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Dovid Kopel

Technology Leader, Technologist & Architect

dovid@dovidkopel.com | https://dovidkopel.com | 443-291-9212 | Baltimore MD 21029

Executive Summary

Driving technology transformation & enhancing business capabilities with strong leadership, ingenuity, and passion

  • Understand the current state, evaluate, disrupt and change, build the new gold standard
  • Build a net of trust and support across teams and organizations, enabling them to pivot and adapt
  • Create a culture of passion and creativity while always raising the bar of excellence

A self-taught, passionate technologist who began his journey with technology as early as 2 years old with 20 years of experience. An expert in technology, computer science, big data, and enterprise architecture. A technology leader, open source evangelist, thought leader, and hands-on architect and engineer.

Worked in many industries and is capable of quickly grasping domain knowledge as needed without formal training. A self-starting leader that knows how to rally the troops and get things done. Possessing a proven track record of successfully enabling organizations to adopt the best technologies for their specific needs.

Experience

  • General
    • Well-versed in a multitude of open-source languages (polyglot), databases, operating systems, queuing/messaging systems, and other high-end enterprise technologies
    • Experienced in designing large system architecture from software components, languages utilized, deployment considerations, and environmental conditions capable of scaling infinitely under high utilization.
    • Experience with Big Data (petabytes), ETL, Stream processing, business workflows (BPMN) and rules/knowledge engines
    • Experience with designing systems with a security-first mentality
  • Languages & Frameworks: Golang, Python, Typescript, Java, Scala, Spring Framework, PHP, Ruby, Rust, Angular, React, NodeJS, Svelte, C, C++
  • Databases & Storage Solutions: PostgreSQL, Aurora, MySQL, MongoDB, OrientDB, Neo4j, Elastic Search, Hadoop, HDFS, S3, Gremlin, DynamoDB, Kinesis, Kafka, DynamoDB
  • Other technologies: AWS, IAM, SAML, LDAP, Lambda, Spark, RabbitMQ, Hazelcast, Docker, Redis, jBPM, Drools, Hibernate, Blockchain, Textract, OCR, Gremlin, Hyperledger Fabric, REST, GraphQL, StepFunctions

Career Trajectory

Common Securitization Solutions, Bethesda, MD (8/2020 - 11/2023) - Principal Software Architect

Bottom Line (Common Securitization Solutions)

A system for advanced OCR and document comprehension

  • Built a team to support infrastructure, QA, engineering and support needs
  • Went from business requirements to production within 18 months
  • Reduced costs by over 35% from initial projection

Higayon (Common Securitization Solutions)

A system that integrates Blockly for enabling business users to write code

  • Built a Studio product using custom Blockly transformations into complex code
  • Built a team to support infrastructure, QA, engineering and support needs
  • Streamlined business workflow by enabling them to make code changes without needing engineering

General

  • Worked with business leaders to understand business requirements and help them understand how technology tradeoffs influence strategy.
  • Mentored and led teams with strong and decisive technical direction.
  • Developed and implemented architecture standards and methods (solution patterns), maintain and improved solution patterns over time.
  • Led effort in evaluating Blockchain technologies, what they can do, and what they would be best suited for
  • Created a prototyping AWS environment by automating AWS Organizations, Workspaces

Technologies include: Golang, Java, Typescript, Python, AWS, Lambda, RDS, OCR/Textract, DynamoDB, S3, StepFunctions, Gremlin, PostgresSQL, Docker, Hyperledger Fabric, Blockchain, Vendia

B2B Mobile Auction, Baltimore, MD (7/2018 - Current) - Chief Technology Officer (Hands-on)

  • Transformed the organization that had only QuickBooks and Excel into using a central application that had all aspects of the business connected to it. Resulting in boosts in performance and decreases in costs.
  • Designed cloud-first initiative putting all resources in the cloud with scalability and redundancy as opposed to the original manual system.
  • Designed and implemented system that provides real-time insight into the company
  • Eliminated duplicate efforts and redundancy, fortified single points of failure and known weak spots.

Technologies include: Java, AWS, Docker, PostgreSQL, Hibernate, Spring Framework, AngularJS, AWS Lambda, Python

Babyscripts, Washington DC (2/2017 - 6/2018) - Chief Technology Officer (Hands-on)

  • Worked with CEO and board to optimize technology strategies company-wide.
  • Oversaw architecture, technologies, and overall development and maintenance of our technology products.
  • Design, strategize and shape and ultimately decide on the technologies used in the organization; their implementation and how they are configured.
  • Research and develop strategies and technologies to help us achieve our mission and benefit our organization internally or otherwise.
  • Revamped platform architecture and implemented core system resulting in increases in velocity of development by several orders of magnitude.
  • Improved system stability from less than 70% to 99.99%.

