Adam Lindsay

Software Engineer

San Jose, California, United States29 yrs 9 mos experience

Highly Stable

Key Highlights

Expert in building scalable distributed systems.
Proven track record in product innovation and personalization.
Strong leadership in international research projects.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a Backend-heavy Fullstack Architect with expertise in Media and SaaS.

Contact

Skills

Core Skills

Software DesignData-driven Decision Making

Other Skills

Applied Machine LearningJavaPythonNoSQLDistributed ArchitecturesDistributed SystemsMPEGMultimediaMusicMetadataAudioData MiningCouchDBRiakRedis

About

I am... a master at forging "semantics-rich bridges", - Consistently connecting distant organizations and systems and translating complex requirements into powerful feedback loops that drive product innovation. a passionate architect of large-scale, distributed systems, - Blending deep expertise in personalization, cloud operations, and media application development to build responsive, horizontally-scalable backends. an entrepreneurial technical leader & builder, - From co-founding a social music streaming platform (prototype to scale) to leading international research projects, I consistently turn vision into impactful reality. a strategic thinker with a "big picture" perspective, - Grounded by advanced degrees from MIT and a PhD and adept at navigating complex technical and organizational landscapes. I have a long track record in synthesizing Product, Business, and other stakeholder needs into practical solutions spanning organizations.

Experience

29 yrs 9 mos

Total Experience

7 yrs 9 mos

Average Tenure

1 yr 9 mos

Current Experience

Airbnb

Senior Staff Software Engineer

Aug 2024 – Present · 1 yr 9 mos · Remote

Broad remit of Search and Recommendations across product:
Collaborated extensively with Product, Design and Engineering to create a new homepage architecture set to evolve from curation to personalization and optimization
Built a coalition with data science, advanced analytics, relevance (ML) and product to mobilize optimization on this homepage as a beachhead for further personalization on other surfaces
Hands-on implementation and A/B Testing of Exploration and Explore/Exploit personalization on that homepage
Design and implementation of "curated" elements of that homepage to accommodate design-centric approaches co-existing within an optimization framework

Software DesignData-driven Decision Making

Netflix

Staff Software Engineer

Jan 2013 – Jan 2024 · 11 yrs · Los Gatos, CA, USA

Content Systems - Member Experience Core Systems.
Previously: Content Health and Experience Team, Personalization Applications Core team, Promotions Personalization team, Recommendation Services team.
Started with novel, specialized recommendation applications, led team's transition to recommendations applying machine learning algorithms for the exploding Netflix Originals catalog, including some of Netflix's first online recommendations algos. Built systems spanning from front-end through mid-tier back to studio to connect product needs with title operations and vice-versa.
I create feedback loops at scale.

Social genius, inc.

Co-founder and Chief Scientist

Jan 2010 – Jan 2013 · 3 yrs · Palo Alto, CA, USA

Drove the development of the custom "music and social intelligence" back-end of the SocialGenius platform, first featured in the AudioVroom product. Architecting the platform from rapid proof-of-concept to a high-capacity horizontally-scalable architecture capable of handling millions of users.

Lancaster university

Research Fellow

Jan 2000 – Jan 2013 · 13 yrs · Lancaster, United Kingdom · On-site

Technical lead for Lancaster on the following projects:
FIRM (UK EPSRC/Digital Economy funded) Disruptive technologies for media on next-generation internet.
INTERSECTION (EU FP7 STREP) Network resilience and remediation.
RETRIEVE (UK EPSRC funded) Management of multimedia for CCTV surveillance.
EDIT (EU ASIA IT&C funded) Knowledge transfer of ICT for vocational training to Vietnam.
ENTHRONE & ENTHRONE2 (EU FP6 IP) End-to-end quality of service delivery of digital items across heterogeneous networks.
The university also supported various consulting activities, which included being a consulting expert on EU panels and providing documentation to the BSI as an expert on MPEG-7. Various side projects involve extensive contributions to the open source projects Pd (Pure Data, a cross-platform multimedia programming environment) and ConTeXt (a modern TeX macro package).

Starlab

Principal Researcher

Jan 1996 – Jan 2000 · 4 yrs · Brussels, Brussels Region, Belgium

Led Multimedia research activities in EU FP4 projects DICEMAN (ACTS) and TEA (ESPRIT). Led extensive MPEG-7 activities from 1997 onward, becoming editor of several public documents, and eventually chair of MPEG-7 audio and Co-editor of ISO/IEC 15938-1 and -4.