Summary
I am an expert at building and leading agile software development teams that ship products that delight customers. I am self motivated, highly disciplined, very technical, hands-on, and know what it takes to help any business succeed. Contact information here.
Employment
Director Cloud Services (June 2014 - present)
Leading an agile team building amazing apps and services in Python, JavaScript, and more running on a pile of AWS services.
Hookalu - Santa Cruz, CA
Founder (November 2017 - present)
I started Hookalu to give developers a highly scalable and reliable service for handling webhooks. Hookalu lets developers easily connect hundreds of webhook sources with dozens of service destinations in AWS or GCP. The service is built using serverless AWS solutions including Lambda, SQS, Cognito, and DynamoDB with front-end via JavaScript and React. Details regarding the service:
- Highly optimized first phase pipeline tested at thousands of requests per second.
- Currently handling production workloads of thousands of RPS.
- Extensible architecture for adding new webook sources with various features such as large payloads, request signing, automatic creation/destruction of webhook endpoints, and more.
- Inspection of webhook requests without ngrok.
- Extensive instrumentation of the control and data planes.
- Detailed usage data and analysis tied to Stripe billing.
Senior Vice President of Engineering and CTO (April 2005 - March 2013)
Waverley provides software development outsourcing services and expertise in a broad range of software areas including mobile (iOS, Android, mobile Web), server (Java, Ruby, PHP), desktop (Mac, Windows, Linux), and specific technology areas such as synchronization, telecom, embedded, and more.
Responsible for leadership of all engineering and project management operations including:
- Establish and run our development offices in Ukraine.
- Define and support strategic partnerships with engineering teams in Romania, Bulgaria, and Ukraine.
- Work with leading edge clients such as TripIt, GroupOn, Yahoo, and Fanhattan on existing and new projects.
- Provide technical and management leadership for project teams through code reviews, architecture, design, bug reviews, and agile processes.
- Lead design, build, and test of projects using mobile Web (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), mobile apps (iOS, Android), server (Java, Ruby, PHP), and desktop (Mac, Windows).
- Define and drive best practices and agile processes for use with all clients.
- Develop new client and project opportunities.
- Leadership of our onshore and offshore project management teams.
- Establish and provide support infrastructure for all internal operations. Responsible for tools such as wiki, SCM/Git, bug tracking, code reviews, CI/Jenkins, and Basecamp services.
- Define and execute technical strategy for the company.
- Executive and board member leadership for the company.
Vice President of Software Engineering (April 2003 - February 2005)
Silverback Systems is a start-up that is developing a new breed of processors to enable and capitalize on the emergence of IP Storage. The solution provides a state of the art architecture that carefully balances the combination of silicon and software for the next generation of networked storage and data centers.
Joined the company to head the software team. As the leader of the software engineering and quality portion of the company, my accomplishments include:
- Managed two local and one remote development team.
- Drove need to focus on smaller number of projects and gain alignment around a product driven process.
- Established additional engineering, quality, and release engineering processes.
- Shipped multiple product releases that included drivers and firmware for use with the iSNAP processor.
- Led the development teams responsible for the most technically advanced product offering in the marketplace for TCP/IP and iSCSI offload.
- Built a quality organization where none existed before.
- Established additional development and quality labs to meet growing feature and quality standards.
- Brought much more of a people focus to a primarily technical management style organization.
- Improved internal communication capabilities through the use of regular status, meetings, reviews, and a Wiki intranet.
- Represented the software and quality teams at the executive and board level.
Co-founder, Senior Vice President of Engineering and CTO (August 1998 - April 2003)
Privately held and founded in 1998, fusionOne is the pioneer developer and marketer of carrier-class, synchronization software solutions that make accessing and updating information simple and seamless across multiple communication and computing devices. The company is backed by JP Morgan Partners, Nokia Venture Partners, Oppenheimer Funds, 3Com Ventures, El Dorado Ventures, amongst others. Recent partnerships include Nokia, Sprint, Apple, and Lucent.
Started the company with the current CEO based on my vision of a distributed approach to personal information usage across a wide range of devices. The products spanned desktops, handhelds, mobile phones, enterprise servers, and carrier-class servers. As the leader of the engineering and quality portion of the company, my accomplishments include:
- Played crucial role in all four rounds of financing totaling approximately $150M.
- Defined technical strategy for the company that is still the foundation for the current business.
- Drove the development of a world-class data center based on Solaris, Oracle, EMC storage, and Cisco networking.
- The consumer service signed up over 750,000 subscribers.
- Defined the software architecture using a mixture of distributed components in Java, C++, C, Java servlets, JSP, JDBC, HTTP, HTML, and XML.
- Delivered software agents for a wide range of platforms including Windows, Palm, PPC, and various mobile phones.
- Delivered a full suite of Web applications including contacts, calendar, mail, tasks, notes, bookmarks, and files.
- Built a world-class development and quality team from scratch. At its peak, the entire group totaled approximately 150 people. The group was divided into multiple subgroups each with a director/manager. Group included multiple development groups, quality assurance, international engineering, release engineering, and technical documentation.
