Summary
Chief Architect, CTO. Strong communications capabilities, with a penchant for interacting with the business side. Published author and speaker at various conferences.
Technologies
Operating Systems: Windows, Linux
Languages: C#, Java, Scala, C++, Python, Javascript/Typescript, Golang
Technologies: Microsoft .NET, Node js, WinForms, WPF, WCF, ASP.NET, React
Cloud: Azure, AWS
Middleware and Integration: Docker, Kubernetes, Microservices, REST, SOAP, messaging systems (Kafka, IBM MQ, ActiveMQ, Tibco EMS, Tibco RV, RabbitMQ), Apache Camel, Akka
Databases: SQL Server, Oracle, Redis, Memcache, Cassandra, MongoDB, Azure DocumentDB, AWS Aurora, AWS DynamoDB
SDLC: Git, Perforce, Clearcase, Junit, Nunit, Maven, Jenkins, Cruise Control, Team Foundation Server.
Project Management: Agile/XP/Scrum (Certified ScrumMaster)
Experience
CTO as a Service
CEO
October 2018 to Present
Meal-kit Delivery Company
This company is the premier player in the space of meal-kits. I was asked to do an evaluation of the current state of their entire platform for the new CEO, along with recommendations for future state.
Large Japanese Bank
I was asked to consult with them on their roadmap to implementing a microservice-based architecture.
Education Technology Company
Serving as the Interim CTO for an EdTech company whose single product is a webapp based on NodeJS/React/AWS. The company’s application needed to be brought to the next stage, in response to demand from large investors. Created the architecture for the new product, and starting the refactoring effort in Typescript. There was no documentation at all of product plans, development plans, etc, so I brought Confluence into the company. Moved the code from Github to Azure DevOps, and instituted a Scrum-based SDLC process.
Private Equity Firm
For a private equity firm, evaluated the software and architecture stack of a Litigation Finance Technology company who the private equity firm made an investment in. Came up with roadmap and recommendations to take the product to the next phase.
After securing funding from the board, I am leading the effort to re-platform and rewrite the entire platform to Amazon Web Services (AWS). as part of this effort, I am building a new in-house IT team that will replace the off-shore external consulting company that the client has used for the past several years.
Health Care Startup
This startup is focused on the analytics surrounding the detection of rare diseases. I was asked to come in to be the company’s interface to the external consulting company who was writing the system. I have also hired a number of developers to build up this company’s internal IT team.
Social Media Platform
Served as interim CTO for a mobile-centric application that is targetted to
Management Consulting Company
I was asked to do an architecture review of a new product that they were writing for tracking and managing applicants.
ADP, Inc
Chief Architect
July 2017 to October 2018
ADP is the largest producer of payroll and HR software in the world. I am Chief Architect of the Small Business Systems division (SBS), which handles the payroll, retirement, and insurance needs for over 600,000 small businesses across the USA.
My major initiatives include
- Modernizing the line of applications, including the RUN payroll system, as well as the legacy systems within Insurance Services and Retirement Services
- Breaking the traditional silo between SBS and other parts of ADP
- Helping SBS migrate towards AWS for new applications
- Introducing microservices into a ecosystem of monolithic applications
- Help the organization move to a new stack that include NodeJS and React
- Developing a system to streamline the process of customer signups
- Creates frameworks to perform messaging using native AWS PaaS services, like SQS, SNS, and Kinesis
- Investigating uses of Machine Learning to reduce customer churn
Sabbatical
February 2017 to July 2017
Taking time to learn various technologies. I am currently writing an Uber clone using Scala, Akka and Play, with a plan to deploy to Microsoft Azure.
Quantifi, Inc
Head of Engineering and Chief Architect
August 2015 to January 2017
Quantifi is one of the premier vendors of risk and pricing software, having been in existence since 2003. I was brought on in order to take the product line to the next level, in order to prepare the company for possible acquisition,
Hands-on Head of the Engineering and Architecture groups. Reporting directly to the CTO. Responsible for the strategy of enhancing the product line to satisfy an increasing base of customers.
Initiatives include:
Developed a microservices framework, which included including a monitoring GUI, other supporting tools, documentation, training, etc.
Refactorization of a 2-tier product into a series of microservices
Developed a remote messaging grid which enabled large risk runs to scale across a grid of servers.
Improved the performance of the Risk Datamart by several factors
Ported the product to be able to run on Docker
Began the strategy and implementation of moving the product to Microsoft Azure.
Publication: “Microservices are the New Building Blocks of Financial Technology”, Wilmott Journal, November 2016 issue.
My presentation on Microservices can be found here:
MetLife
Chief Architect
June 2013 to August 2015
Head of the Architecture organization. Support an Investments organization of 1000 people with $500B AUM. I report directly to the CIO.
Current initiatives include:
- Built up the Architecture Team with senior technologists who had deep development experience. Moved the organization away from a “yellow pad” approach, and changed the perception of Architecture throughout the organization.
- Main designer of OXforRD, a REST and messaging-based system which allowed access to various services and data related to Derivatives trading. Implemented MongoDB to MetLife Investments to hold FPML-based indicative data and the results of scenario analysis.
- Proof of concepts implement on Microsoft Azure for the PFE (Potential Future Exposures) product. Featured automatic scale-out of calculation processes.
- Moved the organization to a more service-oriented architecture, and to use messaging instead of file shares.
- Assisted the entire organization during the simultaneous moves of our main trading system (Charles River to Aladdin) and accounting system (CAMRA to PAM).
- Led various efforts to improve the performance of various batch-based systems. For example, I led the effort to improve the processing of our accounting system (PAM), so it could process 500K tax lots in the overnight batch cycle (previously, the system topped out at 150K tax lots).
