Director of Software Engineering

• Joined as a founding member of a newly assembled engineering leadership team — alongside Directors of DevOps, QA, and Product — to transform a fragmented organization formed through rapid startup acquisitions into an enterprise-grade software development operation. Within 6 months, led a geographically distributed team of 100+ engineers across Mobile Development, Backend, Mapping SDK, and AI spanning the US, India, Mexico, and Eastern Europe, delivering an ecosystem of 6 products sustaining rapidannual growth — powered by cellular IoT infrastructure supporting millions of live cameras, billions of stored media files, and billions of new uploads annually.

• Architected a full engineering transformation from reactive firefighting to controlled, predictable delivery — establishing Amazon Leadership Principles as a cultural foundation, JIRA/Confluence as a single source of truth, Definition of Done enforcement, RACI frameworks, and structured escalation paths across a 100+ engineers organization spanning 4 geographies.
• Eliminated chronic misalignment between Software, Product, and Electrical Engineering teams by instituting weekly cross-functional syncs, bi-weekly product demos, and transparent roadmap visibility — replacing ad-hoc communication with structured, accountable processes.
• Implemented engineering analytics platform providing leadership with objective visibility into developer velocity, code quality, delivery throughput, and team health metrics across all 5 products — enabling data-driven performance management at scale.

• Inherited a stalled DB partitioning initiative with a failed September 2025 production attempt; diagnosed root causes, applied lessons learned, and drove full delivery of PostgreSQL table partitioning on an Aurora PostgreSQL database holding 4B+ records and growing exponentially — projected to reach 8B by end of 2026 — achieving ~20x faster device-based queries and ~10x improved user-based lookups, ensuring stability through peak hunting season.
• Sponsored and drove cross-functional delivery with DevOps to migrate media serving from S3 pre-signed URLs to a CloudFront CDN architecture — reducing API response payload by 87% (774 KB → 98 KB), cutting image URL size by 96%, improving gallery load times from 5s to ~1.5s on mobile, and achieving ~22x faster image delivery on cache hits; validated at 225,000 RPS.
• Identified and drove end-to-end redesign of the image colorization pipeline from bulk processing to on-demand, eliminating ~90% of wasted GPU compute and delivering ~$600K in annualized AWS savings — shipped via coordinated multi-service rollout with backend feature flags and mandatory mobile force-update.
• Led migration from Authorize.net to CyberSource to unblock EU market expansion and improve platform reliability — delivered with full staging validation and rollback procedures.
• Partnered with DevOps to complete DB right-sizing across all RDS instances, delivering $35,500/month ($420K annualized) in infrastructure savings with zero performance impact.

• Established clear ownership and cross-functional alignment between the AI and Engineering teams to accelerate YOLO (Ultralytics) deployment to production — replacing Detectron2 for real-time animal detection across 1.5M cameras, achieving 2.5x inference improvement and $7,340/month in compute savings.
• Delivered a production-grade AI support chatbot on AWS Bedrock (Claude Sonnet) with RAG pipeline, WebSocket streaming, and live device context injection — targeting a critical retention gap where poor customer support contributed to up to 40% of subscriber churn; system autonomously resolves 80% of support requests with seamless Zendesk escalation and full conversation context handover; compliance-mapped to CCPA, GDPR, and EU AI Act.
• Leading development of a Wildlife Intelligence Platform — ML-powered animal activity prediction system trained on 4B+ trail camera records using LightGBM on SageMaker, with automated MLOps pipeline and multi-factor inputs including weather, barometric pressure, moon phase, and GPS coordinates.

• Drove organization-wide AI tool adoption from near zero to active daily use across 97 engineers — rolling out Claude, Cursor, and Kiro across code development, code review, and test case creation, establishing AI-augmented engineering as standard practice.
• Deployed AI-powered code review agent across 3 products — identifying 443 findings and catching 80 defects before reaching QA or production, with 49-minute median feedback time and 68% PR coverage in the first month.
• Introduced Sentry for mobile observability and in-app bug reporting — within the first 3 months of deployment, identified and resolved 80 critical crash-causing defects across 3 mobile applications with 9M+ downloads, shifting defect detection from user-reported to pre-impact.
• Modernized Agile practices and CI/CD pipelines, reducing release cycles from 3 weeks to 2 weeks with on-demand hotfix capability; bugs down 23% and stories delivered up 26% quarter-over-quarter.

