Tim Nufire

Tim Nufire

Engineering leadership with a creative, facilitative style

San Francisco Bay Area

Current
  • Founder & VP of Engineering at Backblaze
Past

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5 more...

Education
  • University of Kansas
Recommended
Tim has 2 recommendation(s) 2 people have recommended Tim
Connections
269 connections
Industry
Computer Software
Websites

Tim Nufire’s Summary

Tim Nufire has been a dynamic engineering leader in organizations that range from four to 40,000 employees during his 15 plus years in Silicon Valley. He was director or vice president of engineering at three successful startups acquired by SonicWALL, Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO), and Thomson Corporation (NYSE:TRI; TSE:TR). As vice president of engineering at Thomson Corporation, he drove process innovations to ensure rapid, high-quality development. His accomplishments at MailFrontier, SearchFox, and Aplia include building technical teams sizing from five people to 30; developing a large-scale, highly available web service that processed 2 million transactions per day; and developing innovative "Web 2.0" technologies. Previously, Tim managed Excite Inbox and its 6 million users and held senior engineering positions at Apple, Adobe, and others. He graduated with Highest Distinction from the University of Kansas with a B.S. in mathematics and an emphasis in physics.

Tim Nufire’s Specialties:

Dynamic leadership for managing teams in fast-paced, competitive markets. Extensive engineering experience on Linux/Unix, Windows and Macintosh using C/C++, Java, various web standards and databases.

Tim Nufire’s Experience

  • Founder & VP of Engineering

    Backblaze

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

    January 2008 — Present (2 years )

    As VP of Engineering and Founder of Backblaze I spend most of my time scaling our datacenter and writing server-side code. I'm also responsible for security which includes our encryption architecture and implementation.

    Backblaze is entirely privately funded (no Venture Capital). We build fast, reliable, internationalized, cross-platform (Windows, Macintosh, Linux) backup software. See: www.backblaze.com for more info.

  • VP of Engineering

    Aplia, a division of Cengage Learning (previosuly Thomson Learning)

    (Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; TOC; E-Learning industry)

    November 2005 — February 2008 (2 years 4 months)

    • Using web technology to create educational tools that improve student success
    • Responsible for engineering, QA, IT and operations

  • Director of Engineering

    SearchFox

    (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Internet industry)

    August 2004 — November 2005 (1 year 4 months)

    • Shipped 3 generations of search, tagging and RSS applications on Linux using Java, PHP, Perl, MySQL and DHTML/AJAX
    • Key role in all aspects of fundraising and strategic planning.

  • Director of Engineering

    MailFrontier, Inc.

    (Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Computer & Network Security industry)

    July 2002 — August 2004 (2 years 2 months)

    • Responsible for engineering, QA, corporate IT, datacenter operations and tech pubs
    • Grew team from 4 to 30+ with operations in California, India and Australia
    • Delivered 4 major releases of the Gateway Server and 5 major releases the Desktop product
    • Managed all aspects of multi-million dollar engineering budget
    • Maintained strong working relationships with marketing, sales and the senior leadership team
    • Developed procedures to ensure high product quality, manage schedules and track goals

  • Senior Engineering Manager

    Excite@Home

    (Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; athm; Internet industry)

    August 1999 — January 2002 (2 years 6 months)

    • Managed Excite Inbox, Blue Mountain Invite and subscriber services
    • Ran WebMail at scale: 6 millions registered users, 1 million daily visits
    • Retained entire team and maintained morale/productivity throughout the financial crisis and eventual collapse of the company

  • 3rd Founder & Director of Engineering

    There, Inc.

    (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Software industry)

    October 1998 — April 1999 (7 months)

    • Key role in all aspects of successful multimillion-dollar fundraising round
    • Designed & implemented key aspects of technology demo
    • Led ongoing engineering recruitment effort

  • Senior Software Engineer

    Adobe Systems, Inc

    (Public Company; 1001-5000 employees; ADBE; Computer Software industry)

    June 1997 — August 1998 (1 year 3 months)

    • Prioritized features and formulated strategy as part of initial product team
    • Created cross-platform application framework based on COM, MFC & PowerPlant
    • Architected adapter to reuse Adobe Illustrator’s cross-platform UI components
    • Created and managed project schedule

  • Lead Software Engineer

    Apple Computer, Inc

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

    March 1992 — March 1997 (5 years 1 month)

    • Led development of major new release of QuickTime VR core technologies
    • Creator of Apple SoundSprocket, a set of 3D audio filters and APIs
    • Developed Router Manager, a key component of the Apple Internet Router
    • Rewrote AppleTalk Data Stream Protocol (ADSP) for Windows

  • Macintosh Software Engineer

    Pharos Technologies

    (Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

    February 1989 — February 1992 (3 years 1 month)

    • Instrumental in design and implementation of STATUS*Mac, a network assets profiler
    • Designed, wrote and documented L5, a List Manager replacement for Mac OS
    • Assisted in creation of PharosApp, an object-oriented application framework written in C++
    • Developed numerous custom solutions for Fortune 100 clients including:

Tim Nufire’s Education

  • University of Kansas

    BS , Mathematics with an emphasis in Physics , August 1983 — May 1987

    Graduated with Highest Distinction – GPA: 3.9/4.0

    Activities and Societies:
    Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society, Undergraduate Research Award, Excellence in Physical Chemistry Award, 2 Mathematics Scholarships

Additional Information

Tim Nufire’s Websites:

Tim Nufire’s Interests:

Photography, Gadgets, Mountain Biking, Snowboarding, Rollerblading, Running, Rock Climbing

Tim Nufire’s Groups:

  •    Excite@Home Alumni

Tim Nufire’s Honors:

Patents: Reputation based search (Granted, #7406466); Automated whitelist (Pending, #20080104186); Message testing (Pending, #20080104187); Message challenge response (Pending, #20080104188)

Tim Nufire’s Contact Settings

Interested In:

  • career opportunities
  • consulting offers
  • new ventures
  • job inquiries
  • expertise requests
  • business deals
  • reference requests
  • getting back in touch

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