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Resume: Laban Eilers​

Photo of Laban

I'm a software architect, technologist, and leader who believes in empowering teams with autonomy, clear strategy, agile practices, and tools that help deliver awesome products to customers. I also still write code and build things, both because it keeps me connected with the tech world, and because it makes me happy.

I've been working in software since the late nineties, and I've been in the platform engineering space for the last 15 years. During that time I've also done a bunch of engineering leadership/management and architecture.

Skills/Experience​

  • Platform Engineering: Cloud (mostly AWS), Kubernetes, Docker, CI/CD, Terraform, Prometheus, OpenTelemetry, Grafana, ElasticSearch
  • Engineering leadership: Agile transformation, servant leadership, DevOps, culture building, team health, recruiting
  • Software development: TypeScript/JavaScript/node.js, GoLang, Python, C#/dotnet, Rust, shell scripting
  • Databases: Postgres, SQL Server, MongoDB, DynamoDB, Redis
  • Learning/Teaching: Technical writing, training/education, curriculum development, knowledge culture
  • Security: Cloud security, regulatory, audits, compliance
  • User Interface: User-Interface design, graphic design, usability, human-computer interaction, specializing in UI for non-technical users, scalable UI design processes
  • Front-end: (admittedly rusty at this point) React, Vue, responsive design, performance optimization, SEO, localization/globalization

Education​

  • MFA: University of Michigan, School of Art & Design, Computer Animation
  • BFA: Cooper Union, School of Art, NY, NY

Professional Experience​

SimpliSafe​

Distinguished Engineer, 2021-present

SimpliSafe is a leading provider of DIY home security systems. Our physical security products (cameras, doorbells, door locks, entry sensors, etc), combined with our cloud-based microservice platform and live monitoring agents, protect our customers by stopping crime in real time.

I play two main roles at SimpliSafe; I'm part of the Engineering leadership team, and also a co-leader of our Platform Engineering team. Through both roles, I've been helping steer our Engineering culture towards empowerment, accountability, reliability, and innovation.

  • I've driven the developement of our developer platform (built on top of EKS) which provides a delightful, "serverless" developer experience, while encapsulating the organization's infrastructure opinions, best practices, and security policies. 2 years since MVP, over 60% of our systems have migrated, and teams are much happier and more effective as a result.
  • Led the overhaul of our CI/CD systems, using Github Actions with private hosted runners on EKS, and Github OIDC to integrate with AWS IAM
  • Led the overhaul of our observability systems, using OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Honeycomb, and the Grafana Cloud stack.

First Republic Bank​

VP, Architecture, 2019-2021

First Republic was the 26th largest bank in the US, but had a highly dysfunctional IT organization. I was asked by the new CTO to join senior leadership with the goal of helping build a credible and competitive technology capability. I was personally tasked with an overhaul of the bank's development environment to enable developer empowerment within the context of a highly secure, highly regulated environment.

My team built a platform-agnostic, Kubernetes-based PaaS, in AWS, using Vault, Artifactory, Cloudbees Core (Jenkins), Splunk, AquaSec, with a custom client toolchain (similar to Tilt or Skaffold) that simplified builds, deployment, security scanning, monitoring and troubleshooting, compliance, and encapsulated the bank's required processes and policies. This replaced a prior paradigm that developers described as “soul crushing”, and developer productivity and happiness skyrocketed.

This required building relationships, reputation, and trust across the bank to implement an overhaul of security architecture, processes, and culture. We made great progress toward enabling modern DevOps, continuous deployment, infrastructure-as-code, microservices, and increased developer autonomy and accountability.

Vistaprint​

Director, Architecture, 2006-2019

Vistaprint is the world's leading provider of print and marketing services for small businesses, whose website handles millions of sessions a day. As Director of Architecture, helped to lead a team of over 200 software developers, in a company noted for the outstanding caliber of its engineering staff.

  • In the earliest days of AJAX, I built two of Vistaprint's flagship, large-scale, front-end applications, allowing non-technical small-business owners to create beautiful graphic design to market their businesses, unlocking hundreds of millions of incremental revenue for Vistaprint.
  • I founded Vistaprint's Web Platform team, which was responsible for web frameworks (back and front-end), UI standardization, tooling, training, and productivity for hundreds of web developers.
  • I worked with our legal team to bring open-source friendly policies to Vistaprint
  • I lead the charge to make Vistaprint mobile friendly, starting in 2009

Zoom Information (Spin-off of CardScan)​

Project Manager/Senior Software Engineer, 2003- 2006

I was one of the first 8 employees of ZoomInfo, and lead ZoomInfo's B2B product engineering team, acting as product owner, system architect, and general manager for the product. We transformed ZoomInfo's MVP web application into a best-in-class tool which was, at the time, used by more than 20% of Fortune 500 recruiters and generated the bulk of the company's revenue.

CardScan (Formerly Corex Technologies)​

Senior Software Engineer, 2001-2003

In the early days of PDAs and Palm Pilots, CardScan was a popular business card scanner for personal and corporate use. I designed and developed front-end web applications including:

  • CardScan.Net: A web-based contact management tool which automatically synchronized with Corex's flagship product, CardScan.
  • CustomerBase: An enterprise marketing tool which used CardScan's technology to create large customer databases, and allows non-technical marketers to create, broadcast, and track rich email campaigns.
  • AccuCard: An early foray into social networking for business, but as a plugin for Outlook

Reservision, Inc (Now Fluency Media, Inc); Multimedia Firm​

Creative Director, 1998-2001

As creative director in a small full-stack shop, we built some of the earliest web applications for clients including MGM Grand, Bellagio, The Mirage, Park Place Entertainment, Samsonite, and many more.