Above: Brandon Hornseth.
In the world of off-roading, “picking a line” is the art of looking at a chaotic field of boulders and seeing a path through. It requires a deep understanding of the machinery beneath you, a respect for the variables you can’t control and the courage to move forward when the terrain gets uncomfortable.
For Brandon Hornseth, vice president of engineering at FBS, picking a line isn’t just something he does behind the wheel of his 2019 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon on the weekends. It’s his fundamental approach to leading the engineering teams behind the suite of FBS Products, including Flexmls, one of the real estate industry’s most vital technology platforms.
“Leadership is full of surprises and setbacks,” says Hornseth, a South Dakota farm kid turned Colorado tech executive. “I don’t think you last in a leadership role without being a fairly resilient person. That grit is something you build over time by pushing yourself to do different things and learning how to find your own limits.”
For Hornseth, the transition from the farm to the C-suite required a fundamental recalibration of how he measures a day’s work. On a farm, progress is visual and undeniable. “You can see at the end of the day, ‘Oh, we harvested this much of this field.’ Progress is very visible,” he notes.
Software development initially scratched that same itch—write the code, run the test, see it pass. But as VP, the “harvest” is more abstract. Success is no longer about the grain in the bin; it’s about the health of the team and the long-term stability of the platform.
By maintaining his own Jeep, Hornseth keeps one foot in that world of tangible cause-and-effect. “I’m a builder at heart,” he says. “Doing the work myself is as much a part of the joy as getting out and using the finished product.”
Hornseth describes himself as a seeker of Type II fun—those experiences that are grueling, cold or exhausting while they’re happening, but become the most rewarding memories in hindsight. Whether it’s winter camping in the Colorado wilderness or troubleshooting a part of the code base that no current employee has touched in 15 years, Hornseth thrives in the uncomfortable.
“When you move into senior leadership, your scope of responsibility increases, but you move further away from direct control,” he explains. “Learning to set a clear vision while trusting others to drive the success is an uncomfortable shift. You have to accept that discomfort before it starts to become fun.”
This mental toughness was put to the ultimate test during a 2022 backpacking trip. After summiting a 13,000-foot peak, Hornseth finally caught a rare cell signal only to learn that his youngest daughter had been hospitalized with pneumonia 12 hours away. What followed was a 20-mile forced march through the mountains in a single day, followed by an all-night drive to the hospital.
“The thing that stood out was that I couldn’t have done it without my wife by my side,” Hornseth recalls. “It’s the same at work. At an employee-owned company like FBS, there’s a real sense that even if you don’t have the answer, you have partners you can rely on when things get tough.”
While many view software engineering as a rigid discipline of logic, Hornseth sees it as a fundamentally creative practice. He views a tech stack much like his Jeep build: a living system that’s never truly finished, but rather, a continuous deployment of upgrades driven by evolving needs.
In an era of rapid AI integration, Hornseth’s backcountry ethos keeps him grounded. He warns against over-engineering or adopting tech for the sake of a headline.
“You see websites with AI chatbots that are worse than having nothing at all,” Hornseth says. “We don’t want to develop solutions in search of a problem. It’s better to ship something small, learn from it and iterate—just like building a Jeep. You don’t need the world’s most elaborate system if you don’t need the gear. You just need to solve the problem.”
Despite overseeing massive distributed systems, Hornseth is an advocate for digital decluttering. He famously keeps all Slack and email notifications turned off on his phone to maintain his focus. This intentionality allows him to reach a state he calls “the opposite of flow.”
“I have access to amazing outdoor spaces 10 minutes out my door, and a lot of them don’t have cell service,” he says. “That time away from the screen creates space for my mind to meander on the bigger problems. Having that time to unplug is actually some of the most valued ‘work’ time. It’s where the ‘aha’ moments happen.”
Whether he’s navigating rock-crawling trails like Holy Cross City—the hardest Jeep Badge of Honor trail in Colorado—or contributing to the ownership culture at FBS, Hornseth’s goal is to remain rugged and reliable.
“One of my personal values is that everything can be figured out,” he says. “Whether it’s a mechanical breakdown or a twisted ankle in the backcountry, you keep a positive mindset and move forward a little bit at a time. That’s the recipe for success, whether you’re on the trail or in the office.”
If he could take any industry leader on a cell-service-free overlanding trip to talk shop, Hornseth would bring software legend Michael Lopp, widely known online as “Rands.”
“He has the right spirit,” says Hornseth. “He would do the hard thing, and we would have a good time doing it.”
For more information, please visit https://wearefbs.com.