- Managed an international development and quality team that delivered multiple versions of internationalized and localized product for Japan. Other languages were built on a needed basis.
- Drove development of appropriate engineering processes at various stages.
- Standardized key software support for source control, defect management, IDEs, and other tools.
- Shipped over 15 production releases of the synchronization service.
- Responsible for entire engineering budget.
- Partnered with sales/BD team to develop and close all critical business deals.
- Managed offshore quality and development teams to enhance our primarily local teams.
- Created and managed our entire patent strategy and portfolio. Filed over 34 domestic and international patents. Inventor on over 20 of these patents.
- Handled multiple aspects of 4 acquisitions and due-diligence for other potential acquisitions.
- Managed 3 reduction-in-force efforts.
- Presented at many conferences and seminars.
- Drove our joining and participation in key standards organizations such as W3C, WAP Forum, OMA, SyncML, and IrDA.
Agaté Technologies - Fremont, CA
Vice President of Engineering (June 1997 - August 1998)
Agaté pioneered hot swapping of IDE peripherals and continues to spearhead the move towards a new paradigm in data availability and security. As a premier designer, developer, and marketer of mobile data storage and management, Agaté is committed to delivering breakthrough technology solutions that give users accessibility, mobility, and security of data that are cost-effective and user-friendly. Agaté has been licensing hot-swap technology to various OEMs since 1997, including HP, NEC, and Siemens.
Joined Agaté to assume responsibility for product development, quality assurance, and customer support of startup company's hardware and software solutions for hot-swapping of desktop and notebook IDE/ATAPI devices. Innovative Tioman software for notebook system OEMs bundled with major manufacturers such as NEC and Acer. HotData desktop dock solutions sold through channel and OEM relationships. My accomplishments included:
- Rewrote the Tioman code using C++ and object-oriented design.
- Started the project to design and develop a version for Windows NT.
- Created a quality/support team.
- Shipped multiple versions of the Tioman and HotData products.
- Saved OEM relationships with existing key customers due to lack of quality and delivery failures.
- Provided key technical leadership in securing new OEM relationships with multiple system OEMs.
Engineering Director (August 1996 - June 1997)
Cheyenne (now part of Computer Associates) was a leading provider of backup and anti-virus software products for the enterprise. Their award-winning ARCserve, InnocuLAN, and BitWare products provided unprecedented support for enterprise data sources and a wide range of storage devices.
Cheyenne purchased Moniker as part of a plan to deliver retail storage and anti-virus solutions to consumers. My accomplishments included:
- Lead development of business and products for entry into the CD-Recordable (CD-R), CD-ReWritable (CD-RW), and DVD markets as part of the new Cheyenne Desktop Division.
- Launched release of Moniker’s Spira product as Cheyenne Zap for CD.
- Enhanced drive support for the latest CD-R and CD-RW drives.
- Led continuing drive to establish Zap for CD with drive and system OEMs.
- Worked with other Cheyenne groups to integrate CD writing capabilities into backup products.
Moniker - Scotts Valley, CA
Founder, President and CEO (April 1994 - August 1996)
Founded in 1994, Moniker (now owned by Computer Associates) was the pioneer in developing CD recordable software solutions for Windows. The flagship product Spira was the very first complete software solution for creating 100% compatible CD-ROM discs using simple and intuitive drive-letter access.
Started Moniker to take advantage of the new CD-R drives for desktop computers. The goal was to provide software drivers to OEM partners that avoided the complexity of premastering applications that were never designed for everyday consumer use. My role covered every aspect of the business including:
- Started company to deliver consumer software for desktop CD-R products. Shipped breakthrough software-only solution called Spira for drive-letter access to CD-R drives for both Windows 95 and Windows 3.1 systems.
- Designed and developed the complete Spira product. This included CD-R drive specific device drivers, file system driver, and user interface elements all written in C++.
- Shipped many versions for both Windows 3.1 and Windows 95.
- Built user documentation and help system.
- Worked with drive OEMs to define the MMC standards used for all SCSI and ATAPI drives.
- Handled all corporate matters.
- Raised capital to start company from local angel. Invested my own personal money as well.
- Hired and managed sales and administrative staff.
- Drove all OEM and reseller account deals.
- Handled small retail manufacturing to support reseller efforts.
- Outsourced and managed marketing and public relations through outside consultants.
- Outsourced and managed sales efforts aimed at distribution and OEM sales in Japan.
- Sold company to Cheyenne Software. Returned all of the original capital to investors.
Meridian Data - Scotts Valley, CA
Engineering Team Lead (July 1992 - April 1994)
Founded in 1988, Meridian Data (now part of Quantum) is a developer and manufacturer of easy-to-use network storage solutions. With more than four million users, Meridian Data's systems are deployed worldwide throughout Fortune 1,000 class companies, small businesses, government and educational institutions.
