Kyle Tobin

Senior Project Manager at Rate · Chicago

Hi, I'm Kyle.

I run technology programs at Rate, working across product, engineering, compliance and operations. On the side, I build apps of my own.

Married to CaylaTwo rescues: Mango, an orange cat, and Tatum, a golden retrieverCeltics and Patriots fan

01 / Work at Rate

Bringing the pieces together.

Rate is a consumer-direct mortgage lender. I joined in 2021 as an IT Project Manager and became a Senior Project Manager in September 2026.

What I'm working on now

A company-wide rebuild of Rate's digital mortgage experience

I run the program that's bringing borrowers, loan officers and a growing portfolio of AI automation onto one connected journey. I keep product, engineering and executives on a shared rhythm, with clear commitments on what ships, who owns it and what comes next.

It's inspired by the app from a major airline, which gives you what you need right when you need it: your gate before you fly, your bag carousel when you land. We're building that for a mortgage, so borrowers always know where their loan stands and what's next.

Program manager · Since early 2026

Program scope · September 2026

10
workstreams
40+
owners and stakeholders
What I've done on it so far
  • Turned existing plans and the sponsor's scope into an agreed launch scope in under two weeks. It's now a launch-versus-year-end list of more than 150 items that the teams and executives plan against.
  • Built the executive reporting: a scorecard for the CTO, a biweekly exec review with a product-owner review the day before, and the program's update at the company's weekly progress review.
  • Moved exec reporting from status grids to plain commitments for each feature: what ships, where it stands, the next date and the owner.

Product launch

Launched May 2025

Bringing home equity lending in-house

My role Program manager · 2022 to 2026

Rate built its own fintech-style home equity line of credit to bring the product in-house from a white-label partner. I ran the program from vendor selection through the May 2025 launch and its expansion into more states that August.

How it went
  • Ran the weekly program cadence, weekly updates to 35 to 40 stakeholders, and the executive updates.
  • Co-led vendor selection and onboarding across data, fraud, income, closing, funding and servicing.
  • Worked launch blockers through with engineering, compliance and legal, including 74 custom fields that were missing when the production push landed.
  • Built state disclosure test packages with Compliance and Legal that cleared Arizona, Illinois, Massachusetts and New Jersey.

Customer consent

Went live August 2025

One place to manage consent

My role Project manager · 2025

Project-managed Rate's OneTrust consent and preference center, which gave customers one place to manage their email, phone, text, direct mail and do-not-sell/share choices. About 3 million customer records were imported for launch.

How it went
  • Rate's weekly counterpart to OneTrust's project manager. I owned the timeline risk and the vendor change orders.
  • Briefed compliance and executives.
  • It was built with 8 intake points and 4 outbound integrations.
Earlier Rate projectsHide earlier projectsContact centers, an acquired lender and the mobile app, 2021 to 2023

Contact centers

Went live May and October 2021

Three rollouts, three different teams

My role Project manager · 2021 to 2022

Separate NICE inContact/CXone go-lives for a service center, an insurance agency along with a new Salesforce CRM, and the consumer-direct mortgage team.

How it went

  • Wrote the plans and status reporting for each, and ran a biweekly stakeholder review with vendor demos.
  • After the consumer-direct launch, a ring-no-answer timer change from 45 to 25 seconds cut call abandon rate by 5%.
  • The service center went live in May 2021, and the insurance agency and consumer-direct team in October 2021. I handed the consumer-direct Salesforce phase to a successor in March 2022.

Integration

2021

Connecting an acquired lender

My role Project manager · 2021

Ran the technology and vendor transition for a lender Rate acquired, including about 40 vendor relationships and its move onto Rate's contact-center platform in July 2021.

How it went

  • Also helped plan a joint venture's contact-center migration to CXone.

Mobile

2022 to 2023

From kickoff to a mobile pilot

My role Project manager

Ran the scrums and delivery for Rate's mobile app through a friends-and-family pilot, with dependency planning across 13 teams. The app later launched in the app stores.

