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Steve Simitzis EducationUniversity of Rhode IslandKingston, RI. Graduated May 1996. PatentsApparatus and method for establishing communications.European Patent EP1030492A1 At Critical Path (see below), we needed a load balancer suitable for email hosting. No product existed at the time that did the job, so we designed our own appliance. Technical SkillsC, C++, Perl, PHP, Javascript, XML, RSS, SQL, Apache, UNIX system administration, architecture, security and intrusion detection, performance analysis and tuning. ExperienceSuicideGirls.com May 2002 to presentSan Francisco, CA SuicideGirls is a pin-up photo and social networking site for adults who identify with alternative culture. As SG is a small company, I have had the opportunity to be involved in every level of the business, from the finances, to development of new features, to the ongoing work of insuring a reliable service with high availability. My responsibilities include hiring and management of a small team of developers; development of the social networking web application; hiring and management of customer service; 24/7 operation of the site; development of the billing and payment system. I do extensive performance analysis and tuning, which, on a limited equipment budget, has allowed the site to handle exponential growth of usage. I work closely with the system administrators at SG's network provider to remotely manage our systems, coordinate upgrades, and respond to outages. In addition, I have developed APIs and related services for the SuicideGirls community, such as RSS feeds, iCal and vCard syncing, OS X Dashboard integration, and mobile phone picture sharing. DanceSafe June 2000 to March 2001Oakland, CA DanceSafe is a national non-profit organization supporting harm reduction and pragmatic drug education. While at DanceSafe, I led the development of online tools for grassroots activism, built by a team of volunteers, full-time staff, and consultants. I was also on the board of directors, where I helped with fundraising and long-term strategy. Critical Path, Inc. May 1997 to July 2000San Francisco, CA Critical Path was a business-to-business service that provided outsourced email. As a founding employee and the company's first engineer, I had the opportunity to move to different roles as Critical Path progressed from a small startup to a publicly traded company. As Senior Mail Server Engineer, I built the backend architecture of our outsourced email system from the ground up. I rewrote much of Qmail and developed a clustered architecture that could scale to handle millions of email users. From there, I moved to Director of Engineering, where I was responsible for first level management of a group of 6-15 software engineers, some who were recruited from the open source community. I worked closely with product management, sales, operations, and QA. As Messaging Architect, I focused on research and making high level architecture decisions. I also worked closely with business development on technical due diligence of acquisition targets. My projects included wireless messaging, anti-virus, content filtering, and integration of acquired companies. saturn5 productions October 1996 to presentSan Francisco, CA Saturn5 is a mom and pop web development shop. We design, build and host interactive websites. Saturn5 hosting is a free donation-supported web and email hosting service for friends and interesting projects in the community. Ancient HistoryElectronic Frontier Foundation December 1996 to March 1998San Francisco, CA I was a volunteer system administrator for the EFF, where I maintained their web and email servers. Taos Mountain Software May 1996 to May 1997Palo Alto, CA Taos Mountain is a UNIX system administration consulting firm. While at Taos, I was contracted to Palm, Oracle, and the Charles Schwab Corporation. Open Access, Inc. May 1995 to May 1996Boston, MA At Open Access, I ran the entire technical operation of a very small internet service provider, offering T1s and early broadband to other business. I was literally the only technical person at the company, where I worked while attending university. URI Department of Electrical Engineering May 1994 to May 1995Kingston, RI At my first technical job, I was the system administrator for the electrical engineering department's network of Sun workstations. I also wrote the HTML for our department's website, which was very primitive by today's standards. When I'm not working, I'm...In my spare time, I enjoy drinking coffee, scouring the globe for the world's best vegan food, and reading about green technology. References available upon request |