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Gregory Golberg
Verified Expert in Engineering
Architect and Back-end Developer
Palo Alto, CA, United States
Toptal member since June 13, 2022
Bio
Gregory is an experienced technologist who firmly believes that engineering is about using the right tools to solve real-world problems. He is a passionate, hands-on generalist who enjoys wearing multiple hats. Gregory holds a computer science and engineering bachelor's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also an AWS Certified Solutions Architect, a Certified ScrumMaster, and a Sun Certified Java Professional.
Portfolio
DrumWave
Java, Python 3, Terraform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), PostgreSQL, Redis...
Around.Trade
Go, Next.js, OAuth 2, OAuth, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Docker...
DoubleDoor
Vue 2, Vue, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, Kubernetes, AWS Fargate...
Experience
- Relational Databases - 20 years
- Java - 18 years
- SQL - 18 years
- Python - 15 years
- HTTP REST - 15 years
- MySQL - 15 years
- AWS Cloud Architecture - 10 years
- Go - 7 years
Preferred Environment
Java, Python, SQL, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Kubernetes, Docker, Go, Scala, Linux, Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
The most amazing...
...project I've implemented from scratch is the ad demand-side platform deployed in AWS. Some writings about it can be found at blog.debedb.com/tag/opendsp/.
Work Experience
Principal Engineer | Tech Lead
2023 - PRESENT
DrumWave
- Led the development of the Offers platform, the centerpiece of the company's data ownership platform.
- Proposed, prototyped, and implemented long-running workflows using the Temporal platform to enable easier development of business logic in a distributed, resilient workflow.
- Acted as a subject-matter expert in API development and testing with Postman and OpenAPI. Created documentation, tutorials, in-house training sessions, blueprints, and initial test suites and tools for the microservice-based teams to interoperate.
- Took on various other responsibilities outside the Offers team's duties, including DevOps.
- Proposed, designed, and developed a tool to convert user-defined queries from UI into safe SQL queries to be run against the data lake. Eventually, it was incorporated into the company's BI offering.
- Created a virtualized data lake and query engine to query heterogeneous data sources (SQL, NoSQL) across multiple clouds (AWS, IBM). I created a DSL for querying, mechanisms of access control, and protection against sensitive data/PII sharing.
- Unified the development stack by migrating Java and Python microservices to Node.js, NestJS, and TypeScript.
Technologies: Java, Python 3, Terraform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), PostgreSQL, Redis, IBM Db2, Amazon Athena, Postman, APIs, Microservices, FastAPI, Spring Boot, Node.js, NestJS, TypeScript, Test-driven Development (TDD), Algorithms
Advisor | Consultant
2023 - PRESENT
Around.Trade
- Designed the cloud infrastructure for the product based on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Vercel and created a CI/CD pipeline for it.
- Added support for CockroachDB in addition to PostgreSQL.
- Integrated Clerk, an OAuth provider, for authentication/authorization.
Technologies: Go, Next.js, OAuth 2, OAuth, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Docker, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Python 3, RabbitMQ, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), AWS Lambda, AWS ALB, Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR), Docker Compose, Dependency Injection, PostgreSQL, CockroachDB, AWS IAM
Advisor | Consultant
2021 - PRESENT
DoubleDoor
- Managed an offshore development team to deliver a website based on Vue and Node.js.
- Consolidated disparate deployment using AWS, which resulted in savings and better latency.
- Migrated Heroku to Fargate and MongoDB from MongoDB Cloud to AWS Fargate.
- Helped to implement the advertising using Google (Ads API, Google Tag Manager, Analytics) and Facebook.
Technologies: Vue 2, Vue, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, Kubernetes, AWS Fargate, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Amazon EC2, Heroku, MongoDB, REST APIs, Google Ads, Google Ads API, Facebook Ads, Advertising Technology (Adtech), NPM, Node.js, Stripe API, Stripe, AWS Certified Solution Architect, Cloud Architecture, Back-end Architecture, IT, IT Project Management, CI/CD Pipelines, Lambda Functions, Software Architecture, Back-end, Python API, Amazon Cognito, Technical Architecture, Web Servers, Cloud Deployment
Back-end Developer
2024 - 2024
FutureExpress LLC
- Created the initial AWS deployment of the back end using ALB, Fargate, CloudFront, S3, and VPC.
- Built a framework for developing and deploying AWS Lambdas with SAM, CloudFormation, and EventBridge.
