Guy Alster - Engineering Manager and Software Engineering Leader

Resource Automation & Cloud Platform:

• Lead platform team within Stripe's Compute organization responsible for systems enabling engineers to safely provision, manage, and evolve cloud infrastructure at scale
• Build internal abstractions, deployment integrations, and governance tooling that enable consistent, secure, and high-velocity infrastructure changes across Stripe's global footprint
• Ensure cloud resources follow Stripe's operational, security, and compliance standards by default while providing product teams a streamlined, reliable way to incorporate infrastructure into their services
• Deliver visibility and identity foundations that underpin Stripe's cloud environment and support the company's ability to scale reliably

Technologies: Cloud Infrastructure, Platform Engineering, Governance Tooling, Identity & Access Management, Distributed Systems

Led engineering teams in Azure Data (aka Azure Fabric) focused on secure, large-scale distributed systems supporting enterprise analytics workloads across global regions. Drove initiatives in cloud security, network isolation, data protection, and platform modernization to improve reliability, compliance, and performance for mission-critical customer scenarios.

Key Achievements:

• Led the design and delivery of core network-security capabilities that strengthened isolation boundaries, enabled private connectivity, and protected sensitive enterprise workloads from exfiltration and unauthorized access
• Shipped platform features that enabled secure integration between customer environments and Azure services, improving adoption among regulated industries and unlocking usage for high-sensitivity data scenarios
• Architected secure virtual-network patterns that enabled firewall-enforced execution of large-scale compute workloads such as Spark, enhancing data governance, access control, and operational safety
• Delivered customer-controlled encryption mechanisms (CMK) that gave organizations ownership of their encryption lifecycle and strengthened Azure's compliance posture across multiple industry standards
• Led modernization of large-scale cloud services by migrating from .NET Framework to .NET 6+, improving performance, stability, and developer productivity while reducing operational overhead
• Built and coached high-performing engineering teams that delivered reliably across multi-quarter initiatives requiring cross-org alignment with Product, Security, Networking, and global Azure engineering groups

Technologies: C#, C++, Azure, Network Security, Identity Management, Distributed Systems, Microservices

Served as the technical lead for Smartsheet's Reporting and Analytics organization, driving the modernization of a mission-critical analytics platform used across the product. Led architecture, design, and implementation efforts that transformed legacy systems into a scalable, cloud-native solution on AWS.

Key Achievements:

• Architected and delivered the end-to-end transformation of Smartsheet's reporting platform, replacing legacy components with a modern, high-scale cloud architecture that improved performance, reliability, and feature velocity
• Designed and executed a large-scale production database migration with minimal customer impact, enabling real-time analytics and significantly improving system availability
• Built microservices and data-access patterns for multi-tenant data aggregation, ensuring secure and efficient retrieval of customer data while meeting strict access-control requirements
• Strengthened the platform's security and compliance posture by implementing best practices in cloud configuration, data protection, and IAM governance for analytics services
• Partnered with infrastructure, SRE, and security teams to harden AWS deployments, optimize service performance, and improve operational resilience
• Mentored engineers on distributed-systems design, microservices patterns, and database architecture, elevating engineering quality and contributing to the team's long-term technical direction

Technologies: Java, MySQL, EKS, AWS, Kubernetes, Microservices

Authentication & Identity Systems

• Co-architected Splunk's identity and authentication services for cloud-first transformation
• Implemented critical microservices supporting authentication infrastructure
• Ensured high availability for authentication services critical to customer access
• Collaborated with security teams to implement industry best practices

Technologies: Golang, AWS, CI/CD, Aurora, PostgreSQL, Identity Systems

• Developed distributed systems for large-scale web crawling and image processing for Bing
• Improved system performance by 40% through optimized pipeline designs
• Designed and implemented high-throughput systems processing petabytes of web content

Technologies: Distributed Systems, Zookeeper, COSMOS, Map Reduce, Data pipelines, C++, C#

• Promoted to management within 18 months, leading a 7-person team
• Achieved 100% on-time delivery for major releases while meeting quality benchmarks
• Introduced real-time MPEG2 processing capabilities, expanding platform functionality

Technologies: C++, Embedded Systems, Video, MPEG