GEORGE CHERIAN
Engineering Director, Chewy
Renton
Summary
Summary:
Senior Technical Leader with 18+ years of total experience in development, architecture, and leading teams in designing and developing enterprise solutions in a large distributed computing environment. Experience includes 9+ years leading engineering teams, including managing managers, to create and launch exemplary products by fostering enthusiastic and cohesive teams. Demonstrated success in building, managing, and leading cross-functional, and global teams to launch products and features across technologies, platforms and domains. Sought after coach and mentor in Amazon, with a track record of mentoring, hiring and growing engineers and managers.
Overview
18
18
years of professional experience
4
4
years of post-secondary education
Work History
Engineering Director
Chewy.com
07.2023 - Current
- Leading a 30 member org, including managing managers and Staff Engineers.
- Leading one of the top programs for the company, tracked at the C-suite level. The program will integrate payments, ordering and commerce capabilities for Chewy Vet Clinics.
- Owned the maintenance, availability/latency goals and operations of 25+ services
- Partnered across 10+ teams and worked with multiple stakeholders including VPs, Product and program management and delivered multiple business critical programs, under tight timelines with high quality.
- Have one of the highest employee satisfaction score (85) and employee retention rate that is measured at the Chewy level.
Senior Software Development Manager
Amazon
12.2020 - 06.2023
- Led and managed an org size of 40+ team members, including SDMs, QAM, SDEs, Senior SDEs, QAEs in analysis and build of software from design through launch.
- Owned the maintenance, availability/latency goals and operations of 20+ services including 9 Tier 1 services
- Delivered multiple business critical programs, under tight timelines with high quality. Programs delivered have created strong business and technical impact - improved Tier 1 service latency by 25%, generated TPV uplift of $15.3MM, generated 2.5MM active users and created business opportunities estimated at $49.04BB GMS.
- Maintained a top employee satisfaction score and employee retention rate that is measured at the Amazon level.
- Collaborated with multiple teams, stakeholders, and senior executives (including Directors and Vice Presidents) to author technical strategy/vision documents, 1/3 year Operational Planning documents and Business Reports.
- Led organization-wide technology strategy development.
- Sponsored and led multiple initiatives within the organization. This include leading the DEI initiative for Amazon Pay, monthly program on Mentorship and Public Speaking, leading book clubs for the development community etc.
Software Development Manager
Amazon
01.2014 - 11.2020
- Was the single threaded technical owner and led Amazon Pays innovative and cutting edge product ideas. E.g., lead the development team, from idea-conception to launch, for Amazon's first Alexa money skill. The skill was successfully launched with 400+ partners and served 2.5MM active users and 3.1MM dialogues. The skill was the #1 (among 25) Amazon internal money skill.
- Led and delivered multiple business critical programs including major platform level improvements for Amazon Pays' core technical platform.
- Launched "Facial recognition Payment" as a key innovative product idea for Amazon Pay, that was featured at a FinTech conference in New York.
- Hired and managed a team of 15 SDEs
- Collaborated with multiple internal and external stakeholders across Amazon to deliver programs and author technical strategy documents.
- Led sprint planning, reviews and retrospectives. Mentored developers and engineers through onboarding process and long-term team contributions.
- Delivered project reports and milestone updates to senior leadership including Directors and Vice Presidents.
Software Development Engineer
Amazon
11.2010 - 12.2013
- Designed and developed Amazon Webstore's Instore Web Application. Also designed and developed Amazon Pay's website that would serve as the home page for all Amazon Pay customers (merchants and buyers).
- Implemented databases and table structures for web applications.
- Revised, modularized and updated old code bases to modern development standards, reducing operating costs, and improving functionality.
- Collaborated on stages of systems development lifecycle from requirement gathering to production releases.
- Designed intuitive graphical user interfaces to improve user experience.
- Skills: Java, JavaScript, Perl, HTML/CSS
Software Engineer
Infosys Technologies
09.2006 - 11.2010
- Launched multiple programs and features for a top Retailer in the US (including checkout experience, inventory management) with hands on experience in Ruby, Perl, Java and SQL.
- Worked with software development and testing team members to design and develop robust solutions to meet client requirements for functionality, scalability, and performance.
- Tested methodology with writing and execution of test plans, debugging and testing scripts and tools.
- Collaborated with customers for needs analysis and to determine vendor costs.
Education
Bachelor of Engineering - Information Technology
KSR College of Tech, Anna University
09.1999 - 05.2003
Skills and Highlights
Technical Skills:
- Programming languages: Java, JavaScript, Perl, HTML/CSS, Node.js, React
- Tools & Methodologies: CI/CD, REST, Alexa, mySQL, noSQL, JIRA, NLP (Natural Language Processing),Eclipse, Selenium, Agile
- DevOps tools: Git, AWS (EC2, ECS, DynamoDB, Lambda, Cloud Front, Elastic Load Balancer, ASG, Redis)
- Microservices | Distributed Systems | Cloud Computing | Program Management | Managed Managers | Senior Leadership
Highlights:
- Inventor and Patent Owner: As a side project, I independently proposed and implemented a client side error tracking solution for Amazon. The solution was awarded a patent by the US Patent and Trademark Office
- Mentor: Official Amazon mentor, and mentored multiple engineers/managers/Senior Leaders across teams and levels
- Over and Beyond: Bar Raiser at Amazon and have conducted ~200 interviews
Timeline
Engineering Director
Chewy.com
07.2023 - Current
Senior Software Development Manager
Amazon
12.2020 - 06.2023
Software Development Manager
Amazon
01.2014 - 11.2020
Software Development Engineer
Amazon
11.2010 - 12.2013
Software Engineer
Infosys Technologies
09.2006 - 11.2010
Bachelor of Engineering - Information Technology
KSR College of Tech, Anna University
09.1999 - 05.2003
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