CV

Share this article:

[Download a PDF version of my CV, last update – May 2019]

Eran Ben-Shahar – Work Curriculum Vitae – Experienced Web Geek

I’m a theoretical physicist with a wide area of expertise and experience, mainly in the Internet industry. I offer a creative and irregular way of thinking plus leadership skills with passion and motivation to meet targets. I’m a very fast learner with a proven ability to adapt to various technologies and to new working environments. I’m highly experienced with the web – and even that in most of my roles I was a manager, I keep my hands dirty: from building and maintaining of servers and as far as to development of apps and websites – I understand how to do it, so I know what I’m asking from the developers! I’m very proud of the fact that my first browser was X-Mosaic, since it makes me one of the first internet users and one of the first web developers worldwide.

 

Personal Information

Age: 50. I started with computers and machine language when I was 14 years old.

Cell:     (please contact me for details)

E-mail : (please contact me for details)

Languages: English (Spoken: Working Knowledge, Written: Proficient), Hebrew (Native),

Citizenships: New Zealand, Israel, France     Address:  Wellington, NZ

 

IT Skills Summary – Professional Level

  • CTO for several leading products and companies.
  • Project management: PM for waterfall and Agile projects. I have experience as a PM for both from the client side, and the developers’ side as a vendor.
  • Business Analysis: Senior BA for requirements documents and detailed requirements. I have experience as a BA both from the client side, and the as a vendor.
  • Development: PHP, ASP.NET, ASP, HTML, CSS, JS, JQUERY et al, planning to learn Haskell.
  • Databases: MySQL, MS SQL, any ODBC, Cassandra and Block Chains.
  • Web Servers: IIS, Apache2
  • OP systems: Linux (prefers Debian), Windows Servers
  • Premium SEO (my sites are highly ranked in google, I understand the algorithms)
  • Full control of social media APIs like Facebook graph APIs, LinkedIn APIs, Twitter etc. I actually wrote my own libraries to hook to them, and also developed several APIs for all sorts of apps

 

I’m currently the acting CTO of iBronto.com , a high end web-solutions company which is developing the technology for several startups and organizations. In my role I’m providing the solution architecture and build for cross platform high traffic web-apps and smartphone apps.

 

Education

M.Sc. Physics, Technion – The Israeli Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.                                        1993-1999

Department:  Physics. Research Field: Theoretical Physics, General Relativity.

During my second degree in theoretical physics I had to develop conceptual and technological models, that enriched me with high level mathematical and analysis tools which are invaluable for strategic thinking, planning, extrapolations and interpolations of complex systems.

[*] The Technion is the leading technological university in Israel, with several Noble prizes in sciences

 

Employment History

iBronto.com – Chief Technical Officer (CTO)                                                                                                Sep/2018 – Present

Wellington, New Zealand

iBronto.com is a leading web solutions company, providing consultancy and cross-platform build services for custom made high traffic web-apps and smartphone apps. In my role I function both as a chief solutions architect and a CTO which means that I’m the person responsible on making things happen – from an idea to an MVP and a product. I got a personal preference to build technology with as few constraints as possible – it means that I make sure our products are not dependent with 3rd party libraries, APIs or servers and that we own the data, code and servers build. Obviously I’m technology agnostic but my prefered technologies would be open source, my favorite ones would be simple, stable and easy to run like Apache/Nginx on Linux servers, Php/Node.js backend, MySQL or Cassandra database and a genuine front end application based on HTML, and genuine Javascript. For cross platform applications I would choose a cross platform technology like React.

 

Senior Enterprise Application Web Specialist- at NZTA                                                               04/2012 – Oct/2018

Wellington, New Zealand

In the high level I’m technically responsible of all the web sites and web applications run by NZTA, this is one of the largest databases and the highest traffic web services of the New Zealand Government, with multiple web sites (www.NZTA.govt.nz, NZTA Transaction center, and many others) and diverse technologies (PHP, ASP.NET, WebSphere, MS-SQL servers, MS-SQL, MS-Sharepoint, cloud services and more).  My role includes:

  • First contact of technical support for nzta.govt.nz website (Microsoft Stack, 17 servers including load balancers, transaction servers, and one monitoring tool on LAMP).
  • First contact of release management support for the nzta.govt.nz website (currently on LAMP stack). I maintained this website for 3 years when it PHP on Windows + IIS + apache2 server (apache used for back proxy, IIS as a web server) and supported it when transitioning to LAMP.
  • Release manager for the IS internal services run on Sharepoint 2011, first contact for HTML and CSS development in Sharepoint (please don’t ask why Sharepoint, yes, it is a horrible product…)
  • Documentation and process mapping for the web services (about 70 in number).
  • Development of NZTA web strategy (under work).
  • Development of various tools in PHP on LAMP.