How it went

  • Brought engineering, product, security, legal, compliance, marketing and training into the dependency plan.
  • Ran the integration work for registration, the digital mortgage, sign-in and analytics.
Career timelineSchool, work and my own projects, 2011 to now

School

  1. Drake University2011 to 2015BSBA, Marketing and Information Systems

Accenture

  1. Accenture Digital2015 to 2020Project Manager

Rate

  1. Contact-center rollouts2021 to 2022Three go-lives, May and October 2021

  2. Acquired lender2021Technology and vendor transition

  3. Mobile app2022 to 2023Kickoff through pilot

  4. Home equity line of credit2022 to 2026Launched May 2025

  5. Consent and preference center2025Went live August 2025

  6. Digital mortgage rebuild2026 to nowThe program I run now

On my own time

  1. Pickup Basketball Manager2024 to nowMy first build

  2. Condo association2020 to nowTreasurer since 2020, hands-on since 2025

  3. MenuVisionDecember 2025 to nowiPhone app

The scale ends today. Bars show whole years unless the month is known. Dots mark launches and go-lives. A faded start means the start year is approximate.

02 / On my own time

Things I build and run.

An app in final testing, a condo association I got back on track, and the app that runs pickup at my gym.

Volunteer · Our 10-unit condo association

Back on track.

Board treasurer and directorTreasurer since 2020, in Chicago

I joined our condo board in 2020 to fill a seat. When I dug into the finances, I found reserves at zero and cash covering less than two months of bills. I rebuilt the budget from actual costs, and the board adopted it. Today an AI chief of staff does the reading, research and drafts. I decide and send everything myself, in about 30 minutes a week by my estimate.

  • ReservesBefore: at zero2026 budget: 15% to reserves, plus a one-time assessment
  • Cash cushionBefore: under 2 months of billsAbout 4 months, as of August 2026
  • BudgetBefore: none adopted the year beforeAdopted in May 2026

From the adopted 2026 budget and the management company's financials through August 2026. Most of the cash increase came from the one-time assessment. Separately, spending is on track to come in under budget, and next year's plan is flat dues; the board votes in November.

Condo association: See the full storyShow lessA decision, the budget and an illustrative session

A decision in the build

Chief of staff, not president.

My first agent was meant to run the association on its own. It wasn't reliable, and the job needs judgment: what to decide, and how to say it to a neighbor. So I rebuilt it to do the reading, the research and the drafts, and leave the decisions and the sending to me.

First tryAn agent that runs the associationNot reliable
NowA chief of staff that reads, researches and draftsI decide and send

How it runs now

  1. 01AIIt reads and recommendsEmail and texts, checked against our records, rules and past decisions. Then options and a draft.
  2. 02I decideI pick an option, or change it.
  3. 03MeI sendDrafts wait in Gmail. Nothing goes out on its own.

Illustrative, combined from real sessions; details changed for privacy.

Tuesday

Reviewed 9 new emails, 2 texts

Reply or decide

  • Fobs can't be reordered. A cheaper fix may exist. Opened in full.
  • Next year's budget form is due Friday. Five minutes, avoids a late fee.

Do

  • A repair visit is booked this week. You're the on-site contact.
  • Send a new tenant the entry instructions.

FYI

  • Seasonal maintenance is scheduled; the vendor will call you first.
  • Snow quote 1 of 3 in. Two more coming.
  • An inspection item is closed. Nothing owed.

Door fobs

The reader's maker is out of business, so our vendor can't resupply fobs. Your photos show the reader also reads a common fob format, and compatible fobs are sold elsewhere.

AI recommendsAsk the vendor to confirm before anyone prices a new system. Keys cover residents in the meantime.

Draft

Hi,

Before we price a new access system, can the vendor confirm our reader can enroll compatible third-party fobs? Reader photos attached. If it can, we'd rather add fobs than replace the system.

Thanks, Kyle

Draft ready in Gmail. You send.

