Jesse Robbins

Current

• CEO & Co-founder at Opscode
• Co-Chair, Velocity Web Performance & Operations Conference at O'Reilly & Associates
• Adviser at Swivel.com

• Contributor at O'Reilly Radar
• Firefighter / EMT at Black Rock City Volunteer Fire Department

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Past

• Organizer at BarCampBank
• Availability Program Manager at Amazon.com
• Task Force Leader at World Shelters Task Force 1

• Senior Fire Cadet Lieutenant at Seattle Fire Department
• Senior Network Engineer at Angami Systems
• Firefighter/EMT (Intern) at Palo Alto Fire Department
• Systems & Network Engineer at Net Daemons Associates
• Systems Administrator at BLS Consulting

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5 more...

Recommended

14 people have recommended Jesse

Connections

500+ connections

Industry

Internet

Jesse Robbins’s Summary

Jesse Robbins is CEO of Opscode and a recognized expert in Infrastructure, Web Operations, and Emergency Management.

He serves as co-chair of the Velocity Web Performance & Operations Conference and contributes to the O’Reilly Radar. Prior to co-founding Opscode, he worked at Amazon.com with a title of “Master of Disaster” where he was responsible for Website Availability for every property bearing the Amazon brand.

Robbins is a volunteer Firefighter/EMT and Emergency Manager, and led a task force deployed in Operation Hurricane Katrina. His experiences in the fire service profoundly influence his efforts in technology, and he strives to distill his knowledge from these two worlds and apply it in service of both.

Jesse Robbins’s Specialties:

Infrastructure, IT Operations, Distributed Systems, SOA, Web services, Business Continuity, Disaster Recovery, Firefighting, Emergency Medicine, Hazardous Materials, Technical Rescue

Jesse Robbins’s Experience

• CEO & Co-founder

  Opscode

  (Privately Held; Internet industry)

  July 2008 — Present (1 year 5 months)

  Opscode is Infrastructure Automation for the Masses.
  
  We've just launched Chef, an open source systems integration framework, that brings the benefits of configuration management to your entire infrastructure.

• Co-Chair, Velocity Web Performance & Operations Conference

  O'Reilly & Associates

  (Privately Held; Publishing industry)

  September 2007 — Present (2 years 3 months)

  Velocity is the O'Reilly conference for people building at Internet scale. Velocity focuses on websites and services that are fast, scalable, efficient, and reliable.

• Adviser

  Swivel.com

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Research industry)

  June 2007 — Present (2 years 6 months)

  Swivel's mission is to make data useful. I'm helping Swivel develop the technology required to fulfill that mission.

• Contributor

  O'Reilly Radar

  (Internet industry)

  June 2007 — Present (2 years 6 months)

  I speak and write about technology, operations, emergency management, and making the world a better place. I provide insight, research, and connections for O'Reilly Radar.
  
  I have been honored to speak about technology changes and how they affect policy at the following:
  * OECD Economic Forum in Istanbul 2007
  * Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy - "Computing in the Cloud" workshop
  * Stanford Center for International Security - Department of Homeland Security "NetTech" summit
  * National Association of Emergency Managers (NEMA) Annual Meeting (2008)
  
  I have also spoken about Web Operations & Emergency Management at numerous conferences:
  * Web2.0 Expo 2007
  * ETech 2008
  * Where2.0 2008

• Firefighter / EMT

  Black Rock City Volunteer Fire Department

  (Public Safety industry)

  June 2004 — Present (5 years 6 months)

  The Emergency Services Department (ESD) coordinates all professional emergency resources on the playa 24 hours a day, including requests to outside agencies via the state-of-the-art emergency dispatch center. ESD responsibilities cover all responses in the field to reports of fire, medical, or psychiatric emergencies. ESD's highly-trained professionals volunteer long hours to ensure the safety and well being of Black Rock City.

• Organizer

  BarCampBank

  (Non-Profit Organization Management industry)

  October 2006 — July 2008 (1 year 10 months)

  BarCampBank is a series of unconference events dedicated to "fostering innovation and the creation of new business models in banking and finance".
  
  I organized the first BarCampBank in the US along with Ben Black. It was an incredible experience, and has since sparked a movement.