- Handled GitHub-action-based deployment for the back end and lambdas.
Technologies: Python, SQL, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Back-end, Product Management, Swagger, Technical Leadership, Flask, Payment APIs
Lead Platform Architect
2023 - 2023
SteppeChange
- Worked on proprietary ad tech product involving geocoding.
- Owned the implementation of multiple greenfield projects from specification to deployment on GCP.
- Designed and developed a microservice-based system for managing complex ad flows.
Technologies: Python 3, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), PostgreSQL, Firebase, Google Cloud Datastore, Docker, Kubernetes, FastAPI, APIs, REST, Cloud Architecture, Back-end Architecture, IT Project Management, Solution Architecture, Software Architecture, Distributed Systems, Back-end, Google Cloud, NoSQL, Python API, Asyncio, Relational Databases, Swagger, Data Feeds, Technical Architecture, Cloud Firestore, Web Servers, Cloud Deployment, System Architecture, Test-driven Development (TDD), Algorithms
Chief Architect
2021 - 2022
Jobox.ai
- Implemented best practices to improve velocity, code quality, and stability, e.g., CI/CD, automated unit and integration tests, code coverage, observability, monitoring and alerting, on-call rotation, vulnerability detection, load testing, and more.
- Drove adoption of CI/CD, including automated regression tests and promotion, on-call, and monitoring/observability.
- Led design, development, and delivery of new algorithms for efficient dispatching of home service professionals.
- Cooperated with PMS and EMS to balance internal engineering needs (as above) and product-oriented projects. Developed technology roadmap and AWS cloud infrastructure plan to align with the product roadmap.
Technologies: Java, Spring Boot, PostgreSQL, Redshift, Python, Go, Postman, SQL, Lambda Architecture, Streaming Data, HTTP REST, Spring, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Docker, Linux, Apache Airflow, Amazon EC2, Redis, Git, APIs, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Amazon EKS, JavaScript, AWS Certified Solution Architect, Amazon Web Services (AWS), AWS Cloud Architecture, Team Leadership, Jira, GitHub, Node.js, Management, Architecture, DevOps, Data Engineering, ETL, Cloud, Microservices, Databases, Cron, CSV, REST APIs, JSON, Technical Leadership, Software Design, Cloud Architecture, Back-end Architecture, AWS Lambda, CI/CD Pipelines, Lambda Functions, Software Architecture, Java EE (Jakarta EE), Distributed Systems, Back-end, NoSQL, Python API, Relational Databases, Amazon Cognito, Swagger, Technical Architecture, LaunchDarkly, Algolia, Cloud Firestore, Web Servers, Cloud Deployment, System Architecture, Test-driven Development (TDD), Algorithms
Principal Software Engineer
2020 - 2021
AppLovin
- Joined when AppLovin acquired MZ and also integrated MZ's (the acquired company) existing RTB bidder functionality with AppLovin.
- Worked on green-fielding a non-RTB DSP demand-side platform for partners' use.
- Took over ETL/data pipeline projects and associated tooling.
Technologies: Spark, Java, Scala, Python, Apache Airflow, HTTP REST, Redshift, SQL, Docker, Linux, Git, AWS Certified Solution Architect, GitHub, Architecture, Data Engineering, ETL, Cloud, Databases, CSV, JSON, Advertising Technology (Adtech), Google Ads, Google Ads API, Facebook Ads, Facebook SDK, Facebook Ads SDK, Software Design, Lambda Architecture, Distributed Systems, Back-end, NoSQL, Relational Databases, Data Feeds, API Integration, Web Servers, Test-driven Development (TDD), Algorithms
Staff Software Engineer
2019 - 2020
MZ (acquired by AppLovin)
- Led maintaining and improving a core marketing and growth engineering functionality, real-time bidder (RTB), accountable for millions of queries per second and millions of dollars spent monthly.
- Operated on the architectural guidance within the product and across teams, including introducing regression testing and ad hoc AWS querying to supplement on-premise clusters for business users and data science.
- Accepted some of the previously external operations roles to become complete product owners, including migration from on-premise to cloud (AWS) and adding DevOps automation.
- Created a lakehouse using Glue and Athena to supplement Hadoop (in AWS) and Vertica (on-premises) for business users and data science.
- Liaised with relevant teams such as release engineering, DevOps, ad operations, and data science.
