Say hello to Zac Rosenbauer, our new Head of Engineering.

Zac has been a builder his whole life. He grew up in a rural community fixing things with his hands, taught himself to code from a book his grandfather gave him, and played Division I football before starting his software career. He most recently co-founded a devtools startup, led platform teams at enterprise companies, and wanted to challenge himself with building software where it’s been most neglected. Now he’s leading the charge at Holly.

We sat down with Zac to talk about what drew him to Holly, what drives him, and what most people don't know about him.

What will you be doing at Holly?
I'll be Head of Engineering, leading a great team of engineers building out the software that backs Holly's platform, the AI-native class and comp tools government HR teams use to modernize hiring in the public sector.

What drew you to Holly?
After building a devtools startup, I wanted to work on something that isn't flashy. Govtech is a space most people don't think much about, and that's exactly the draw: I want to build the best software in the world for the folks who keep the public sector running.

What drew you to working in govtech / the public sector?
I believe in public institutions, and it's where software has been most neglected. That gap is the opportunity. The communities closest to people's daily lives deserve tools as good as anything in private tech.

What's something about your background that most people wouldn't guess?
With my love of gaming, sci-fi, tech… people take the geek thing as a given. What they don't expect is that I played Division I football at Toledo, under Matt Campbell (who's now the head coach at Penn State). I joke that I went from head butting linebackers to headbutting segfaults.

What's the best advice you've ever received?
The best advice I ever got came from Coach Campbell at Toledo: "Fall in love with the process, and eventually it'll love you back." The point is to focus on the work itself rather than the outcome. If you put your energy into the day-to-day and trust it to compound, the results tend to take care of themselves. It stuck with me well beyond football, and it's basically how I think about building software now.

What drew you to software engineering?
It sort of runs in the family. My grandfather worked on computers back when they filled an entire room for Xerox in Rochester. But really I'm just a builder & creative at heart. I grew up in a rural community and still love working with my hands, restoring old Farmall tractors. With software you're still building, you just do it by writing code in a non-physical medium.