Liberal arts. I read Dostoevsky and wrote papers about theodicy and sat in workshops arguing about line breaks. That might sound like a detour, but it wasn't. Those years taught me how to think carefully, write clearly, and sit with ambiguity without reaching for easy answers. Those are the skills I use every single day.
My career in technology started at Missouri State University, where I spent a decade working my way from the help desk to IT project management. I managed portfolios of 30+ concurrent projects and led cross-functional teams. It was a masterclass in how large organizations actually work – and where they get stuck.
From there I moved into the Atlassian ecosystem at Adaptavist, where I became one of the world's leading experts in Atlassian tools. I designed and launched Atlassian's certification program from scratch – six professional certifications. I built Learn for Jira, an in-app training product that replaced a $6.5 million classroom training quote. I defined product strategy for the Adaptavist Library. I led an Atlassian pilot for 120,000 consultants at a Big Four professional services firm, building the case for global adoption.
Then came Stride, where I stepped in as Director of Product Management for an 80-person team with no product leadership and no direction. Five months later, we'd shipped multiple releases and rebuilt the team's sense of purpose.
At CoinDesk, I joined as a Senior Product Manager and was promoted to Director of Product within six months. I led the migration from Arc XP to Sanity and Vercel that transformed the company's entire technology platform – reducing 80+ components to 23, improving Core Web Vitals, and cutting development cycles from months to weeks.
In 2023 I founded Fieldway. Through Fieldway I've helped clients triple their productivity and reduce cycle times from 4 – 6 weeks to 5 – 7 days. Not by adding people or tools, but by fixing how teams work.
What I Believe About Product Work
I don't believe in frameworks for their own sake. I believe in figuring out what's actually broken and fixing it. A few things I consistently find to be true:
Most delivery problems are systemic, not personal. Teams that don't know why their work matters will always underperform, no matter how good your tooling is. I look for root causes in the system before blaming individuals.
Process should reduce friction, not create it.If a process doesn't make the team faster or the product better, it shouldn't exist. Best practice isn't best unless it's tailored to your culture. Sometimes that means implementing Agile practices. Sometimes it means tearing out Agile practices that have become ritual without purpose.
The right metrics change behavior.The boring work matters most – documentation, onboarding, retrospectives, backlog grooming. The things nobody wants to do are usually the things that determine whether a team ships reliably or doesn't.
Listening is a diagnostic tool.Honesty is faster than politics. I'd rather have a direct conversation about a real problem than three months of meetings that dance around it. I say the uncomfortable thing in the meeting because not saying it is worse.
Outside of Work
I was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, became a kid in Maryland, and grew up in Springfield, Missouri. My wife and I have made our home here, and we're raising three kids.
I hold a Master's in Project Managementand I'm a Certified Grief Counselor. I believe in doing good work, treating people with dignity, and leaving things better than I found them.
If you're into personality frameworks, here's my stack:
- Myers-Briggs: INTJ
- Enneagram: Type 1w2
- Clifton Strengths: Relator, Intellection, Achiever, Analytical, Responsibility
When I'm not thinking about product delivery, you'll find me playing Baldur's Gate 3, reading fantasy fiction, or spending time with my family.