Amin Ariana
Senior Director, Technology Leadership & Architecture
Executive Summary
Engineering leader with 25 years delivering strategic architectural decisions that drive measurable business outcomes. Recently led platform modernization at Siteimprove (Nordic Capital portfolio), discovering 40% operational overspend and delivering 10% optimization to establish AI-ready infrastructure; at Brex, architected enterprise platform capabilities enabling expansion from Startups to Enterprise market, contributing to $1B→$12.3B valuation growth and closing DoorDash as first Enterprise customer. Partner with CEOs, CPOs, and executives to align technology vision with company objectives.
Highlights of Experiences
Siteimprove
Senior Director of Platform Engineering
Jul. 2024 - Present
Recruited as Distinguished Engineer by Nordic Capital portfolio executives to modernize legacy data-center platform to cloud. Led discovery of 40% operational overspend, delivered 10% optimization first year; drastically reduced OpEx, simplified engineering complexity, increased platform reliability.
Asked to take ownership as Senior Director of Platform Engineering within 10 months based on OpEx impact; reorganized platform teams into clear ownership domains (Access, Entitlements, Content Platform, Applications, Ops, Services, Integrations), accelerating transformation across US and Europe. Foundational work enables growth reinvestment, powers FedRAMP certification, establishes AI-ready architecture.
Brex, Inc.
(Global Fintech)Senior Staff Software Engineer, Office of the CTO
Sep. 2020 - Jan. 2024
Tapped by Founder CEO to architect enterprise platform capabilities ("Brex Empower"), enabling expansion from Startups to Enterprise market. Led cross-functional platform engineering as founding tech lead and interim product platform manager, partnering with 6 department leaders.
Closed DoorDash as first Enterprise customer during company hypergrowth ($1B to $12.3B); established engineering-CX guardrails reducing reliability incidents; drove platform consolidation across 40 teams, improving engineering velocity by 20%.
Gate Labs
(Acquired by Canary; getgate.com)Co-Founder, VP of Software Engineering
Nov. 2015 - Jul. 2018
After co-founding startups and completing CMU Masters, released Wi-Fi Camera-lock for Airbnb and delivery. Engineered patented IoT platform across streaming, video, access, mobile. Aligned hardware, firmware, product, go-to-market. Forbes: "World's Most Sophisticated Lock."
Additional Roles
Principal-Level Engineering (2018 - 2020)
Principal architect at Zume (mobile kitchen B2B platform) and Canoo (EV mobility); advised C-level, filed 5 patents, delivered production systems.
Founding & Early-Stage Ventures (2010 - 2015)
Co-founded two startups as CTO: Sponsorbrite (school fundraising SaaS, 100K households) and Tapgreet (patented IoT self-checkout); SocialShield Employee #3, Venrock-funded, acquired by Avira.
Google (2011 - 2013) & Microsoft (2007 - 2009)
At Google, invented ML-assisted sales pipeline targeting $3B SMB advertisers, demoed to Directors, piloted Salesforce integration, awarded peer recognition in Innovation and Customer Focus. At Microsoft, VP-selected for Windows 7 launch (Xbox LIVE), shipped OS worldwide; automated A/B testing for MSN Homepage (4.5B+ visitors), increased click-through 50%.
Enterprise Architecture
Enterprise architecture consultant (MCSD) for Fortune 500 clients; at Adify Corporation, re-architected $300MM ad tech acquisition to 50x scale.
Technical Skills
| Technologies | Kotlin, Elixir, Java, Python, Ruby, JavaScript/TypeScript, C#, GraphQL & REST APIs |
| Data | PostgreSQL, DynamoDB, Kinesis, ElasticSearch, Data ETL, Snowflake, d3.js |
| Infrastructure | AWS, GCP, Kubernetes, Lambda, SNS, SQS, Kafka, IoT, Ethereum Blockchain |
| Architecture | Distributed Systems, System Design, Machine Learning, Cryptography |
| Domains | Fintech, SaaS, Web3 Smart Contracts, Mobile Apps, Ads, Search, RT Video Streaming |
Education
Carnegie Mellon University · Integrated Innovation Institute
Master of Science (M.S.) in Software Management
University of Waterloo · Coop program
Honors Bachelor of Computer Science (B.C.S.), Psychology minor
Recognitions and activities
- Forbes / Quora Top Writer - cross-published entrepreneurial essays
- Google Peer recognition certificates in Innovation, Energy, Initiative, Customer Focus
- CMU Director's Return on Education Award