Eric Neilsen

COO / CTO | Scaling Technology Organizations & GTM Strategy | Led $145M Exit, $9B Platform, and Global AWS Launches

Lehi, Utah, United States

About

Engineering and operations executive with 20+ years of experience building and scaling platforms, developer ecosystems, and infrastructure across global enterprises and high-growth startups. I’ve led engineering, product, and GTM teams at Amazon, AWS, Gemini, Adobe Workfront, and Jolt — driving transformations that increased developer velocity, reduced delivery cycles, and grew multi-billion-dollar businesses. My focus blends technology and strategy: building systems that scale and cultures that sustain innovation. At Jolt, I helped lead the company through a $145.5M acquisition by Digi International, launching new IoT hardware platforms and doubling inbound revenue through operational excellence. Before that, I scaled Gemini’s trading and wealth platforms to support $9B in annual volume and 10x throughput. At AWS, I led the launch of CloudFront in China and the creation of Snowball Edge — efforts recognized at the S-Team level by Andy Jassy. I’m passionate about developer experience, automation, and reliability — embedding AI into engineering operations to drive measurable gains in productivity and uptime. I thrive at the intersection of strategy, engineering, and execution — turning technical capabilities into business impact. Specialties: Platform Engineering | Developer Experience | Cloud & Edge Computing | AI/ML Integration | Organizational Design | P&L Ownership | GTM Strategy | Infrastructure at Scale | Executive Leadership

Experience

  • Chief Operating Officer at Jolt
    2024 - Present · 2 yrs 6 mos

    Partnered with the executive team and investors to lead Jolt’s $145.5M acquisition by Digi International. Focused on scaling operations and engineering excellence, delivering a 200% increase in inbound revenue and launching new IoT hardware platforms (JPS XL, XXL, and 3XL). Guided integration planning, improved cross-departmental velocity, and aligned product strategy with an enterprise vision

  • General Manager of Marketplace | Gemini's Exchange at Gemini
    Nov 2022 - 2024 · 1 yr 3 mos

    Led a 95+ person global organization spanning engineering, product, business development, and operations, overseeing $9B in trading volume and a $25M budget. Drove modernization of Gemini’s trading architecture — scaling throughput 10x and launching international exchange and wealth products that expanded global market share. Established shared developer platforms and AI-driven customer support systems that improved CSAT by 10% without increasing headcount. Partnered with executives on go-to-market strategy and helped position Gemini for its next phase of institutional and retail growth.

  • Chief Technology Officer at Jolt
    Apr 2019 - Nov 2022 · 3 yrs 8 mos

    Built and scaled Jolt’s engineering organization from the ground up — leading developers, product, UX, QA, and SRE across onshore and offshore teams. Introduced CI/CD automation and a hybrid Agile model that cut delivery cycles by 40% and improved developer velocity by 20%. Established an internal developer platform adopted by every engineering team, and embedded AI into monitoring systems to reduce alert noise by 30%. Improved system uptime to 99.99%, achieved SOC2 and GDPR compliance, and set the cultural foundation that positioned Jolt for acquisition and long-term growth.

  • Amazon Web Services (Seattle, Washington, United States)
    • Head of Engineering, CloudFront in China
      Aug 2015 - Apr 2019 · 3 yrs 9 mos

      Directed the launch and growth of AWS CloudFront in China — a strategic S-Team initiative sponsored by Andy Jassy. Built and led a distributed engineering team to deliver edge network scaling to 15M requests per second, unlocking over $1B in AWS sales in China. Owned the P&L and long-term platform roadmap, shaping how AWS approached compliance, infrastructure, and performance at a global scale.

    • Engineering Leader - AWS Snowball
      Aug 2015 - Jul 2017 · 2 yrs

      Co-created and launched AWS Snowball Edge, enabling exabyte-scale edge computing and transforming how enterprises process data outside the cloud. Partnered with Netflix and other major customers to accelerate distributed content creation (400 → 1000+ shows/year). Filed 9 patents in cloud and edge innovation.

  • Software Development Manager - Amazon Devices at Amazon
    Apr 2013 - Aug 2015 · 2 yrs 5 mos

    Built internal and external developer platforms supporting over 100M Amazon devices across Android, iOS, and FireOS. Led development of SDKs, APIs, and analytics pipelines that streamlined updates and backups, while introducing “WiFi Locker,” a feature that simplified secure onboarding for millions of users worldwide.