Technologies: Java, Hadoop, Apache Pig, Apache Airflow, Python, Lua, NGINX, Amazon Athena, AWS Lambda, AWS Glue, Amazon EC2, Vertica, MySQL, HTTP REST, Spring, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), SQL, Linux, Groovy, Git, APIs, AWS Certified Solution Architect, Amazon Web Services (AWS), AWS Cloud Architecture, Jira, GitHub, Architecture, DevOps, Data Engineering, ETL, Cloud, Microservices, Databases, Cron, CSV, REST APIs, JSON, Scalable Architecture, Technical Leadership, Software Design, Cloud Architecture, Back-end Architecture, Lambda Architecture, CI/CD Pipelines, Lambda Functions, Software Architecture, Java EE (Jakarta EE), Distributed Systems, Back-end, Orchestration, NoSQL, Relational Databases, Data Feeds, Technical Architecture, API Integration, Web Servers, Cloud Deployment, System Architecture, Test-driven Development (TDD), Algorithms
Software Development Engineer 3
2018 - 2019
Amazon
- Worked on providing forecasts of available advertising inventory for customers who want to run advertising across the Amazon advertising network.
- Implemented forecasting for private marketplaces in real-time bidding advertising scenarios.
- Worked with the data science team to operationalize forecasting models.
Technologies: Java, Python, Hadoop, Amazon Elastic MapReduce (EMR), Apache Lucene, MySQL, Scala, HTTP REST, Redshift, SQL, Linux, Amazon EC2, Git, APIs, AWS Certified Solution Architect, Amazon Web Services (AWS), AWS Cloud Architecture, GitHub, Architecture, ETL, Cloud, Microservices, Databases, JSON, Scalable Architecture, Software Design, Java EE (Jakarta EE), Distributed Systems, Back-end, Orchestration, NoSQL, Relational Databases, Cloud Deployment, Test-driven Development (TDD), Algorithms
Founding Principal Engineer
2015 - 2018
Pani Networks
- Joined the company as the founding engineer, producing initial prototypes for using Romana as a network layer for OpenStack.
- Developed topology-aware IP address management (IPAM) module.
- Produced and shipped editions from PoC/demos to 2.0, up to date.
Technologies: Go, Python, Docker, Kubernetes, OpenStack, HTTP REST, Linux, Amazon EC2, Git, APIs, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Amazon EKS, AWS Certified Solution Architect, Amazon Web Services (AWS), AWS Cloud Architecture, GitHub, Architecture, DevOps, Cloud, Microservices, REST APIs, Software Design, Back-end Architecture, Solution Architecture, Distributed Systems, Back-end, Orchestration, NoSQL, Relational Databases, Swagger, Technical Architecture, Web Servers, Cloud Deployment, System Architecture, Test-driven Development (TDD), Algorithms
Founder | CTO
2014 - 2017
OpenDSP
- Architected, developed, and deployed the initial version of the real-time bidding (RTB) system for bidding on advertising.
- Scaled the system, through architecture and deployment (AWS) to handle hundreds of thousands of qps.
- Led further feature development and operation of the system by managing several teams, including server, UI application, technical ad operations, ops, and DevOps.
- Worked on the company's acquisition by Social Reality.
Technologies: Java, Python, Groovy, Hadoop, NGINX, Lua, MySQL, Redis, HTTP REST, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), SQL, Linux, Amazon EC2, Git, APIs, JavaScript, CTO, AWS Certified Solution Architect, Amazon Web Services (AWS), AWS Cloud Architecture, Team Leadership, GitHub, Management, Architecture, DevOps, ETL, Cloud, Databases, Cron, CSV, REST APIs, JSON, Scalable Architecture, Technical Leadership, Software Design, Cloud Architecture, Back-end Architecture, IT, IT Project Management, Lambda Architecture, CI/CD Pipelines, Solution Architecture, Software Architecture, Java EE (Jakarta EE), Distributed Systems, Back-end, Orchestration, NoSQL, Amazon RDS, MySQL Performance Tuning, MySQL Server, Relational Databases, Technical Architecture, Web Servers, Cloud Deployment, System Architecture, Test-driven Development (TDD), Algorithms
CTO
2010 - 2015
Adotube
- Developed initial versions of the company's innovative video ad serving platform.
- Grew the technical team to 30+ people, assuring running ad serving and technical support to customers on a global scale.
- Led the technology aspect of a successful acquisition by Exponential Interactive (now VDX.tv).
