Iskandar Najmuddin

SUMMARY

A pragmatic technology leader who believes in building systems to solve business problems.

Passionate about innovation and culture.

Massive internet nerd.

OBJECTIVE

Not looking for any new opportunities at the moment - I'm focusing on my current CTO role.

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

Leadership

I know how to build a professional, highly-focused team with a positive, rewarding culture.

Strategy

I can provide world-class vision linked to concrete outcomes — both short and long-term.

Technology

I live and breathe the latest DevOps and Cloud technologies.

Getting it Done

I'm a doer who loves contributing at all levels to business outcomes.

EXPERIENCE

July 2019 - current

CTO

Conversocial

Helping provide focus and enabling scalable growth. Responsible for engineering & technology strategy and tactics.

Working with the Board of Directors, Product & Design, Customer Success, Security & Compliance, Professional Services, and our lovely customers to drive positive results.

Key technologies: Docker, Python, Java, AWS, MongoDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, RabbitMQ, Django, Redis, Elastic

August 2015 - July 2019

Lead DevOps Consultant EMEA

Rackspace Ltd.

Provide vision, strategy, and leadership for the DevOps Professional Services function across EMEA, including developing services, processes and tools, getting to market, and driving the delivery engine.

Work directly with customers up to the C-level to understand how best to provide agility, consistency, flexibility, and security across multiple cloud and dedicated platforms - while liaising with a wide range of Rackspace and customer stakeholders. Manage engineering and consultancy capabilities, including the end-to-end Professional Services experience leading to ongoing Fanatical Support.

Also, Nerf gun battles.

Key technologies: Docker, Kubernetes, PowerShell, JavaScript, Python, Go, Ansible, Jenkins, VSTS, AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, VMWare.

August 2013 - August 2015

Technical Director and Co-Founder

Matter Technology Limited

Full technical oversight over all aspects of client web applications including: specification and requirements gathering, infrastructure planning, implementation, delivery, deployment, maintenance, and optimization.

Ongoing management and development of our in-house product suite using Facebook, Twitter and Instagram APIs for large-scale data ingress and SQL-on-Hadoop reporting.

Development of high-throughput, internationalized social media and mobile web campaigns targeting EMEA and MENAP regions.

Key technologies¹: AWS, Hadoop (Cloudera), HBase, Impala, Kafka, Storm, Akka, MongoDB, PHP, Go, node.js, Unity3D (C#), PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Redis, AngularJS, nginx, HAProxy, Docker, Ansible, Mesos.

Primary clients: Johnson and Johnson, PricewaterhouseCoopers

September 2010 - July 2013

Senior Director, Platform Services and Technology

Syncapse Inc.

Head of Development for flagship SaaS Social Media Suite Product. Responsible for on-site and remote teams, ad-hoc campaign delivery.

Managed and collaborated with development teams across three continents and four timezones (~12 direct reports). Completed a continuous integration and deployment pipeline unifying Java/Scala-based services and PHP-based web apps across AWS-based clusters.

Implemented critical data ingress path for very high traffic social media properties - importing real-time^ish data from social networks into an Elasticsearch cluster.

Key technologies: AWS, Elasticsearch, MySQL, Java (with a bit of Scala), Hazelcast, Jenkins, Apache, nginx, PHP.

Primary clients: Coca-Cola, AB InBev, Diageo

January 2008 - September 2010

Technical Director and Co-Founder

Nudge Social Media

In charge of everything technical relating to business operations and client social media campaign execution and delivery, including client and in-house business strategy.

Managed technical team of ~10 developers working across both front and backend technologies on multiple, fast-moving client projects. Eventually sold company to Syncapse Inc.

Key technologies: MySQL, CouchDB, memcache, PHP, Flash/Flex, jQuery

Primary clients: Sony Playstation, Pepsi

September 2006 - January 2008

Technical Director

Dynamite Partners Ltd.

Responsible for all technical aspects of building bespoke CMS-backed Web 1.0/2.0 web properties.

June 2005 - September 2006

Freelance Developer

Target Visibility (Dubai)

Built a medium-scale click-tracking and BI system for a click arbitrage business. Integrated with Google AdWords and Overture pricing APIs.

January 2003 - June 2005

Senior Developer

Calligram

Worked with our advanced in-house CMF to deliver ecommerce websites.

January 2000 - January 2003

Web Developer

emarketeers

February 1998 - August 1999

Web Developer

Inscribe Web Media (Malaysia)

EDUCATION

1993

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Cornell University

1992

Mathematics and Economics

University of California, Berkeley

1992

High School

Berkeley High School (California)

CRUNCHY TECHNICAL SKILLS

DevOps / Working Smarter, Not Harder 23 years

Ubuntu/Debian, Windows Server, TeamCity, VSTS, Jenkins, Ansible, PowerShell DSC

JavaScript 19 years

AngularJS, React, node.js, express, gulp, jQuery

PHP 17 years

Including many OOP MVC frameworks and libraries. I started with PHP3. ^{now get off my lawn!}

(X)HTML5 and CSS 17 years

SASS/LESS, Bootstrap, Foundation, Ionic

SQL 14 years

MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Hive, Impala

API Design and Integration 12 years

RESTFul APIs & Services, Swagger/OpenAPI, Facebook, Twitter, Google, AWS, Azure

Cloud Architecture & Engineering 10 years

AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Openstack, Heroku, Docker, DC/OS, Kubernetes

Python 5 years

Mostly focused on lightweight web frameworks, CLIs, and ML use cases.

NoSQL 5 years

MongoDB, Redis, CouchBase, HBase

Java 5 years

Spring Boot, Dropwizard, Hadoop, Akka, Storm, Hazelcast

Golang 2 years

RESTful APIs, DevOps tooling

Unity3D < 1 year

3D iOS development in C#

HUMAN LANGUAGES

English

Me fail English? Unpossible!

Bahasa Malaysia

Elementary proficiency

German

False beginner ^{Fluent at 17, but that was, like, 100 years ago.}

Mandarin

1.5 years of study

Matthew Long Senior Software Engineer / Matter Technology

Whilst his ambition, mentorship and incredible knowledge will enrich your professional life, his humour, creativity and energy will make you glad to know him as a fellow human being.

In over five years of working with Iskandar, as a member of his team, I can certify that his approach and pragmatism to technical problems has always been a delight to partake in.

He delivers exceptional leadership and enables those he works with the opportunity to supply effective and lasting solutions.

Sia Gholami DevOps Engineer / Rackspace

Rarely have I seen someone with as much drive and strategic foresight as him. He breaks down challenges with a very energetic, yet direct attitude. You can rely firmly on him getting it done. He's highly adaptable, and will turn a ship around if he senses it's going a metre in the wrong direction. He's been a fantastic mentor, business leader and manager.

Conlan Day Pre-Sales Consultant / Rackspace

Meeting and working with Iskandar has been an incredibly positive experience. Iskandar has a well rounded skill set, including technical know-how coupled with understanding of enterprise technology adoption. He has a keen eye for process improvement; quick to identify opportunities to lean and improve.

He is also a dynamic presenter; he undertakes a role of thought leadership within groups, teams, and businesses, unafraid to be opinionated on technology and strategy for both our own business and for Customers.

Jon Brydges Director / CREAT3D Ltd

Iskandar has a fantastic blend of commercial, technical and managerial skills as well as being an all round nice person. He has a passion for social media and all things digital.