Movement in the Cloud

This is my last week as VP of Engineering at Sonian, the Boston-based cloud computing startup on a mission to archive the world’s electronic documents. I joined Sonian from Dell in 2010, enticed by Greg Arnette’s vision and passion for the cloud. It’s been an exciting and productive ride for me, which in many ways I am reluctant to leave. But after much deliberation, it’s clear it is time for my “next thing.”

I’m leaving behind a talented engineering team, which has probably taught me as much if not more than I have them. Together we learned how to reliably manage large scale multi-cloud infrastructure, store and search billions of documents, harness the economics of the cloud, and transform system administration into DevOps. Along the way we had many technical epiphanies that have substantially advanced the company’s intellectual property and ability to manage thousands of cores and petabytes of storage across multiple public clouds (which always leaves me wondering: does any other company in New England do this?).

Starting Monday you will find me at CloudPercept, a consulting company I formed to explore my next thing. My early customers include several interesting Boston tech companies looking to bring clarity to the cloud. In addition, I’ll be working on a startup idea or two, applying a Lean approach and a fail fast philosophy. You'll hear more on that soon.

Best of luck to my former company and team. I look forward to seeing continued success in the coming years. Special thanks to Greg for being an outstanding founder and collaborator in my work at Sonian, and the rest of the team for all their dedication and support.

If you’d like to keep track of where this journey takes me, just stay tuned to my blog, which provides the doppler radar of my movement in the cloud.