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Brian acton

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Brian Acton is an experienced technology executive who co-founded WhatsApp. He has over 20 years of experience leading engineering teams at major companies. Acton held several senior engineering roles at Yahoo from 1999-2009 where he oversaw large teams and launched new products. He is currently the Vice President of Engineering at WhatsApp, which he co-founded in 2009 to revolutionize mobile communications.

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Brian Acton Brian Acton Summary Revolutionize the world with innovative technology products and services. Specialties -- Business: Large Program Leadership, Technology Mergers and Acquisitions, organizational budgeting and allocation, -- Systems: Large Scale Systems Design, Fault Tolerance and Redundancy, Budgeting and cost analysis. -- Operating Systems: FreeBSD, Linux, Windows, MacOS X -- Languages: C, C++, Perl, PHP, Erlang, Java, Python, JavaScript, ActionScript -- Databases: Oracle, MySQL Experience Brian Acton at WhatsApp Inc. November 2009 - Present (4 years 1 month) Revolutionizing Mobile Communications Vice President of Engineering at Yahoo! Inc. 2006 - October 2007 (1 year) Led the Advertiser and Publisher Applications Group, an organization of 300+ software engineers building frontend web applications, backend infrastructure systems, and internal tools and reports all to provide the best experience for advertisers and publishers online. Championed the use of a rapid iteration framework for fast development and release to production. Launched an innovative mobile application supporting mobile keyword advertising. Senior Director of Engineering - Yahoo Search Marketing at Yahoo! 2005 - 2006 (1 year) Acted as Chief Architect for Project Panama, an ambitious project to rewrite the entire Yahoo Search Marketing system. Led design reviews and implementation discussions across 35 functional and organizational areas across the project. Shifted responsibility to Chief Program Manager for the remainder of the project. Led a virtual team spanning over 500 engineers worldwide and led the operating team in daily decision making to keep the project on schedule with minimal feature and quality tradeoffs. Senior Director of Engineering - Yahoo Marketplace at Yahoo! Page1
2004 - 2005 (1 year) Led engineering, quality assurance, and operations for a portfolio of websites including Yahoo Shopping, Travel, Maps, Local, Real Estate, Auctions, Classifieds, Yellow Pages, Tickets, and Pets. Launched new product releases of Yahoo Maps including interactive features, Yahoo Travel including trip planning and research features, Yahoo Shopping including social networking and popular product features. Director of Engineering - Yahoo Shopping, Yahoo Travel at Yahoo! 2003 - 2004 (1 year) Led engineering, quality assurance, and operations for Yahoo Shopping and Travel. Conducted due diligence, acquisition, and integration of Farechase, a travel fare comparison engine. Developed and recruited talent in India for Yahoo Shopping. Director of Engineering - Yahoo Shopping at Yahoo! 2002 - 2002 (less than a year) Led engineering, quality assurance, and operations for Yahoo Shopping. Drove schedule and timing of the Shopping 4.0 launch which included user interface improvements and a substantial business model migration. Hired and mentored both engineers and engineering managers. Principal Software Engineer - Yahoo Shopping at Yahoo! 1999 - 2002 (3 years) Led the Books, Music, and Video components of Yahoo Shopping. Tasks included operation and engineering for both frontend and backend components. Heavy data processing of input datasets as well as substantial design and implementation of frontend features and functionality. Senior Software Engineer - Yahoo Operations at Yahoo! 1998 - 1999 (1 year) Responsible for 24x7 operation of Yahoo websites and backend systems. Tasks included managing triage, diagnosis, and relief of troubled systems. Identified and resolved points of failure in overall systems architecture. Conducted long term planning of several systems colocations across North America. Managed domain name operations and system operations for production systems. Software Engineer - Yahoo Advertising and Data Processing at Yahoo! 