Technologies: PHP, Python, MySQL, C, Business Intelligence (BI), HTTP REST, SQL, Linux, Amazon EC2, Redis, JavaScript, CTO, AWS Certified Solution Architect, Amazon Web Services (AWS), AWS Cloud Architecture, Team Leadership, Jira, GitHub, Management, Architecture, DevOps, ETL, Cloud, Databases, Cron, CSV, JSON, Scalable Architecture, Technical Leadership, Software Design, Cloud Architecture, Back-end Architecture, IT, IT Project Management, CI/CD Pipelines, Software Architecture, Distributed Systems, Back-end, NoSQL, Amazon RDS, MySQL Performance Tuning, MySQL Server, Relational Databases, Technical Architecture, Web Servers, Cloud Deployment, System Architecture, Test-driven Development (TDD), Algorithms
Founding Engineer | Team Lead
2006 - 2010
SnapLogic
- Developed initial version of the GUI, enabling users to create data pipelines.
- Introduced and maintained best engineering practices, such as CI/CD, code coverage, and more.
- Played key roles in shipping releases 0.1 to 3.0 as well as pre-and post-sales support in the company's initial stages.
- Took initiative in prototyping and demoing features I thought would benefit the product, including data pipeline debugger with the ability to step through data flow, and had them included in subsequent versions.
Technologies: Adobe Flex, Python, Java, Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, CouchDB, SQL, Linux, APIs, JavaScript, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Team Leadership, Jira, Management, Architecture, ETL, Cloud, Databases, CSV, REST APIs, JSON, Scalable Architecture, Technical Leadership, Software Design, Back-end Architecture, Software Architecture, Java EE (Jakarta EE), Distributed Systems, Back-end, Amazon RDS, MySQL Server, Python API, Relational Databases, Data Feeds, Technical Architecture, API Integration, Web Servers, Cloud Deployment, System Architecture, Salesforce API, Test-driven Development (TDD), Algorithms
Senior Software Engineer
2005 - 2006
P&H Solutions
- Worked on porting the Windows-based ASP and C++ web cash management system to the Jakarta EE platform.
- Developed and open-sourced tools for automating similar projects, for ASP and JSP and VBScript and Java conversions.
- Created, working closely with the chief architect, release engineering processes for these new products.
- Developed a reproducible development environment to allow convenient IDE features to work with production-like deployment, thus improving engineers' experience.
Technologies: Jakarta Server Pages (JSP), Active Server Pages (ASP), Java, C++, Visual Basic, Oracle, SQL, Linux, Databases, Software Design, Java EE (Jakarta EE), Relational Databases
Experience
Voitta AI
https://github.com/voitta-ai/Voitta AI builds practical AI tooling for scientific and engineering work. Its platform combines large language model (LLM)-assisted workflows with self-hosted retrieval over code, documents, and team knowledge sources such as Git repositories, Google Drive, Jira, and Confluence, exposed through MCP and a web UI. I contributed to the broader platform and toolset around retrieval, connectors, AI-agent integration, and complementary code-intelligence approaches such as structural understanding and codebase compression/summarization.
OpenDSP—Real-time Bidding and Data Management as PaaS
https://blog.debedb.com/tag/opendsp/A fully hosted implementation of an advertising demand-side platform (DSP) capable of doing real-time bidding (RTB) and including a data management platform (DMP) and allowing marketers wishing to access the RTB traffic to do so by utilizing it as a platform.
Without the need to maintain the infrastructure to handle the traffic, this architecture allows users to load the user models into DMP and plugin pricing formulas, as Groovy scripts, and we take care of the rest.
Some details about it are available at the following link: https://blog.debedb.com/tag/opendsp/
Acquired by Social Reality: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/srax-acquires-opendsps-demand-side-platform-300528934.html
Without the need to maintain the infrastructure to handle the traffic, this architecture allows users to load the user models into DMP and plugin pricing formulas, as Groovy scripts, and we take care of the rest.
Some details about it are available at the following link: https://blog.debedb.com/tag/opendsp/
Acquired by Social Reality: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/srax-acquires-opendsps-demand-side-platform-300528934.html
Romana Project
https://github.com/romanaRomana is a network and security automation solution for cloud-native applications; it automates the creation of isolated cloud-native networks. Romana secures applications with a distributed firewall that applies access control policies consistently across all endpoints (pods or VMs) and services wherever they run.
