Profile

I am looking for positions in systems design and management with a technical project leadership role that will provide me with opportunities to technically challenge myself, allow me to be an active contributer to business growth, and to create excellent products or services for clients.  I have 12 years of professional experience in Information Technology with specialties in Internet services, developing software tools, e-commerce, Internet-media, technical and business processes automation.

Languages: English as native language, German level B2.2
Citizenship: USA (Erwerbstätigkeit gestattet in Deutschland)

Management Skills

I am experienced in technical leadership of geographically diverse teams, vendor relations, hiring, mentoring, and negotiations. I have extensive experience in working through schedules that can meet the real needs of the clients and can be met within the resource limitations given. I also have excellent presentations skills for persuading and communicating to diverse audiences.

Education

University of Chicago 1993-1995

Training

Goethe-Institut (Berlin) German B2.2, 2004
Completed BGS Capacity Planning Training course, 1996
Completed SUN course SysAdmin 285, 1996

Experience

Flock Inc.

Redwood City, CA, USA : May 2005 -  Nov 2008
Senior Engineer

Flock Inc is a software company providing an Internet web-browser optimized for social network users, I was a member of software engineering staff.

• coordinated release-management: with marketing, QA, engineering, delivering up to 114 download-builds on 3 platforms, which required website and web-service coordination, including localization of website content.

• engineered a developer environment to rapidly get developers working (under 1hr) while integrating 6 source repositories including code controlled by outside sources (mozilla, clucene), that worked in a cross-platform (Linux, MacOS, Windows-Cygwin, Windows-Msys) way.  Including support seamless transitions between 3 source control systems (CVS, Subversion, Mercurial).

• engineered a build system to manage 240 unique builds.  The build-manger was written in house in perl, integrated with tinderbox display system, and integrated with testing systems.  Provided event driven integration testing and build distribution.

• maintained cross platform c/c++ components and merges from the Mozilla code-base.

• developed web-tools for tracking build infrastructure, automating release processes, monitoring business processes, monitoring operational functionality.  (php, python, perl, shell-script, javascript)

• developed systems for metrics, distribution, and partner tracking, including core product modifications to support partners and detailed user-behavior reporting categories by business objectives. (c, javascript, make, perl, sql, php)

• managed operations architecture including nodes at 3 data-centers, 2 office locations including networking, remote-access, security-model, capacity-planning. (Linux, Windows, php, MySQL, SQL-Server, LDAP, OpenVPN, IPSec, Apache, SQUID,  Cisco CS load balancers)

AOL/TW Streaming Operations

San Francisco, CA, USA : Oct 2001 -  Sep 2003
Senior Systems Administrator, Tools Team Lead

AOL is the world's largest ISP and the largest provider of Internet radio and video products; I was a member of the production operations staff.

• managed systems and projects for 2,000 node production cluster (Linux, Solaris, Win2K)

• architected secure, 24/7/365 media applications for operations and development teams (J2EE, PHP, Real Server, Shoutcast, Ultravox)

• managed and maintained schedules for hardware and software integration (Sun, Compaq, Foundry, Cisco, Extreme, Solaris, Linux)

• managed a 6-person development team in 4 locations, in 3 time-zones (Perl, Java, C, Shell Script, TCL, Oracle)

• led team to develop a real time business/operational data monitoring, data visualization, alerting, and alarming system.

  • collected product requirements

  • evaluated competitive systems

  • built work plan

  • developed and managed development

  • automated testing systems

  • planned roll-outs

  • fixed bugs and rolled out updates

• technical liaison to business development

  • provided analysis of digital media rights to technical and marketing teams

  • analyzed new partner technology and estimated delivery capacity

  • performed competitive analysis of market share in different media spaces

• architected and implemented low cost, high reliability, scalable Linux web cluster (Apache, PHP)

• developed and implemented automated server installation and upgrade systems (Linux, Solaris)

• developed a network services security and inventory system

• provided technical training for business development, product management, and development teams

• performed security analysis of new projects: network architecture, code review, cryptography review, privacy concerns, database model

• wrote software with Perl (mod_perl, cgi), C, PHP, shell script (bourne, bash, awk, sed), rrd, cryptography (blowfish, md5)

• managed systems from Sun, Compaq, Foundry ServerIron, Extreme Networks, EMC, Hitachi; Linux,  Solaris, Oracle, DB2, Apache, J2EE, ATG Dynamo (JSP), Tomcat, PHP, Veritas (cluster, file-system), DNS (Bind), NFS, Shoutcast, Real Media Server, Windows Media Server, Ultravox

Eazel Inc.

Mountain View, CA, USA : May 2000 – Jun 2001
Release Manager/Build Tools Team Lead

Eazel was a software development firm producing Linux desktop software and services; I was a member of the engineering staff.

• managed product releases

  • time estimates

  • features vs. deadline decisions

  • integration of code components between development teams (open source client and proprietary services team)

  • integration of schedules between internal development teams and GNOME community to meet business needs

• designed processes for

  • development milestones

  • QA testing

  • release acceptance

  • operations procedures

  • content vs. code updates

• managed 3-person team to develop build-tools including:

  • automated builds

  • automated software testing

  • automated developer environment synchronization

    • tracking correct branches

    • coordination tool and library version

  • bug tracking systems (based on bugzilla)

  • build health system (based on tinderbox)

• architected production services platform (Weblogic, Solaris, Oracle) for reliability and scalability

• analyzed applications for security concerns (data flow, authorization, use of cryptography)

• wrote software with Perl (mod_perl, cgi), Java, SQL, J2EE, Apache, Weblogic, Oracle, automake/autoconf, ant, rpm, SOAP, python, Glib, GNOME, GTK, webdav, CVS

Linuxcare Inc.

San Francisco, CA, USA : Dec 1999 -  Apr 2000
Sr. Systems Administrator

Linuxcare was a Linux services (support/consulting/education) company; I was a member of the IT staff.

• automated software installations for a global data center (Hong Kong, San Jose, NYC, London)

• grew and architected network for basic IT services for a company that grew from 75-250

  • email (qmail, qpopper, cyrus IMAP, webmail)

  • information services (DNS, DHCP, LDAP, NIS)

• mentored and managed team of 4 systems administrators

• managed projects for offices in Canberra (AU), California (US), Toronto (CA), Paduva (IT).

• designed and implemented security procedures for network accounts, firewalls, and remote access.

• managed production web site, site releases, and CRM applications

• wrote software with Perl, shell scripting (bourne, bash, csh, awk, sed)

• managed systems from Compaq, HP, Sun, Apple, Cisco; Linux (x86, PPC, Sparc, Debian, Red Hat, SUSE, Turbolinux, Mandrake), Oracle, mySQL, Ingres, Apache, PHP, Perl (mod_perl, cgi), qmail, sendmail, postfix, cyrus, LDAP, NFS, Samba, IPSEC (Free S/WAN, Cisco), qpopper, IMAP, POP, DNS (Bind), Firewalls (Cisco PIX, Checkpoint, Iptables, FW/TK), SQUID

Uniteq Application Systems

Redwood City, CA, USA : Jun 1998 – Dec 1999
Sr. Systems Administrator/Release Engineer

Uniteq was a business automation software company, I was a member of the engineering staff.

• managed corporate IT systems including: email, file-servers, source control, Internet access, development workstations, database servers.

• worked at customer sites installing and integrating Uniteq software

• tuned performance and planned capacity for both in-house and customer systems

• ported in-house C software to Windows NT 4.0 and various UNIX variants

• architected deployment architecture for the Uniteq application

  • wrote automated installers and configuration tools

• trained staff and clients on our products and UNIX administration

• wrote software with Perl, C (gcc, MS Visual C++ - ported application to UNIX variants and  Windows NT), SQL, shell script (bourne, csh, awk, sed)

• managed systems from Sun, HP, IBM, Tandem, Cisco, Symbol; Solaris, HP/UX, AIX, OS 400, Windows NT, NFS, DNS, NIS, Firewalls (FW/TK), SQUID, CVS, Clearcase, Rational tools, Oracle, Sybase, DB2, Informix

First Options of Chicago

Chicago, IL, USA : Sep 1996 – Jun 1998
Systems Administrator

First Options is a financial services company, currently owned by Goldman Sachs; I was a member of the production operations staff.

• managed a cluster of 100 systems for providing various real-time equities trading services for professional trading firms:

  • stock & options order execution on multiple exchanges

  • wireless order entry systems

  • basket executions systems

  • risk management system

• integrated systems to communicate with multiple clearing systems, NASDAQ, NYSE, and others

• managed and verified backups of trade and system data

• lead server consolidation project

  • capacity planning to ensure performance and application responsiveness

  • cost analysis of consolidation for capital and service budgets

  • analysis of reliability and systems management risks

• maintained contracts with vendors

• automated systems management tasks (creating the first company Intranet).

• wrote software with Perl, shell script (bourne, csh, awk, sed)

• managed systems from Sun, Centronics, Livingston, Cisco, EMC, OpenConnect; SunOS, Solaris, TCP/IP, Token Ring, X25, SNA, IPX, IBM S/390, OS 400, Legato, NIS, NFS, DNS, SMTP Sendmail, SOCKS Proxy, Apache, Lotus Notes, BGS Best 1, Sybase, MVS, CVS

University of Chicago Academic Computing Services

Chicago, IL, USA : Jun 1995 – Sep 1996
Resource Lab Coordinator/Sr. Support Technician

The University of Chicago is a private research University.  Its resource lab provided computing facilities for academic staff's special projects; I was a member of the non-academic staff.

• managed networks services including: backups, printers, file-servers for the campus community

• set up and configured applications and networks for special research projects

• supported Windows, Macintosh, and UNIX systems for members of the University academic community

• managed the Macintosh servers and lab machines for the University's public computer labs

• provided Internet connectivity support to member of the University.

• managed systems from Apple, IBM, DELL, Sun, SGI; MacOS, Windows, SunOS, Solaris, Linux, IRIX, Retrospect Remote, SAS, SPSS, Photoshop, Quark Express, Pagemaker, FTP, AppleShare, NFS, TCP/IP (for all systems), modem connectivity (SLIP, PPP)

• provided support on Internet connectivity, provided training in basic use of the Internet (email, web browsing, gopher, WAIS)

Other Experience

Linux Trainer 2001: developed course materials and led classes for Linux Certified Inc.
Support Technician 1995: provided desktop support for MacOS, Windows NT, UNIX at The University of Chicago
Teaching Assistant 1994: taught first year college calculus at The University of Chicago
Laboratory Technician 1991-1994: molecular biology research, protein preparations, x-ray crystallography at The University of Oregon