1996 - 1998 (2 years) Prototyped and built several iterations of the Yahoo Advertising system. The present day advertising system has survived for over 10 years at Yahoo and is a critical part of Yahoo infrastructure and intellectual property. Also built and architected Yahoo's first data processing platform for website traffic evaluation and metrics. The data processing system survived for over 10 years and grew in production volume from 4M events per day to over 5B events per day. Software Engineer at Apple Computer August 1994 - February 1996 (1 year 7 months) Ported components of the PowerTalk and PowerShare software from the Motorola 68k architecture to the IBM PowerPC architecture. Coded functionality directly for the Powertalk 1.5 release including mailbox API Page2
functionality. Developed initial prototypes of internet interoperability with the PowerTalk and PowerShare. QA Engineer at Adobe May 1994 - August 1994 (4 months) Developed test plans, test suites, and test automation for Adobe Acrobat 2.0 release. Primary coverage areas included Macintosh and AppleScript functionality. Hardware Test Engineer at Apple May 1993 - May 1994 (1 year 1 month) Wrote software stress and accuracy tests for prototype and eventual production hardware of first generation Power Macintoshes. Test software was utilized during the manufacturing process to identify troubled hardware. Hardware coverage areas included graphics and video cards, serial and i/o controllers, memory, and sound controllers. Systems Administrator at Rockwell International May 1992 - May 1993 (1 year 1 month) Provide system recovery and technical support for Macintosh System 6 and System 7 users. Troubleshoot and repair 10Base2 ethernet network. Skills & Expertise Perl Erlang PHP Oracle MySQL Python Java C C++ FreeBSD Linux Android Apache Emacs Education Stanford University BS, Computer Science, 1991 - 1994 Activities and Societies: Residential Computing Consultant University of Pennsylvania Economics, Computer Science, 1990 - 1991 Activities and Societies: Benjamin Franklin Scholars Program Page3
University of Central Florida Engineering, 1988 - 1988 Activities and Societies: Summer Scholars Program Honors and Awards Yahoo Superstar 2007 Interests Ultimate Frisbee Skiing Snowboarding Movie Watching Reading Page4
Brian Acton Brian Acton Contact Brian on LinkedIn Page5

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Brian acton

  • 1. Brian Acton Brian Acton Summary Revolutionize the world with innovative technology products and services. Specialties -- Business: Large Program Leadership, Technology Mergers and Acquisitions, organizational budgeting and allocation, -- Systems: Large Scale Systems Design, Fault Tolerance and Redundancy, Budgeting and cost analysis. -- Operating Systems: FreeBSD, Linux, Windows, MacOS X -- Languages: C, C++, Perl, PHP, Erlang, Java, Python, JavaScript, ActionScript -- Databases: Oracle, MySQL Experience Brian Acton at WhatsApp Inc. November 2009 - Present (4 years 1 month) Revolutionizing Mobile Communications Vice President of Engineering at Yahoo! Inc. 2006 - October 2007 (1 year) Led the Advertiser and Publisher Applications Group, an organization of 300+ software engineers building frontend web applications, backend infrastructure systems, and internal tools and reports all to provide the best experience for advertisers and publishers online. Championed the use of a rapid iteration framework for fast development and release to production. Launched an innovative mobile application supporting mobile keyword advertising. Senior Director of Engineering - Yahoo Search Marketing at Yahoo! 2005 - 2006 (1 year) Acted as Chief Architect for Project Panama, an ambitious project to rewrite the entire Yahoo Search Marketing system. Led design reviews and implementation discussions across 35 functional and organizational areas across the project. Shifted responsibility to Chief Program Manager for the remainder of the project. Led a virtual team spanning over 500 engineers worldwide and led the operating team in daily decision making to keep the project on schedule with minimal feature and quality tradeoffs. Senior Director of Engineering - Yahoo Marketplace at Yahoo! Page1
