About Me
I have been a technology executive for almost two decades, with a successful, proven track record as a hands-on manager and architect of state-of-the-art web, mobile and software products, and a leader / mentor of effective, motivated development teams. I bring experience in full life cycle technology development, agile methodologies, product management and team building in companies of all stages – from start-ups to fortune 500 companies.
Achievements
- Built and released more than 50 major products and applications, based on LAMP, .NET, C and Java.
- Built and maintained Internet properties generating more than 50MM in annual revenue with over 70MM unique visitors per month.
- Recruited talent and assembled multiple development teams, (local, near- and off shore) from ground up, including IT, Technical
- Operations and QA.
- IT operations and system architectures include design and implementation of state-of-the-art fully redundant web farms, application and database clusters with disaster recovery.
- Selected, architected and successfully implemented some of the latest technologies such as MongoDB, Hadoop, Hbase, Redis, Node.js, Socket.io and Varnish into high traffic production environments.
Experience
Web Consultant, Itec Software, Los Angeles, CA
2005 to Present
Director IT, leading onsite and offshore development teams and managing projects in the design and
implementation of financial and entertainment applications.
- Directing three software development teams to deliver state of the art entertainment web experiences by using selective web technologies and focus on multilevel, strategic marketing flow.
- Reporting directly to the CEO with financial budgets, technology forecasts, business analysis, team reports and business strategically planning.
- Negotiated key service level agreements with vendors and external service providers and ensured that policies and processes are aligned with the company’s business model.
- Designed comprehensive change management methodology and best business practices for IT and project documentation.
Vice President Engineering, Fourth Wall Studios, Culver City, CA
2012 to 2013
Heading all engineering efforts (architecture, development, QA, IT) of transmedia and augmented reality based web
and mobile platforms. Selecting and implementing emerging technologies such as HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, Unity,
OpenGL to enable online video with interactive user engagement.
- Building, leading and mentoring development teams that specialize in cutting edge API, Android and iOS applications in the realm of transmedia, computer vision, augmented reality and 3d mobile software.
- Identify and implement opportunities for enhancing the company line of products and services with consideration of industries latest technology trends.
- Implement and foster Agile development processes; sprint, scrum, unit testing, continuous integration and peer programming.
- Architect cloud based server infrastructure for high demand web and mobile applications, and enable a scalable, load balanced and failover production environment.
- Define and build tools to collect and parse detailed analytical data and report on user behavior and traffic patterns, and shift strategies based on found facts.
- Manage the merger of technology teams and software after company was acquired.
Director of Engineering, Breakmedia Inc., Los Angeles, CA
2007 to 2012
Leading the architecture, design and development of Break.com, Mademan.com, Gamefront.com and others, by
directing onsite and offshore development teams and managing projects thru full cycle development phases.
- Recruiting, mentoring and directing 3 teams (LAMP, .NET, QA) of 30 developers to build top notch web 2.0 properties that average 10 million page views per day.
- Built logging and BI infrastructure running on Hadoop and HBase to track cross-site user interactivity.
- Extending functionalities to supply mobile applications for most IOS and Android devices.
- Defining and implementing best development practices and SCRUM methodologies. ! Architecting and selecting Break’s load balanced, fail safe hardware infrastructure, incl. monitoring and logging solutions to ensure 100% business availability.
- Additional applications under direct supervision: HD Video encoding service (Break.com), File sharing service (Gamefront.com), Freelance Writer Portal (Breakstudios), URL shortener service (Brk.to), Ad Serving platform (Apex)
Lead Architect, Breakmedia Inc., Beverly Hills, CA
2007
Responsible for the application architecture of Break.com, a leading online video site with over 50mm unique visits
per month. Built, lead and mentored a team of 12 .NET developers, 2 QA and 2 Database Administrators to grow
the site to the next level.
- Forecast and budget personnel and it resources in alliance with the company’s vision and goals
- Recruiting top talent to build a state-of-the-art .NET development team that can deliver the highly ambitious goals of Break.com and its partner sites.
- Working with sales and advertisers to build and deliver custom ad executions (Flash, DHTML) that directly generate revenue.
- Create a new LAMP team of 5 developers to generate strategic web properties that expand the current offering to break’s main demographics of young men (Chickipedia.com, Screenjunkies.com, Holytaco.com, Cagepotato.com).
Architect / DBA, Telemac Corporation, Los Angeles, CA
2002 to 2005
Leading projects and analyze business processes in the design, development and testing of real-time, network billing
solutions for the cellular phone industry, encompassing the entire SDLC.
- Lead and managed teams in designing and implementing secure eCommerce environments for Telemac Advantage billing solutions in the US and China.
- Surpassed most deliverables within entire SDLC processes, leading to successful project completion from idea conception thru test, implementation and production handover phases.
- Commended by the CTO for mapping procedures and processes in alignment with Telemac’s business strategy. Established business performance and risk analysis reports and advised about enhancements and new technology solutions.
- Spearheaded Disaster Recovery design and implementation, incl. writing designated emergency manuals and training key personnel in executing business resumption and data recovery plans.
Sr. System Engineer, California Bank & Trust, Los Angeles, CA
1999 to 2002
Managed projects to develop multiple large-scale, high traffic eCommerce systems, incl. design and implementation
of various online cash management systems. Designed and configured data interfaces to mainframe systems and to
the Federal Reserve.
- Managing project to design and implement high traffic eCommerce systems, from client ideas to designing, installing, configuring and maintaining highly available online computing solutions.
- Lead team thru successful, on-time implementation of corporate online cash management systems, incl. interface configuration to mainframe systems and to Federal Reserve Bank and online wire processing system (Fedplus), interfacing the Federal Reserve Bank via secure, encrypted serial link, processing transactions of up to 1 billion dollars per day
- Leveraged excellent interpersonal communication skills in negotiate service level agreements with head departments and executive management, covering entire enterprise of five different banks and more than 10 mission critical business environments.
- Implemented and tested Disaster Recovery Solutions based on business risk assessment, established remote hot
- sites throughout the country.
Engineer, North Star, Los Angeles, CA
1997 to 1999
Lead Engineer in designing, developing and implementing manufacturing tools, processes and procedures with
emphasis to reduce setup and lead time and eliminate non value added activities within a Six Sigma oriented
environment.
- As the only IT engineer, implemented new network to support CAD operations and Internet access (incl. Firewall) writing an engineering team.
- Wrote bash, C scripts and Visual Basic applications to support the rendering and management of 3D CAD models.
- Installed, configured and tuned SCO Unix based databases to support corporate data management.
Education & Certifications
B.S. in Electro Mech. Engineering, Business Administration and Economy
Cisco CCNA, CCNP (50%), Cisco Secure VPN, Checkpoint CCSA, Microsoft MCSE, MCP+Internet, Systems Management Server
Additional details and references on my LinkedIn profile: LinkedIn/in/petergilg