- Changed the Application Lifecycle Management stack for the IT organization. Moved the entire organization off of StarTeam and BuildForge and onto the more modern stack of Team Foundation Server. Implemented new development practices that included the use of Continuous Integration and Code Analysis and rapid deployment.
- Created the first Architecture Assessment framework for the organization.
- Drastically improved communications between Architecture and the rest of the organization. Prior to my arrival, the business had no idea what the Architecture organization did, and we were perceived to be a “rubber-stamping” organization.
Sungard Consulting
Managing Principal
October 2011 to June 2013
I was hired by Sungard Consulting to help build out their Capital Markets Practice and to provide high-level architectural guidance to their clients.
Client engagements include:
- British Petroleum, Chicago. Head of IT for the energy trading operation of BP. Lead team of 20+ IT professionals, support over 600 traders, analysts and operations personnel. Did assessment of current state and proposed a future state of their entire front-office IT. Interacted with business leaders at the CxO level, and had input into their 2013-14 budgeting process. I personally wrote a forecasting database and a pipeline pricing optimization GUI.
- HSBC, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Rearchitected the front-to-back trading flow for OTC Derivatives for one of the major international Investment Banks. The bank was utilizing many manual and end-of-day batch processes in their OTC derivatives trade lifecycle. The new architecture allowed them to share data and services, move certain processing to real time, scale out calculations, and take advantage of new gateways that were implemented by various exchanges and clearinghouses.
- Major Software Company, Miami. Rearchitected the messaging and calculation infrastructure of one of the top-selling products of the Insurance segment. The client needed to be able to process tens of thousands of insurance quotation requests at a time. Their current architecture was highly synchronous and took a long time to produce a small amount of quotes. The new architecture was build on message passing and asynchronous processing and allowed time-consuming calculation and document-generation processes to be scaled out effortlessly.
Citadel Securities
Head of Application Development
October 2009 to August 2011
Citadel Securities is the investment banking arm of the Citadel Hedge Fund. I was recruited by Peter Santoro, the former head of Equity Trading at Citigroup, to join this start-up and lead desktop application development and architecture across all asset classes.
- Responsible for all of the desktop applications for Citadel Securities, including Order Management Systems that support customer flow and complex derivative orders.
- Still very much of a hands-on technical leader. Spent about 40% of my time coding in C#/.NET and C++/Linux.
- Responsible for development of the real-time web-based trading portal for Citadel. This is a multi-asset portal that streams real-time quotes to the user web browser using COMET-based technology, and provides research and analytics. Managed a $8MM budget for the project, and led a New York and London-based team. Did most of the coding on the server side (RH Linux 5.5, Gnu C++). Architected a server side solution that included a mySQL in-memory database for reference data, and a Memcached in-memory cache to share order data between multiple processes. The assets covered included Corporate Bonds and Treasuries, Equity Cash and Equity Derivatives. Features included real-time heatmaps and charting, analysis of real-time TRACE feeds, and alerting.
- Personally developed a C#/.NET-based Pricing Tool application that the entire Equities Derivatives desk spends their entire day in. This tool aggregates various real-time feeds, allows the traders to do real-time pricing of various derivatives strategies, and allows various “what-if” scenarios.
- Developed an extensible dashboard for securities that is used by all desks. The dashboard allows users to construct customized views of various real-time and historical aspects of the market, over a variety of instrument classes.
- Interfaced with senior business leaders and the CxO level management to come up with requirements and project plans.
- Managed team of 16 senior developers on the Desktop team and 8 people on the e-trading team.
Citigroup
- Led the exploration into low-latency technologies
- Member of the senior technical management committees
- Liaison for Equities with Citigroup’s CTO
- Invited speaker to several conferences, including Windows on Wall Street, Accelerating Wall Street, Web 2.0 on Wall Street, and the annual Gartner conference on Event Processing.
- Managed several teams across equities, including Citi Trade Viewer (Algo monitoring front end, combined with KDB-based analytics server) and Fusion/Fission (unit testing and functional testing frameworks). There were 30 people in my organization, spread over New York, London, and Bangalore.
Chief Architect of Equities
July 2006 to Oct 2009
Global head of Complex Event Processing
- Led a 12 person team to build the first complex event processing framework at Citi for trading and analytics. This product is being used by the entire Equities desk, and by senior executives in order to get a real-time view of Citi’s participation in the market.
- Personally wrote the first POC in C#/.NET.
- Worked with the senior management and technical staff of companies like Coral8, Aleri and Streambase to perform initial POC.
- The first CEP application has been deployed across the entire Equities trading floor, as well as to senior management.
- Still extremely hands-on on the architecture and coding side.
Architectural oversight for equity derivatives risk management systems
- Managed the Microsoft engagement that ported the Sybase database used for Risk Management to SQL Server 2005 and Analysis Services (for Performance Attribution Analytics).
- Evaluated hardware and software alternatives, such as Solid State Disks and distributed object caches (Gemfire)
- Consulted on the development of a multi-asset order management system
- Participated in the migration of the risk calculation engines to a grid infrastructure
Spearheaded the Development of Citigroup’s .NET client-side framework
- Main architect and Project Manager of Ventana, an end-to-end .NET-based framework for client-side development. This was adopted as the user-interface framework through Citigroup Equities.
Head of the Enterprise Committee on .NET Technologies
- Invited by Microsoft 2007 MVP Summit as one of the top 20 .NET influencers in the country
Directed relationships between vendors, such as Microsoft, Celoxica, Paraccel, Lava Trading, Texas Memory Systems
- Proof of concept developed for hardware acceleration of pricing and stresses in FPGA
- Proof of concept developed for the speedup of database reads using Paraccel
- Evaluation of Texas Memory Systems Solid State Disk
- Evaluation of Exegy, Xambala, Tervela for speedup of feeds, parsing (FIX), messaging