United States
As advisor to the CEO, I am focused on driving quality through the core systems we employ at Microsoft. We are in the midst of the greatest transformation of our era, how we work with AI and the entirely new Production Function it offers us. It's the unprecedented opportunity of a lifetime to get things right for the decades to come. The road ahead may feel daunting, but in my over four decades in the tech industry—from developing space shuttle software to the birth of Amazon Web Services’ decentralized engineering system—I’ve found these kinds of problems to be the most exciting to work on. With deep curiosity, continuous learning, and an emphasis on rapid problem solving, I know bold innovation is possible.
Upon the acquisition of Server Technologies in 1998, Charlie became a Director of Software Engineering at Amazon.com. Within a few months, he was tasked to lead a new organization that combined Systems Engineering, Database Engineering, Network, and Datacenter into a single Infrastructure organization. Charlie was promoted to Vice President in 1999. He was responsible for supplying Amazon's decentralized software teams with the technology infrastructure common to all. He was tasked with "Get Big Fast" during the most rapid growth days of Amazon's history. In 2003 he led the "transaction platform" which included all shared services that supported both Amazon's own retail business and third-party merchants, who both had their own websites (Target.com, etc.) and sold on Amazon's website. These services included Item Catalog, Price, Availability, Order Management, Promotions, Payment, and Customer. After leaving the infrastructure organization to assume the AWS services leadership role in 2006, Charlie grew the AWS business from initial S3 and EC2 offerings to, what is today, the broadest cloud services offering in the world with a trailing twelve-month revenue run-rate in excess of $50B US. He led the general management of AWS services, including product definition, pricing, P&Ls, software development, and service operations.
Startup building an online marketplace for manufacturers and retailers. Achieved a $3M run-rate operating software-as-a-service for a number of e-commerce companies.
Joined in 1989 as a C-programmer. Grew to become Director in Oracle's Professional Services organization responsible for working with some of Oracle's largest customers to deliver database-based solutions involving both partner applications and customer-developed software.
Flight Interface Engineers were project engineers who each owned individual space shuttle flight's payload integration. "Payloads" are deployable satellites and experiments as well as fixed, non-deployable structures in the space shuttle payload bay and aft flight deck that change from mission to mission. The flight interface engineer was responsible for delivering mechanical and electrical tie-in to the space shuttle for all payloads on the mission as well as "compatibility" - a wide range of assessments including dynamic loads, thermal, interference studies, weight and center-of-gravity, electromagnetic interference, and power consumption. My first mission was STS-61B (23rd launch, Atlantis orbiter). I had the privilege to work the Mission Evaluation Room in Houston (a few buildings over from Mission Control). We deployed 3 satellites, including SatcomK2, the first use of the larger PAMD2 booster. The most interesting payload was EASE/ACCESS, a precursor experiment to the International Space Station in which we filmed astronauts' ability to assemble a structure in space.