• Availability Program Manager

  Amazon.com

  (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; AMZN; Internet industry)

  August 2001 — October 2006 (5 years 3 months)

  Led and participated in numerous projects and programs to improve availability for all websites bearing the Amazon brand. Highlights included the following:
  
  GameDay Program - Created an iterative program to improve company-wide availability through fault-injection into Amazon’s most critical systems.
  
  ScaleDay Program – Created a successful program to improve Amazon’s fourth-quarter availability through periodic stress testing on front-end websites.
  
  Managed team of systems engineers and network engineers as part of the 24x7 operations center operating the Amazon.com platform. Responsibilities include day-to-day supervision, project management, employee development, reviews, compensation, and hiring.
  
  Wrote and contributed to numerous policy and best-practices documents on a variety of subjects including systems architecture, distributed systems, fault-tolerant design, security, legal compliance, and disaster recovery.

• Task Force Leader

  World Shelters Task Force 1

  (Non-Profit; 11-50 employees; Non-Profit Organization Management industry)

  September 2005 — December 2005 (4 months)

  Organized and led a 26 person task force as to assist underserved communities in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. Sixty- five shelters were set up, some taken down and moved, resulting in 80 deployed shelters.

• Senior Fire Cadet Lieutenant

  Seattle Fire Department

  (Public Safety industry)

  2002 — 2005 (3 years )

• Senior Network Engineer

  Angami Systems

  (Human Resources industry)

  2000 — 2001 (1 year )

  Provided senior level engineering and support for a high-end heterogeneous UNIX network. Primarily responsible for short term projects such as script writing, application installation, system design and construction, application and OS upgrades, and documentation.

• Firefighter/EMT (Intern)

  Palo Alto Fire Department

  (Government Agency; 51-200 employees; Public Safety industry)

  December 1999 — June 2001 (1 year 7 months)

  Completed California Firefighter-I certification while serving the City of Palo Alto working one 24 hour shift per week. Duties included responding to fire and medical calls, routine station and equipment maintenance, public education and training, company drills, inspections, housekeeping duties and other tasks.

• Systems & Network Engineer

  Net Daemons Associates

  (Information Technology and Services industry)

  1998 — 2000 (2 years )

  (Interliant acquired Net Daemons Associates)
  
  Provided senior level consulting and support for many clients located throughout the country. Clients and projects included Apple Computer, Lawrence Berkeley Labs, Mother Jones Magazine, Palo Alto Internet Exchange (PAIX), Ricoh Silicon Valley, and many others.

• Systems Administrator

  BLS Consulting

  (Internet industry)

  1997 — 1998 (1 year )

  Worked for multiple clients building and maintaining corporate LAN/WAN systems both domestically and internationally. Primary assignment was to deploy secure international network. Acted as on-site liaison with governmental agencies in Panama and Jamaica and helped coordinate the construction of data centers in New York and Miami. Managed servers and telco systems for clients at several co-location facilities in the bay area.

Additional Information

Jesse Robbins’s Groups:

International Association of Emergency Managers, IAEM, Washington State Firefighter Association

•    DFJ Network
•    World Shelters Task Force One
•    DFJ CEO Network
•    Amazing Amazonians
•    BarCampBank
•    Amazon.Com
•    Black Rock City Emergency Services
•    Professionals in Emergency Management
•    Foo Camp 2008
•    Cloud Connect - Cloud Computing Conference
•    O'Reilly Velocity Conference

Jesse Robbins’s Honors:

Selected Talks:
Web2.0 Summit, November 2008: “High Order Bit - Serving Those that Serve Others”
National Emergency Management Association, September 2008: “Crisis Informatics”
Stanford Center for International Security, June 2008: “Department of Homeland Security NetTech initiative”
DHS “NetTech” Workshop Stanford Center for International Security
Where2.0 Conference, May 2008: “DisasterTech: What’s Coming, What’s Next”
Emerging Technology Conference, March 2008: “DisasterTech: What’s Coming, What’s Next”
Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy, January 2008: “Computing in the Cloud” workshop
OECD World Forum, June 2007: Speaker and Panelist on "New Technology for the Next Generation"
FOO Camp, June 2007: “Designing for Disasters” & “FooCamp Survival Guide”
Web2.0 Expo, April 2007: Speaker on "Failures, Disasters, & Resilient Design"

Jesse Robbins’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

• career opportunities
• new ventures
• job inquiries
• expertise requests
• reference requests
• getting back in touch