I am tech-geek and also Startup Co-Founder, CTO and have worked as IT-Consultant for startups and corporations. I’ve led cross functional teams of developers and system administrators. My focus is in team building, implementing proven solutions and agile processes which drive business value creation and increase efficiency. I also believe in and consistent implementation of cutting-edge technologies in alignment with the business vision. I have managed several offshore software agencies in agile development platforms and integrating partner systems with APIs. The scalability of high traffic websites leveraging search engine technologies and NoSQL database is part my technical expertise. As a passionate technologist, I still code in my leisure time and post in my tech-blog guguncube.com. I love working with open-source technologies, scripting languages like Ruby, Python, PHP, Scala and come from a very strong Java background.

Co-Founder and CTO @ We are the geeks building ecommerce solutions, which are taking multi-billion euro businesses to the next level. We are focused on big data, high scalability and availability, search engines, large scale recommendation engines, personalized feeds leveraging social data and security. Technologies we like: #yourchoice, Scala, Play Framework, Python, Apache Spark, PredictionIO, Mahout, ElasticSearch, Cassandra, Docker, AWS, Machine Learning, Microservices Join the team, ignite sparks and change the world ! From June 2015 to Present (7 months) Berlin Area, GermanyFounder and CEO @ Development of cutting edge mobile and website solutions. Hosting of e-commerce shops based on Magento and Wordpress. Technologies: Magento, Wordpress, PHP, MySQL, nginx From January 2015 to Present (1 year) Berlin Area, GermanyCTO @ iLoveVideo.tv, is the world’s fastest growing Video-Discovery-Service platform, passionately powered by castaclip GmbH, with offices located in Potsdam/Berlin, London, Bangkok and Miami. - leading an great international team of developers and system administrators and development agencies - managing and scaling the core video recommendations and video streaming infrastructure - employee recruitment, mentoring and goals management and team re-structuring - agile software development and release management - implemented of continuous integration, automated QA, 3-Tier Environments(testing, staging and production) - introduced new technologies like CDN, icinga, vagrant, tech-talks - restructured the application stacks and improving code quality, performance and response-times ilovevideo.tv - the video discovery plattform ! Technologies: multi-track recommendations, collaborative filtering, ElasticSearch, dynamic Content Acceleration, Ruby on Rails, Python, Java, Postgres, MongoDB From September 2013 to May 2015 (1 year 9 months) Co-Founder and CTO @ Timeslot is a revolutionary new multi-media calendar for our socially networked era. - leading the a lean development of the platform with a smart and team of developers and administrators. - design, architecture and development of technology platforms. Implementation of cutting edge technologies in the development of scalable components e.g. website crawler, real time search and recommendation engines - pitching of product and technical solutions to investors - go online for a better offline ! PHP, Python, Nginx, Postgres, Neo4J, Cassandra From April 2013 to May 2015 (2 years 2 months) Consultant CTO @ - Consulting and building of technology teams of internet start-ups - Architecture and development of technology platforms. Implementation of cutting edge technologies in the development of scalable components e.g. website crawler, real time search and recommendation engines. - IT budget planing and cost control, developer and system administrator recruitment - Building and maintaining co-operations and partnerships Technologies: E-Shops Systems, CRM, PHP, Python, Nginx, PostgreSQL, Hosting and CDN, Unix Shell Scripting, API-Interfaces to Social Networking Websites, NoSQL Databases. From October 2012 to August 2013 (11 months) Head of IT @ MyVideo.de is the largest german-based video portal offering music, series and films. - Leading the IT-department consisting of teams of software developers(video player, frontend, backend), database and system administrators. - managing technical projects with a team of project managers, as well as coordinating the ongoing agile product development. - Maintaining technical relations with key content suppliers such as film studios and major music labels(Sony, Warner, Universal, EMI) - Coordination, hands-on-development and maintenance of high