My professional experiences below showcase my ability to bring ideas to life, whether it’s creating MVPs from scratch or launching brand-new projects within established companies. From initial concept to building and leading teams around these initiatives, I have consistently delivered results that drive impact. While these examples highlight my capabilities in professional settings, my personal projects offer an even deeper glimpse into my creativity and passions.
Internet Matrix • Director of Engineering • 2008 – 2013
iMatrix, founded by Asaf around 2000, began as a small startup run by a husband-and-wife team providing website solutions for niche markets such as chiropractors, veterinarians, and moving companies. I joined the company as a software engineer in 2008. At that time, iMatrix had developed an efficient templating system that enabled rapid website generation for clients. The company was hosting approximately 3,000 websites across three servers, each supporting 1,000 sites. The servers were running Plesk for web, email, and DNS services, along with a custom control panel for visual content management. However, the development practices at the time were not standardized, and the servers were inconsistently updated, sometimes even during live operations.
I took the initiative to streamline the infrastructure by consolidating the codebase into a single repository and designing a load-balanced cluster of seven servers, which we placed in a dedicated data center. We replicated the services previously managed by Plesk but did so more efficiently and without reliance on it. This overhaul proved highly successful, contributing to the company's growth, which saw its website portfolio expand to over 10,000 sites by 2013.
Following this success, I was promoted to Director of Engineering, a role that was effectively akin to a CTO, as I oversaw all technical operations. I led a team of 10, comprising IT, QA, and software developers. Unfortunately, internal dynamics led to a shift in leadership, and as a result, I decided to leave the company. Nine months later, the company was sold for a significant sum to Internet Brands. See more info at https://imatrix.com.
Scalability & Reliability: Created a load-balanced on-prem cluster supporting web, email, and DNS services with MySQL/Lustre backend, hosting over 10,000 websites. Developed a management and monitoring system via SSH. Achieved 99.99% uptime and 150ms TTFB.
Innovative E-commerce & Billing: Designed and developed an e-commerce platform, automating sales processes for website and domain provisioning with recurring billing. The system was utilized both by the company and over 150 chiropractors to offer their services.
Email Hosting & Newsletters: Set up email hosting for 20,000+ users with Qmail. Intergated Horde and atMail systems with company admin interface. Built a custom C++ SpamAssassin client to optimize spam checks via MySQL. Developed a parallel newsletter mailer system with velocity controls, sending 150K emails/day, maintaining IP reputation.
Leadership & Collaboration: Led and mentored a team of 10 engineers, QA, and IT professionals, driving technical excellence. Collaborated with sales, support, and professional services teams to define and deliver the company’s technology requirements.
Technologies: Linux, PHP, C/C++, JavaScript, MySQL, Memcached, Qmail, TinyDNS, Courier, Lustre.