I decide and sendlooks good, sent. add the entry instructions to the building doc too

The AI reads the inbox, checks it against the records and drafts the replies. I decide and I send.

About 30 minutes a week by my estimate, usually two short sessions. By hand, I'd guess the same work takes 4 to 5 hours. It also keeps our finances, a compliance calendar and a decision log current.

Built on Claude Cowork, with Gmail and the association's documents.

My first build · Pickup Basketball Manager

Who's got next?

LiveChecked September 2026

pickupbasketballmanager.com

Pickup at my gym used to run on a paper sign-up sheet, and on arguments about who got there first. So I built an app for it. Players sign themselves in, winners stay on, losers go to the back, and everyone can see how long they'll wait. It replaced the paper sheet, and most of the arguments.

Pickup Basketball Manager: See how it worksShow lessScreens, rules and video
Pickup Basketball Manager with made-up names: five Champions, five Challengers, and a waiting queue showing each player's estimated wait in minutes and games.
The real app, loaded with made-up names. View full-size screenshot
  1. 1
    One tap after every game"Champions Won" or "Challengers Won." Winners stay on, losers go to the back, and the next five fill in.
  2. 2
    Two teams, always visibleChampions and Challengers on screen, so it's clear who's playing and who's next.
  3. 3
    Everyone's waitEach player in line sees an estimate in minutes and how many games until they're on.
  4. 4
    Manual modeDrag players around for an injury, a phone call or friends who want to play together.
  5. Shootouts built inWhen there aren't enough players for a full team, the app calls a three-point shootout for the open spots.
The app's Game Format and Rules screen: starting a game, scoring, and the three-point shootout.
The house rules live in the app too.

My first build, from around 2025. One gym, with real house rules to work through.

React · TypeScript · Tailwind CSS · Vercel

Watch the video walkthrough

03 / Earlier

Before Rate.

Consulting first, and before that, college.

Accenture Digital

Project Manager · 2015 to 2020

CRM, content, data and marketing technology work for large companies and the public sector, from inside PMOs and as the lead of small delivery teams.

Google
Managed an offshore team running promotional email campaigns for AdWords, with A/B testing. Every planned campaign shipped on schedule.
AmerisourceBergen
In the PMO of a large Salesforce implementation, built a new staffing model to address serious budget pressure.
BP
Ran risk, issue and change control for a rollout of new hardware and back-office systems to thousands of US gas stations.
Accenture's CIO team
As a business analyst on a three-person team, piloted a new data-loss-prevention platform with about 2,500 users, then recommended against a global rollout to 350,000 users on cost and scalability grounds. Leadership agreed.

Also: Mars, Allstate, the State of Ohio, Teva and Genentech.

Where it started

Drake University

2011 to 2015

BSBA, double major in Marketing and Information Systems

Des Moines, Iowa

04 / Off the clock

A little more Kyle.

Family, a couple of rescues, and usually a game to talk about.

Cayla and I got married in August 2025. We share our place with two rescues: Mango, an orange cat, and Tatum, a golden retriever.

I'm a Celtics and Patriots fan living in Chicago, and basketball shows up on both sides of this page: I play it, and I built an app for the pickup games at my gym.

Away from a screen you'll find me snowboarding, golfing, or on a tennis or pickleball court. AI makes the hobby list too. Recent trips: Italy, Portugal, French Polynesia and Greece.

The #1 rated AI song maestro of our generation. According to my wife and pets.

Songs I made with AI: Hear the songsHide the songsSilly AI songs for my fantasy league, my wife and our pets

How I make them: I write the lyrics (ChatGPT pitched in on a few lines) and play producer on the sound. Suno makes the music. Once a version clicks, I keep iterating on it, tweaking things across a bunch of versions until it's right.

  • Photo coming

    Kyle in Greece with Cayla

  • Photo coming

    Kyle's championship basketball team

  • Five photos coming

    Kyle's top five wedding photos

05 / Contact

Say hi.

Happy to talk programs, AI or the Celtics.

Download contact card