  • 2. 2004 - 2005 (1 year) Led engineering, quality assurance, and operations for a portfolio of websites including Yahoo Shopping, Travel, Maps, Local, Real Estate, Auctions, Classifieds, Yellow Pages, Tickets, and Pets. Launched new product releases of Yahoo Maps including interactive features, Yahoo Travel including trip planning and research features, Yahoo Shopping including social networking and popular product features. Director of Engineering - Yahoo Shopping, Yahoo Travel at Yahoo! 2003 - 2004 (1 year) Led engineering, quality assurance, and operations for Yahoo Shopping and Travel. Conducted due diligence, acquisition, and integration of Farechase, a travel fare comparison engine. Developed and recruited talent in India for Yahoo Shopping. Director of Engineering - Yahoo Shopping at Yahoo! 2002 - 2002 (less than a year) Led engineering, quality assurance, and operations for Yahoo Shopping. Drove schedule and timing of the Shopping 4.0 launch which included user interface improvements and a substantial business model migration. Hired and mentored both engineers and engineering managers. Principal Software Engineer - Yahoo Shopping at Yahoo! 1999 - 2002 (3 years) Led the Books, Music, and Video components of Yahoo Shopping. Tasks included operation and engineering for both frontend and backend components. Heavy data processing of input datasets as well as substantial design and implementation of frontend features and functionality. Senior Software Engineer - Yahoo Operations at Yahoo! 1998 - 1999 (1 year) Responsible for 24x7 operation of Yahoo websites and backend systems. Tasks included managing triage, diagnosis, and relief of troubled systems. Identified and resolved points of failure in overall systems architecture. Conducted long term planning of several systems colocations across North America. Managed domain name operations and system operations for production systems. Software Engineer - Yahoo Advertising and Data Processing at Yahoo! 1996 - 1998 (2 years) Prototyped and built several iterations of the Yahoo Advertising system. The present day advertising system has survived for over 10 years at Yahoo and is a critical part of Yahoo infrastructure and intellectual property. Also built and architected Yahoo's first data processing platform for website traffic evaluation and metrics. The data processing system survived for over 10 years and grew in production volume from 4M events per day to over 5B events per day. Software Engineer at Apple Computer August 1994 - February 1996 (1 year 7 months) Ported components of the PowerTalk and PowerShare software from the Motorola 68k architecture to the IBM PowerPC architecture. Coded functionality directly for the Powertalk 1.5 release including mailbox API Page2
  • 3. functionality. Developed initial prototypes of internet interoperability with the PowerTalk and PowerShare. QA Engineer at Adobe May 1994 - August 1994 (4 months) Developed test plans, test suites, and test automation for Adobe Acrobat 2.0 release. Primary coverage areas included Macintosh and AppleScript functionality. Hardware Test Engineer at Apple May 1993 - May 1994 (1 year 1 month) Wrote software stress and accuracy tests for prototype and eventual production hardware of first generation Power Macintoshes. Test software was utilized during the manufacturing process to identify troubled hardware. Hardware coverage areas included graphics and video cards, serial and i/o controllers, memory, and sound controllers. Systems Administrator at Rockwell International May 1992 - May 1993 (1 year 1 month) Provide system recovery and technical support for Macintosh System 6 and System 7 users. Troubleshoot and repair 10Base2 ethernet network. Skills & Expertise Perl Erlang PHP Oracle MySQL Python Java C C++ FreeBSD Linux Android Apache Emacs Education Stanford University BS, Computer Science, 1991 - 1994 Activities and Societies: Residential Computing Consultant University of Pennsylvania Economics, Computer Science, 1990 - 1991 Activities and Societies: Benjamin Franklin Scholars Program Page3
  • 4. University of Central Florida Engineering, 1988 - 1988 Activities and Societies: Summer Scholars Program Honors and Awards Yahoo Superstar 2007 Interests Ultimate Frisbee Skiing Snowboarding Movie Watching Reading Page4
  • 5. Brian Acton Brian Acton Contact Brian on LinkedIn Page5