• Defined and executed multi-horizon technical roadmaps across 5 products in the first 6 months, partnering with C-level and product leadership to align engineering investment with business priorities and EU market expansion.
• Mentored engineers and emerging leaders across 4 geographies, embedding a culture of ownership, quality accountability, blameless retrospectives, and continuous learning.

Advisor to VCs and Startups

• Conducted due diligence for cloud-native SaaS platforms, assessing scalability, customer adoption potential, and operational maturity.
• Advised multiple AI and SaaS startups on product strategy, GTM, technical architecture, and growth planning—supporting teams from MVP through scaling and exit.
• Worked closely with venture capital firms, including Vibranium VC, to evaluate technology due diligence, investment potential, and post-investment technical acceleration.
• Supported startup fundraising by shaping pitch narratives, refining business models, and aligning technology roadmaps with investor expectations.
• Guided M&A preparation and technology transfer strategy for startups seeking acquisition, including valuation, IP packaging, and enterprise integration readiness.
• Helped founding teams structure engineering organizations, implement agile practices, and transition from prototype to scalable platforms using modern cloud-native stacks (AWS, Kubernetes, Serverless).
• Acted as a fractional Director of Engineering for early-stage companies lacking senior technical leadership, helping them meet investor and customer requirements efficiently.

Director of Software Engineering

Account Director

• Led a team of 124 software engineers and SRE for a late-stage restaurant technology startup to scale a high-traffic POS platform — migrating to AWS microservices architecture with Datadog observability, enabling delivery to 20,000+ restaurant locations, driving revenue growth from $100M (2020) to $129M (2023), and supporting a $250M acquisition in 2024.
• Led a team of 59 engineers supporting an AI-powered SaaS contact center platform — integrating real-time AI across 20+ digital channels and 120+ third-party integrations, improving customer sentiment by 29% and contributing to 9% YoY revenue growth to $2.4B in 2024.
• Led a team of 19 engineers to deliver a VMware Adapter enabling SAP LaMa integration with VMware SDDC for automated cloning, refresh, and migration — reducing provisioning time by 40% and supporting global scalability.
• Oversaw a 15-engineer team delivering web and mobile applications for a sports technology provider, powering 10M+ annual registrations and 15M+ app users across 50M users in 35 countries by 2024 — accelerating rollouts by 15% and contributing to revenue growth from $11.8M (2021) to $75M (2024).
• Stabilized a Smart City CMS project by leading a 12-engineer team to build a scalable IoT SaaS platform supporting 50,000+ sensors and 140M+ global devices — enhancing customer satisfaction and facilitating acquisitions in 2018 and 2020.
• Led a 3-engineer team for a fintech startup to upgrade a payment platform's Android OS (7→10), optimizing for 150,000+ terminals serving 30M customers and enabling 100,000+ merchant adoptions with $16B+ GMV — facilitating acquisition in 2021.

• Managed the full deal lifecycle—from opportunity identification through negotiation and closure—across the Americas and EMEA, contributing to a 35% revenue increase on the West Coast.
• Led strategic negotiations and closed complex, high-value deals—including 7- and 8-figure contracts—by shaping deal structures aligned with customer business outcomes, building executive-level trust, and driving revenue growth.
• Launched and led Orion's Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) program, focused on initiating strategic relationships with late-seed and Series A startups.
• Collaborated cross-functionally with Legal, Finance, Services, and Product teams to remove blockers and execute deals efficiently.
• Developed and led scalable customer success programs focused on cloud transformation, value realization, and partner engagement for Fortune 1000 clients in Telecom, Fintech, and Sports.
• Designed and operationalized cloud migration frameworks, enabling enterprise clients to transition from legacy systems to microservices-based AWS architectures—improving resilience, scalability, and performance.
• Acted as a trusted advisor to founders and enterprise stakeholders, aligning technology solutions with strategic business goals to drive cloud-enabled scale and innovation.
• Built and scaled global delivery teams across five countries to execute digital transformation initiatives, with a focus on CI/CD, platform stability, and system uptime.