Joined Meridian Data as a software engineer to build a new network device for creating CDs. At the time, mastering a CD-ROM was very expensive and required highly complex equipment. The NetScribe product was designed to make this process as simple as writing to a file server. My accomplishments while at Meridian Data included:
- Designed and developed the Windows client drivers that made NetScribe server appliance access appear identical to local drive letter access. Provided critical skills for file system driver development entirely in Windows.
- Worked with the server team on specification and development of appropriate protocols.
- Managed design and development of a Macintosh client through an outside contracting company.
- Pioneered the design and development of the Visual CD retail product that provided an intuitive desktop style approach to managing all types of CD based information such as CD-ROM, CD-Audio, and PhotoCD.
- Created user documentation and marketing materials for Visual CD launch.
- Shipped multiple versions of both the NetScribe and Visual CD products.
- Grew to take on engineering management responsibilities for all CD recordable and application products.
Founder, Lead Software Engineer (December 1990 - July 1992)
Founded in 1990, NetManage (Nasdaq: NETM) delivers access, publishing, integration, and support solutions and services that maximize a company's investment in existing information systems and provide the bridge to the new Internet economy. Award-winning NetManage products and service offerings include a comprehensive portfolio of application integration software, host access software, centralized management, and real-time support solutions that transform corporate information assets into powerful eBusiness solutions.
Joined NetManage as the fourth engineer while the product was only an IP stack and a Telnet client. Brought on to help complete the suite of TCP/IP applications called Chameleon for Windows. The Chameleon product competed with similar products from FTP Software and Novell. NetManage was the first hot TCP/IP company IPO before Netscape. Named numerous times as the fastest growing startup of the year. As a founding engineer, my critical contributions included:
- Drove the vision of simple and elegant Apple-like solutions built to harness all the capabilities of the TCP/IP standards.
- Responsible for the drive to deliver both client and server solutions for all products.
- Designed and developed the FTP client and server application, protocol, and APIs.
- Designed and developed the SMTP/POP client and server application, protocol, and APIs.
- Designed and developed the SLIP dial-up networking support including scripting.
- Designed and developed the routing capabilities and user interface.
- Designed and developed the RPC client and server modules and APIs.
- Designed and developed the NFS/PCNFSD file services client and server. This is the industry first implementation of NFS entirely in Windows 3.1.
- Designed and developed the LPR/PCNFSD print services client and server.
- Designed and developed the ICMP protocol capabilities.
- Designed and developed the next version of the configuration interface and support modules.
- Designed and developed the NEWT application that encapsulated status, statistics, and routing information and control.
- Shipped numerous versions of the NEWT, Chameleon, and ChameleonNFS products.
- Wrote the user and programmer documentation for all products.
- Helped in development of the NEWT socket interface that ultimately was submitted and endorsed as the WinSock standard.
- Tested all products to insure high quality of deliverables.
- Supported key accounts through customer support calls.
- Supported key customer sales opportunities such as Walmart.
- Worked tradeshow booths as part of building sales opportunities.
Lead Software Engineer (April 1986 - December 1990)
Started at Apple to work in a newly created networking group focused on non-AppleTalk communication products such as SNA, X.25, DECNET, and others. My accomplishments
included:
- Designed, developed, and shipped file conversion utilities for RTF and other file formats.
- Led development of the MacAPPC product. This product provided peer-to-peer connectivity to IBM systems using APPC/LU6.2 protocols. A MacOS device driver provided transparent network access to any application. The protocol layers ran on a MR-DOS NuBus card.
- Played an active role in the development of the MR-DOS coprocessor product that MacAPPC was based on. This product was a NuBus adapter that ran the Apple MR-DOS multi-tasking, message passing kernel. This foundation product provided a UNIX like environment for communication applications such as MacAPPC.
- Played a major role in the development of both user and programmer documentation for MacAPPC.
- Shipped two major versions of MacAPPC.
- Presented a session on MacAPPC development at an Apple developer conference.
Software Engineer (June 1984 - April 1986)
Joined Burroughs (now called Unisys) following graduation from RPI. This advanced R&D facility was working on an entirely new suite of products based on an advanced new distributed network architecture. These new hardware and software products were built on technologies such as UNIX, 32-bit processors, OSI/MAP, FDDI, IEEE 802.6, network services, telephony, integrated voice and data, and network management. My accomplishments included:
- Wrote specifications for network management solutions.
- Interfaced with various other hardware and software groups to establish standardized interfaces.
- Participated in standards organizations for networking and network management.
- Designed multiple components based on a state machine foundation.
- Coded network management components in C++.
Education
B.S. Computer Science (1980-1984)
Graduated with honors (1976-1980)
Patents
- 7,587,446 Acquisition and synchronization of digital media to a personal information space
- 7,415,486 System using change log for synchronizing data between systems
- 7,035,878 Base rolling engine for data transfer and synchronization system
- 7,007,041 Synchronization system application object interface
- 6,944,651 Single click synchronization of data
- 6,925,476 Updating application data to aggregate change log
- 6,757,696 Management server for synchronization system
- 6,738,789 Data package including synchronization data
- 6,694,336 Data transfer and synchronization system
- 6,671,757 Data transfer and synchronization system