David Thomas

VP of Engineering at Trustwave

Austin, Texas Area

Current
Past
  • VP of Products at Mirage Networks, Acquired by Trustwave
  • VP of Engineering at NovusEdge
  • Senior Director, Engineering at Vignette Corporation
Education
  • Syracuse University
Connections
282 connections
Industry
Computer Software
Websites

David Thomas’s Summary

Executive-level Engineering leader with 22 years of experience in all aspects of product R&D. Blend of excellent organizational and communication skills with technical analysis capabilities. Team experience ranges from multi-function large-scale team-oriented software engineering (100+ people) to small, SWAT team approach (1-4 people). Experience with pre-IPO fund raising, M&A due dilligence, outsourcing, and board-level management.

David Thomas’s Specialties:

Product and technology focus areas: Security, networking, video (conferencing, streaming, codecs, and surveillance), multimedia, network management, operating systems, e-commerce, online marketing, marketing analytics, ECM/web content management, open source, web development, appliance and embedded hardware development

Organizational areas: Engineering, development, customer support, manufacturing, product management, team building, business process tuning, outsourcing, project management.


David Thomas’s Experience

  • VP of Engineering

    Trustwave

    (Privately Held; Computer & Network Security industry)

    February 2009Present (10 months)

    Responsible for managed security platforms product development, including Unified Thread Management (UTM), Intrusion Detection (IDS), Intrusion Prevention (IPS), Anti-Virus (AV), Network Access Control (NAC), and Vulnerability Scanning.

  • VP of Products

    Mirage Networks, Acquired by Trustwave

    (Computer & Network Security industry)

    February 2007February 2009 (2 years 1 month)

    • Responsible for R&D, engineering, and operational functions including product development, architecture, quality assurance, customer support, technical writing, and manufacturing. 24 person team.
    • Accomplished significant revamping of corporate and R&D processes, recruiting of key team members, new product and feature introduction, and roadmap development
    • Reduced expenses 30% while increasing product revenue 50%
    • Hands-on management involved in corporate strategy, product roadmap, multiple funding rounds, M&A due diligence, and customer, analyst, press/media, and board interaction
    • Software performance improvements of over 3x, distributed systems scalability increased 4x, network protection increased by 8x
    • Appliance COGs reduced on average 30%, performance per watt improvement of 700%, footprint reduced 50%, and data center cooling needs reduced by 25%

  • VP of Engineering

    NovusEdge

    (Computer Software industry)

    November 2004February 2007 (2 years 4 months)

    NovusEdge developed products for web-based management and control of intelligent facility systems, including Card Access (security), Video Surveillance, and Building Automation.
    • 9/05-2/07: VP Engineering. Company-wide responsibility for all product development, customer support, quality assurance, program management, architecture, technical writing, operations (manufacturing, production, shipping and receiving), intellectual property, and technical partner relationships. Products: EdgeAccess, EdgeProtect, EdgeView, and EdgeManager. Executive-level strategic leadership on topics of competition, partnership, and product roadmap. Shaped the team through development of organizational structure, position descriptions, and recruitment of team members. Built foundation engineering processes and metrics for continuous improvement and board-level team performance visibility. Managed organization budget across B and C funding rounds. 21 person team.
    • 11/04-9/05: Director of Development

  • Senior Director, Engineering

    Vignette Corporation

    (Public Company; 501-1000 employees; vign; Computer Software industry)

    January 1999November 2004 (5 years 11 months)

    Responsible for Vignette Content, Business Integration, Dialog, and Messenger products. Leader of a large team (100+) including onshore and offshore development, architecture, quality assurance, technical publications, program management, and human factors teams in Austin, Texas, Hyderabad, India, and Colombo, Sri Lanka.

    · 7/03 – 7/04: Director of Software Engineering
    · Owner of the Vignette Global Engineering Process.
    · 1/03 - 7/03: Software Development Manager, Content Suite Products.
    · 10/01-12/02: Principal Architect.
    · 12/00-9/01: Staff Architect, Commerce Applications Division
    · 1/99-11/00: Staff Developer, Architect, and Team Lead.

  • Senior Software Engineer

    VTEL Corporation

    (Public Company; 201-500 employees; VTEL; Telecommunications industry)

    May 1997January 1999 (1 year 9 months)

    VTEL, now Forgent, is a pioneer of the video conferencing industry.
    • Technical leader of videoconferencing applications group (7 people). System architect, API designer and lead programmer for software on the VTEL Galaxy product line.

  • Director of Programming

    SicolaMartin

    (Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Media Production industry)

    June 1995May 1997 (2 years )

    · Manager of software development, quality assurance, and IT departments (7 people). System architect, technical consultant and lead programmer. Responsible and accountable for all technical aspects of interactive multimedia product development for electronic marketing communications.

  • Staff Software Engineer

    IBM Corporation

    (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; IBM; Computer Software industry)

    June 1987June 1995 (8 years 1 month)

    Networking Systems, IBM Microelectronics, and Power Personal Systems Divisions.
    * Team lead, system architect, designer, and programmer on a wide variety of multimedia and network management subsystems and application products on Windows NT, OS/2, and AIX operating systems. Received two IBM Technical Excellence Awards.


David Thomas’s Education

  • Syracuse University

    BFA with Honors , Computer Graphics , 19831987

    Summa Cum Laude, Valedictorian

    Activities and Societies:
    Tau Theta Upsilon, Leadership Honorary fraternity

Additional Information

David Thomas’s Websites:

David Thomas’s Interests:

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, submission grappling, and wrestling. Owner and head coach at Austin Jiu-Jitsu. Founded in 2003, Austin Jiu-Jitsu is a ground fighting gym with approximately 50 students. Black belts in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, JKA Shotokan Karate, and AAKF Karate Author and publisher of http://bjjtech.com, the Internet's most comprehensive single-source repository of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Submission Grappling techniques and videos. Hosted, software-as-a-service (SaaS), product development, including the 1TeamWeb.com site for managing team-oriented activities (e.g. sports teams, clubs, paid memberships). Assistant coach for youth wrestling.

David Thomas’s Groups:

Agile Austin Executives

  •    Vignette Alumni Association
  •    The Greater IBM Connection: IBM's alumni program for past and present IBM employees
  •    AgileAustin
  •    Agilistas
  •    Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
  •    Agile
  •    Vignette Pre-IPO Alumni

David Thomas’s Honors:

Patents

· “Method and System for Optimizing Resources for Cache Management” (App No. 34712 filed on 12/28/2001, Serial No. 10/033,242, awarded 2/3/2004, US 6,687,793)

· “System and method for the synchronization of a file in a cache” (App No. 10033242 filed on 12/28/2001, awarded 6/13/2006, US 7,062,515)

· “Token Cache Access Control System” (filed 7/11/2006, Non-provisional App No. 11/456,754)


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