Director of Engineering

VP of Business Development

• Led an 87-engineer team for a late-stage POS startup to develop an iPad-based POS platform — scaling a cloud-based solution post $13.5M Series C (2015) and $35M private equity funding (2017), enabling 76% YoY growth in monthly hosting revenue by late 2017
• Managed an 80+ agent Tier 2 Customer Support team, achieving a 99% customer satisfaction rating through optimized client engagement and support processes.
• Conducted technical due diligence for 5 M&A deals in the payment processing sector, ensuring products met client requirements and demonstrating fintech domain expertise.

• Drove 6% annual revenue growth by aligning service offerings with market needs, leading enterprise sales, business development, and cloud strategy, and collaborating with C-level executives, VP-level stakeholders, and strategic partners.
• Increased customer retention and expansion by enhancing technical service offerings and directing cross-functional teams to deliver enterprise-scale solutions across telecommunications and fintech.
• Negotiated and executed complex business agreements, optimizing contract terms, SLAs, and driving growth through improved customer satisfaction.

Co-Founder and COO

• Raised $250K from angel investors to develop an IoT personal assistant device leveraging Wi-Fi, BLE, and cloud technologies for wireless phone connectivity and AI-driven personalization.
• Led cross-functional delivery of software, firmware, and iOS app for device-cloud-social network integration while managing hardware preproduction with Chinese vendors — positioning for a $50K Kickstarter launch targeting 1,000 units.

After my previous experience as a General Manager and Director of Softwre Engineering in a startup, my friends and I embarked on a new entrepreneurial journey, launching a B2C product called KiQ. KiQ was a smart gadget that wirelessly interfaced with your phone to alert you of calls and messages, calendar events, etc., and through which up-and-coming comedy writers could spread their jokes - all packaged in a fun, plush form. Our goal was to blend technology and personality to create a personal assistant that was both useful and enjoyable to have around. We created the product, started a Kickstarter campaign with a target of $50K and got $45K, but even though we had more than that to keep going forward we decided to shut down project. The most important lesson learned was to put a lot more marketing and advertising budget aside than for development itself, especially if dealing with the B2C market for the first time.

General Manager and Director of Software Engineering

• Led operations and a 12-engineer team, managing investor relations and founder partnerships to secure a $3M second seed round following a $1M initial investment.
• Guided product strategy and engineering to transform an early-stage MVP into a commercial cloud-based SaaS engagement platform.
• Led deployment at high-profile events including Oracle Open World and Cisco Live Milan, supporting 7,000 attendees with 4,000 simultaneous connections.

Director of Software Engineering

• Scaled engineering organization from 15 to 300+ engineers, contributing to a client's $107M ARR and 10× valuation exit in 2009; delivered large-scale backend and mobile applications for real-time automotive navigation driving 32.7% annual revenue increase in the Wireless & Mobility unit.
• Built and led an 11-engineer IIoT team delivering scalable data center monitoring solutions across enterprise environments, achieving up to 15% energy cost savings and supporting growth post $15M funding rounds.

Senior Engineering Manager

• Directed 150+ engineers developing IP/SIP-based Unified Messaging and Contact Center solutions for an enterprise telephony provider with 35-50% market share — enabling seamless transition during a $915M acquisition in 2009.
• Successfully transitioned over 300 engineers from Nortel to Avaya during bankruptcy, ensuring operational continuity across mission-critical programs.

From SW Engineer to Engineering Manager

• Nortel, Engineering Manager (Contractor via MERA), Enterprise Multimedia Applications and Meridian Mail, 2004–2005
• Nortel, Team Leader, Software Engineering (Contractor via MERA), 2002–2004
• Motorola, Software Engineer (Contractor via Teleca), 2000–2002
• Alcor, Software Engineer, 1996–2000