Technologies include: Java, AWS, Docker, PostgreSQL, Hibernate, Spring Framework, AngularJS, AWS Lambda, Python

FINRA, Rockville, MD (4/2016 - 2/2017) - Principal Software Architect, Development Services

  • Mentored around 250 people with workshops, lectures and frameworks.
  • Revamped several tools and approaches yielding over 500% decrease in time testing.
  • Led the effort to switch to containerization, gave in-depth analysis and proposal to C-level executives.
  • Design and led effort to develop framework for generating and validating petabytes of pseudo random data to scale.

Technologies include: Java, AWS, Docker, PostgreSQL, Hibernate, Spring Framework, AngularJS, AWS Lambda, Python

CyberPoint International, Baltimore, MD (6/2014 - 4/2016) - Senior Architect

  • Responsible for the architecture as well as implementation of many major system components. Including data persistence, data processing, and externally faced APIs and the dynamic intelligent workflow system.
  • Having to handle multiple technologies and platforms as the product continues to grow and mature.
  • Lead the effort to select a new technology for the data storage engine that DarkPoint runs on. Vetted a half a dozen options tearing them apart and rapid prototyping.
  • Worked first hand on architecting a forensic analysis system that was utilized by the NSA

Technologies include: Java, Docker, RabbitMQ, PostgreSQL, OrientDB, ElasticSearch, Riak, Hibernate, Spring Framework, AngularJS, BPMN, jBPM

Raffle Ready - Baltimore, MD (6/2012 - 2014) - Chief Technology Officer (Hands-on)

  • Provided technical solutions including server deployment and custom page design tools to enable organizations to manage their event. Organizations can manage accounting, contributors, fundraisers, and transactions.
  • Enterprise server deployment with high availability, replication and performance.

Technologies include: Java, PHP, jQuery, AngularJS, S3, MongoDB, AWS, Redis, Apache, PayPal, Stripe, Intuit, Authorize.net

CopiesAmerica.com, East Meadow, NY (2004 - 2014) - Principal Engineer

  • Created technical solutions, for an expanding printing/copying enterprise. Utilizing advanced server deployment, with high availability and duplication.
  • Highly available with load balancing and redundancy. Advanced analytics and reporting capacity. Automatically adjusted loads to anticipate utilization.

Technologies include: Java, jBPM, PHP, MySQL, jQuery, and Apache, OpenStack, Amazon AWS S3.

Education

  • Bachelor Degree, Talmudic Studies, Ner Israel Rabbinical College, Baltimore, MD (2009)
  • Master's Degree, Talmudic Studies, Ner Israel Rabbinical College, Baltimore, MD (2011)

What do I do?

I’m a technologist that loves solving extremely complex problems utilizing technology. I have many billion dollar ideas that I am incubating (https://wizdumb.io) but I haven’t found my “Jobs” (Steve Jobs) to complement my “Woz” (Steve Wozniak).

What am I looking for in my next role?

Titles are ambiguous and not clear. Take a look at this article regarding the various types of responsibilities that a CTO may perform in an organization. Based on the article referenced earlier I would identify myself best as the “chief innovation guru”.

Culture Fit

I never consider myself to be under the “IT” banner. What I mean by that is that IT is a shared service. I generally would only work at an organization such that the technology is not merely a shared service, rather the major focus of the company.

Responsibilities

Interested

  • I am most typically involved in developing the technology vision of the organization, product, etc..
  • I can be involved during sprint planning providing design reviews, architectural oversight, and general technology guidance.
  • I enjoy solving complex problems whether they are process related, business efficiency, or truly technical in nature.
  • I create a strong technology culture with understanding of technical debt, while setting a clear strategy to modernize.
  • An expert in legacy, current, and emerging technologies.
  • Humble enough to know when to say “I don’t know”, and seek the answer or solution.
  • An open source evangelist, strong supporter and contributor to the open source community.
  • Not a yes man. I am not hired to agree with the CEO. I will do my best to provide my best advice for the given context.
  • A pragmatist who will always favor moving forward even when I may not agree with the decision.
  • I preach best practices and have high expectations while I will always be happy with at least the best effort.

Not Interested

  • I am not a project manager.
  • I am not a scrum master, agile coach, etc. .
  • I will always roll-up my sleeves and do what is needed. However, if I am being assigned a JIRA ticket on a constant basis, that is probably not the right role for me.

Titles

Interested

  • Chief Technology Officer, Chief Technology Innovation Officer, Chief Innovation Officer
  • Chief Architect, Chief Software Architect, Enterprise Architect, Principal Architect, Principal Software Architect, Senior Software Architect, Software Architect
  • Chief Technologist, Technologist
  • Chief Scientist
  • Distinguished Engineer
  • Technology Lead, Technology Advisor, Thought Leader, Technology Specialist, Technology Consultant
  • Chief Evangelist
  • Chief Software Engineer, Principal Software Engineer, Principal Engineer
  • Director of Enterprise Architecture
  • Director of Advanced Technology, Director of Research and Development
  • Director Of Engineering
  • Senior Director Of Engineering
  • Vice President Of Engineering
  • Senior Vice President Of Engineering

Not Interested

  • Project Manager
  • Scrum Master
  • Software Engineer