Through Romana's topology-aware IPAM, endpoints receive natively routable addresses: no overlays or tunnels are required, increasing performance and providing operational simplicity. Because IP addresses are assigned with network topology in mind, routes within the network are highly aggregated, reducing the impact on networking hardware and allowing more secure configurations. It supports Kubernetes and OpenStack clusters, on-premise or on AWS.
Through Romana's topology-aware IPAM, endpoints receive natively routable addresses: no overlays or tunnels are required, increasing performance and providing operational simplicity. Because IP addresses are assigned with network topology in mind, routes within the network are highly aggregated, reducing the impact on networking hardware and allowing more secure configurations. It supports Kubernetes and OpenStack clusters, on-premise or on AWS.
Wildboard
The project is about a community cork bulletin board: a friend seen in churches, coffee shops, libraries, and more, reinvented for the modern age. It includes a touch screen and mobile capability while retaining the hyper-local ethos; ad tech for the community.
Dbdb | Cross-Language Debugging Framework
An Eclipse plugin allows for single stack debugging of multi-language programs; for example, call an Oracle stored procedure from Java and step in the debugger from Java into PL/SQL. This action uses JPDA, Java Platform Debugger Architecture.
Education
1992 - 1996
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Cambridge, MA, USA
Certifications
JULY 2013 - JULY 2015
Certified Scrum Master
Scrum Alliance
JUNE 2013 - JUNE 2016
AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate
AWS
APRIL 2003 - PRESENT
Sun Certified Java Developer
Sun Microsystems
Skills
Libraries/APIs
REST APIs, Python API, Asyncio, Apache Lucene, Node.js, Vue 2, Vue, Google Ads API, Facebook SDK, Stripe API, Stripe, Salesforce API
Tools
GitHub, Cron, MySQL Performance Tuning, Eclipse RCP, Git, Jira, LaunchDarkly, Apache Airflow, NGINX, Amazon Athena, AWS Glue, Amazon Elastic MapReduce (EMR), Postman, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Amazon EKS, AWS Fargate, NPM, Facebook Ads SDK, Amazon Cognito, RabbitMQ, Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR), Docker Compose, AWS IAM, Terraform, Claude
Languages
Java, Python, SQL, Go, PHP, Scala, Lua, Groovy, C, Active Server Pages (ASP), C++, Visual Basic, Python 3, JavaScript, TypeScript
Paradigms
ETL, Back-end Architecture, Test-driven Development (TDD), Lambda Architecture, DevOps, Microservices, Scrum, Agile, Business Intelligence (BI), Management, REST, Dependency Injection, Model Context Protocol (MCP)
Platforms
Amazon EC2, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Java EE (Jakarta EE), Linux, Algolia, Kubernetes, Docker, Apache Pig, AWS Lambda, OpenStack, Oracle, Eclipse, Android, Heroku, Google Ads, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Firebase, AWS ALB
Storage
MySQL, Databases, JSON, NoSQL, Relational Databases, Cloud Deployment, PostgreSQL, MySQL Server, Vertica, Redis, Amazon DynamoDB, CouchDB, Redshift, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), MongoDB, Google Cloud Datastore, Google Cloud, Cloud Firestore, CockroachDB, IBM Db2
Frameworks
Spring, Swagger, Spark, Hadoop, Adobe Flex, Jakarta Server Pages (JSP), Spring Boot, PhoneGap, Next.js, OAuth 2, Flask, NestJS, Chainlit, DSPy
Other
Software Engineering, HTTP REST, APIs, AWS Cloud Architecture, Architecture, Cloud, CSV, Scalable Architecture, Software Design, Cloud Architecture, Software Architecture, Distributed Systems, Back-end, Orchestration, Data Feeds, Technical Architecture, API Integration, Web Servers, System Architecture, CTO, AWS Certified Solution Architect, Team Leadership, Technical Leadership, CI/CD Pipelines, Amazon RDS, Algorithms, Computer Science, Scrum Master, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Streaming Data, Data Engineering, Windows 10, Advertising, Windows 10 Touchscreen, Touchscreens, Digital Kiosks, Cordova, Facebook Ads, Advertising Technology (Adtech), FastAPI, IT, IT Project Management, Lambda Functions, Solution Architecture, OAuth, Product Management, Payment APIs, OpenAI, LangChain, Anthropic, Agentic AI, AI Agents, Large Language Models (LLMs)
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