 

 

IT Technical Consultant at Igniter Ltd                                                                                              11/2008 – 04/2012

Wellington, New Zealand

Projects completed for Igniter include: (Please also refer to http://www.igniter.co.nz )

  • IMOWA: (Perth, AUS) – Development of refund calculation tool. Required Project Management skills coupled with deep technical skills (ORACLE SQL, VBscript and advanced Excel). This project required extensive contact with various stakeholders on site in Perth.
  • Transpower: (NZ): Developing a business model for power outages and translating it into mathematical metric formulas and a working software; Building a dynamic business KPI dashboard to present real-time graphs, alerts, data, movements – based on the business model and metrics that has been developed, and includes more than 100 KPIs
  • EFI (a Meridian NZ sub-company): IT architecture model; Priorities of IT developments (work with senior management to decide on priorities); Requirements for a new web based billing system; IT engineer for the development of a new sophisticated online billing system.

 

Senior PM and BA for New Zealand Parliament                                                                            03/2007– 03/2009
Wellington, New Zealand

My role included both project management tasks and business analysis tasks. As a project manager I had to lead teams of up to 30 people – parliamentary employees and external vendors. As a senior business analyst I provided consultancy services, in order to deliver results according to requirements by senior Parliamentary managers and stakeholders. My responsibility required wide technical and business experience with the ability to maintain good interpersonal relations with major stakeholders, advancing the projects within in a very complicated political environment. As a project manager my role included developing training programs, managing the project procurement and budget, and reporting to senior staff. Highlights of my projects were: (1) Google Search Project – in which I had to plot the technical build of the network and the search requirements, (2) design and deployment of Parliamentary Service CRM system, (3) strategic planning for the IM and Internet development plans, (4) design and build of Election Data databases, (5) Strategic planning for the Parliamentary Library, (6) Parliament TV system, and others.

 

Owner & C.T.O , Yodfat Communication Ltd, Israel (25 employees)                                                      1996 – 2007 

Yodfat Communication was a successful, famous leading Internet Development company that I founded in 1996 (the company name changed 3 times while it had evolved), developed it to its peak success and then sold to Comrax Limited. The company ran dozens of projects in various development environments but mainly the ASP + SQL ones, one of the highlights that made me famous in the Israeli IT sector was when I launched a search engine that worked in 4 languages: English, Hebrew, Arabic and Russian – while Google was just working on one (at that time). I sold that product for high dollars and used the fund to move to NZ.

My role in the life cycle of the company developed from a HTML/ASP +SQL developer to pre-sales manager, project manager and CEO, and involved the following experience:

  • Strategic planning and project management of web campaigns, online sales facilities and 1 on 1 marketing solutions at budgets up to $1M ;
  • Development of new genuine technologies for internet web sites, search engines and web portals, long distance education, E-learning, educational games, educational on line products, educational activities and more;
  • Development of special educational programs that were purchased by the largest educational systems in Israel: The Ministry of Education, the Educational Technology Center (“MATACH”), the Jewish Agency Educational Department, Ministry of Labor, Ministry of Science and more;

 

Research Assistance at the Physics Department, Technion, Israel                                                        1995

I was conducting a research on holographic measuring of a field temperature surrounding ice crystals.

 

Unix System Manager, Physics Department, Technion, Israel                                                                1994 – 1995

I was running an OSF system of Digital Alpha and supporting UNIX users. My role included: the development of a special course of using the WWW for research purposes, teaching the course to the department’s professors, and acting as a web master of an earliest academic web project in HTML and CGI (C++).

 

Physics Department Manager, Technological Manpower Program, Technion, Israel                   1992 – 1994                                                                                                                                               

  • 28 employees under my direct responsibility
  • Designing, writing and teaching of a revolutionary teaching program of sciences for supported youth;
  • Professionally coaching and directly managing of my team of 25 teachers, 2 coordinators (each responsible for 10 teachers) and 1 designer of educational products;
  • Educational and total personal responsibility for the 400 pupils studying at my department. Most of the kids were under special support programs;
  • Inventing and building a scientific mobile laboratory;
  • Writing and Publishing guiding books for teachers working in my department

 

Military Service
Staff Sergeant (ret.) “Golani” Infantry, IDF                                                                                              1988 – 1991

This is a compulsory service in Israel, with many physical, moral and social challenges on the way. It developed my leadership skills as well as my first experience of leading people to targets under pressure.

 

Personal Interest and Extra Study Fields

As I grew up, my personal interests shifted from martial arts (I used to coach martial arts in Israel and in New Zealand until a couple of years ago) and racing cars (I just sold my GTR, phew!), to growing vegetables and doing projects around our hobby farm. I actually do everything by myself around our place, from electricity to plumbing, and recently built a self-sustained unit under house (wire to 12V solar). I like writing (I authored a book for children) and very much attracted to biblical history and to history and philosophy of science.

 

Personal Skills

Strategic view and approach, ability to create and maintain positive work relationships, capability of running negotiations, capability of formulating and compiling legal documents, proven leadership skills involving managing, developing and motivating teams to achieve their objectives, expressive communication skills.

 

Office address is at Offix shared space offices where you can lease a private desk or a small startup office, 181 Willis St, Wellington CBD.


Share this article: