Andy Stenger

Seasoned IT Architect

Andy Stenger is a highly self-motivated, versatile, and knowledgeable IT Architect who is passionate about making technology work for business. With a hardcore geek background and a couple of tours around the block under his belt he leads technical teams to creatively crack tough technical nuts for his clients.

Well traveled and a German Australian dual citizen, Andy understands how to navigate the challenges that come with global deployments and team interactions across time zones.

Gallup Strengths: Achiever, Strategic, Learner, Intellection, Relator.

Experience

Principal Architect

Verizon Australia
2008-01 – 2019-06
Verizon Germany
2006-08 – 2007-12

With joining Verizon, Andy’s focus shifted from software development into operations to ensure mission-critical infrastructure of Verizon’s clients stays up and running. He is leading technical hit squad teams with a focus on operational reliability and maintainability. Engagements range from multi-year migrations to resolving ad-hoc client escalations and cover the entire spectrum from the high-level design of monitoring and management infrastructure and client systems all the way down to implementation and continuous operations and holistic performance tuning where required.

Accomplishments:

Monitoring and management tool stack migration without any related production system outage for a large Australian bank. (Proprietary tools, SevOne, custom code.)
Cloud performance optimization of chat application for global mobile phone manufacturer on Verizon cloud. (HA Proxy, Cassandra, MySQL, Tomcat, JMeter, Jennifer.)
Planning and execution of client system migration from dedicated physical to Verizon cloud.
Architect, design, and implement product website framework for a large cosmetics retailer on Verizon cloud. (Python, PHP, MySQL, lsyncd.)
Lead for technical monitoring and management implementation and on-boarding of security perimeter for a large Australian bank.
Coverage of all technical aspects of a tender response to monitor and manage the security perimeter of a large Australian bank.

Responsibilities:

Client side virtualization infrastructure for operations.
Automation to assist operations.
Architectural designs and implementations for operations and device management.

Key insights:

Long term account development from pre-sales to contract renewal.
Architecting to support business and operations.
Work with various Verizon cloud platforms.

Managing Director

Elentum Partners, Germany
2003-02 – 2006-07

After Fort Point Partners decided to close their German operations, Andy negotiated taking over existing German clients and founded Elentum Partners GmbH to cover outstanding engagement requests and to engage new clients.

Accomplishments:

Data center migration for a used car search engine with minimal downtime.
Multi-tier Solaris based performance tuning and deployment automation for a real estate mapping application in the government space.
Deployment automation for a complex multi-tier Enterprise SOA infrastructure product to reduce PS based implementation times by an order of magnitude. Cross unix platform support (Solaris, AIX, HPUX). Full automation made CI integration possible.
Lead architect and developer for project-based development and production deployment of leave tracking system (java based MVC application, tomcat, apache, CI, branching and release processes). Project based development of cash register configuration automation to cover Germany wide configuration change deployments.
Code migration to version control and adoption of branching policies for various project teams of 5 – 80 developers.

Responsibilities:

Deployment automation.
Data center re-location.
Development process design for a large team.

Key insights:

Bootstrapping a company.
Client acquisition and retention.
Efficient multi-vendor development teams.

Technical Architect

Fort Point Partners, Germany
2001-03 – 2003-01

At Fort Point Partners Andy implemented boutique e-commerce systems from the ground up and optimized existing systems for performance, typically involving classical 3 tier architectures and covered hardware infrastructure, software architecture, implementation, and operations.

Accomplishments:

Rookie of the year.
Technical pre-sales coverage and post-sales implementation for a fixed time and fixed bid re-implementation project to meet specific performance goals for site re-launch. The project was delivered on time and on budget.
Introduction of version control, branching policy, and bug tracking.
Deployment automation for code (ATG and Java) and version dependent database updates and schema changes, including roll-back capability (Oracle).
Coaching and training of client developers (ATG, Java, Oracle, CVS, MantisBT).
Establishment of development, staging, and production environments with automated propagation between environments and design, documentation and coaching around business processes to support development testing, in-house end-user testing, load testing in staging and production roll-out.

Responsibilities:

Software architecture and implementation.
Site re-launch.
Database performance tuning (Oracle).

Key insights:

Fixed time and fixed bid projects.
High touch and high profile consulting.
Advantages of Agile concepts before Agile was an industry word.

Lead Consultant

Smallworld Systems, Germany
1998-02 – 2001-02

At Smallworld Systems, a geographic information systems company which was acquired by GE in 2000, Andy started as a pre-sales consultant and quickly picked up additional responsibilities ranging from client side system integration to training, rapid prototyping, product and business development.

Accomplishments:

Support for closing multiple deals that required specific customization or product integration with existing client systems. Prototyping and development during the pre-sales phase (Magik).
Product development team lead from concept to first product release (Visual Basic, Visual C++, Magik).
Prototype for two-dimensional geodata back-end support on Oracle and conceptual data migration from SWMFS/VMDS to Oracle.
Design and facilitation of advanced product customization, programming, and external system integration training for partners and clients.