Leading development activities in DataCore's new Perifery division, where we are taking our Swarm object storage out of the core and out to the edge, with a flexible Kubernetes-based deployment that can scale up to multi-petabytes or down as small as a NUC and that incorporates computing tasks including AI/ML that add value to the storage especially for media & entertainment and healthcare - culminating in our new AI+ product offering.

After the DataCore acquisition of Caringo, led the rearchitecture of the Swarm storage product from bare-metal Linux into Kubernetes, enabling scaling down to a single-server 'transporter' form factor for edge deployment and scaling up to clusters comprising hundreds of servers and hundreds of petabytes. Added the ability to run containerized compute processes inside the storage cluster to take advantage of 'data gravity' and to take the product beyond just storage to support anything from HPC to media workflows. Led development of a configurator and deployment engine greatly simplifying and speeding customer deployment. Improved maintainability by incorporating full Prometheus/Grafana instrumentation and dashboards across the product suite. Oversaw migration to a full CI/CD system with around ten thousand automated tests. Retained the entire core Caringo Swarm team but doubled team size by adding developers, UI/UX, architects, pubs and QA in Bangalore and successfully integrated teams, processes and culture despite timezones.

Expanded the engineering team, updated and modernized development process and tools, and focused effort on customer impacting features, including rearchitecting to a multiprocess architecture to take better advantage of modern, dense multicore servers and to lay groundwork for containerization. Led the QA team to develop better instrumentation and automation and developed tools for process monitoring. Built from nothing a tech support team, along with process and systems to provide comprehensive level 3 support (direct and via resellers) to Caringo customers in Europe, Asia and Americas. Designed “phone home” system to provide remote diagnostic data collection and designed, built and evolved the associated monitoring/analytics infrastructure leading to greatly accelerated support problem resolution.

Vitasio provides development and system integration services to healthcare providers and health plans. I led development of a series of prototypes integrating analytics of personal health records with wellness programs for a health insurance provider.

Tech Ranch Austin is a community of vibrant tech start-ups surrounded by the people, processes and materials needed to drive business success. I served as a consultant/sounding board/advisor to several software technology based startups at Tech Ranch.

Designed and established the EDS Innovation Center lab environment in Redmond and Silicon Valley and served as CTO for dozens of innovative collaborative engineering projects with EDS partners. Brought leading edge technology awareness into EDS by organizing and conducting advanced technology forums hosted at Sun and Oracle for hundreds of EDS senior architects. Created a unified technology roadmap within EDS by redesigning and reimplementing EDS’s Global Technology Policy system which encompasses all hardware and software products used by EDS.

Reduced costs and increased capabilities by developing globally standardized hardware and software architectures for the desktop computing infrastructure in EDS’s contact centers worldwide. Architected (in cooperation with Microsoft) and led the construction of a new web based self service infrastructure to enable EDS to greatly reduce integration and operation costs in Human Resources customer service.

Established new desktop-related technology directions and developed and maintained EDS technology strategy for desktop computing including long term strategic focus recommendations. Evaluated and introduced desktop computing technology from various vendors into EDS service lines; developed and launched several new service offerings.

Took a Java compiler product which was failing in the marketplace due to evaluations ending in product failure and not only improved product quality to eliminate failed evaluations, but also achieved Java compatibility - to be certified as Java compatible a product must pass all of 35,340 tests. In the process, doubled the development team, including creation of a testing team to focus on both functionality and performance testing, established a formal tech support team and process, and rebuilt the consulting practice.

Served as VP of Engineering (1/2 time role) As a 1/2 time contractor, hired core team including a first class lead architect; led initial technology development and product architecture and managed development of the company's first product prototype.

Technology consultant for several positioning projects.

Refocused MCC’s software research on issues of clear urgency for participating companies, including dealing with the increasing proliferation of hardware platforms, networks of computing appliances, service based computing, and distributed, dynamic system architectures – resulted in doubling the number of member companies sponsoring the core software research. Initiated and led a successful longer term strategic research program in software engineering, resulting in several patent applications.

Developed a new product concept for self-managed teams of creative workers aimed at the space between project management and knowledge management; obtained funding and secured admission to the Austin Technology Incubator. Developed the initial product implementation using an innovative engineering team split between Austin and the SF Bay Area.

Conceived and delivered the first complete Web application development and delivery environment – essentially the first app server; managed the entire product development and delivery process; established a track record of delivering beta and final releases on time despite extremely aggressive schedules and shortage of resources. Developed and implemented a then-novel Internet-based beta-test program for more than 60 strategic customers around the world.

In two years, grew professional services from less than $2M/year to over $12M/year, from 6 to over 40 people – until it represented over half of the company’s revenue. Transformed the organization from strictly training to a full-service technology transfer offering including mentoring, consulting, custom development, and project management assistance.