traffic video sharing platform hosted for 5 european countries in 4 languages including white label solutions, video search engine(Apache Lucene, Sphinx), audio fingerprinting(mufin audioid server), email messaging delivery system, customer support systems and social networking APIs such as facebook - evaluated, defined, selected and implemented scalable technologies and software architecture to performantly and effectively support over 10 million users and 4 million videos - Implementing scalable best practices in development, deployment, defined programming guidelines include code reviews and ensured documentation of critical infrastructure and processes. - Assessment, implementation and roll-out of strategic emerging technologies e.g. NoSQL Databases, Adobe Player DRM technologies, search and recommendation engines - overlooked 7 day proactive plattform performance and administrative monitoring and support of over 100 hosts in production and corporate systems, partner portals - service provider, corporate it, server hosting and content delivery network. Technologies: Java, PHP, Python, Apache WebServer, Apache Tomcat, PostgreSQL, Hosting and CDN, Unix Shell Scripting, E-Mail Messaging, i18N-Multilanguage and translation, API-Interfaces to Social Networking websites, NoSQL Databases. From May 2010 to May 2013 (3 years 1 month) Berlin Area, GermanyDirector of Software Development @ MyVideo.de is the largest german-based video portal offering music, series and films. - Leading the software development team, coordination, hands-on-development and maintenance of high traffic video sharing platform running in 5 countries and 4 languages including: white label solutions, video search engine, email message system, social networking APIs. - Supporting the sales department on technical matters such as feasibility studies and customer oriented feature implementation and reporting to the CTO. - built a platform for delivering key performance indicators(KPIs) for revenue (Views, Ad-deliveries, PIs, visits) - Identifying and implementing best practices in development, deployment, testing and code management and implementing scalable architecture required to support rapid traffic growth of our website - implementation of infrastructure to import and manage content from major music record labels, film studios and independent content providers - defining programming guidelines include code reviews and ensured up to date documentation of critical architecture, infrastructure, processes and tasks. - recruitment new developers and coaching of development team - managing release work-flow(development, staging, live) and release cycles - pro-actively monitored and improved server performance and reduced response latency e.g. through push caches - bottom-up product development – introducing a culture of innovation whilst maintaining stable and failure tolerant systems e.g. Queues, Memcached, NoSQL - introducing python as a rapid prototyping and scripting language. - consolidated administration interfaces for application, marketing and partners Technologies: Java, J2EE, Spring, PHP, Python, Apache Tomcat, PostgreSQL, Stored Procedures, XML-RPC, Unix Shell Scripting, E-Mail Messaging, i18N-Multilanguage, Cruise Control, Stress testing, JMeter, search and recommendation infrastructure(Apache Lucene,PostgreSQL TSearch2, Sphinx), NoSQL Databases. From November 2006 to March 2010 (3 years 5 months) Berlin Area, GermanySenior Application Engineer / Chief Architect @ MRM worldwide is a full service digital agency with Fortune 500 clients such as General Motors and Nestlé. I acted as lead developer reporting to and deputising the CTO. 02/2005 – 09/2006 - Adam Opel GmbH / General Motors, http://www.opel.de - Technical Lead in the development and maintenance of an automobile manufacture’s online B2C platform and several B2B web sites. - Main technical contact for marking and sales teams and partners. - Supervision of architecture design and further development of the Opel.de car configurator. - Strategies for the realisation of inter-operable services across B2C-portals. - Architecture-Design of a prototype for consolidation of a B2C-automotive-platform and services. Steering the development team to achieve given milestones. Technologies: Enterprise Java Beans(EJBs), JMS, Day Communiqué, Web Services/SOAP, SSL, Servlets, JSPs, BEA WebLogic, Oracle 01/2006 – 09/2006 - Nestlé Babyservice Web Portal, http://www.babyservice.de Consolidation and further development of three service and marketing portals for the Nestlé baby nutrition brands Beba, Alete, Bübchen. Presentation of technical concepts during and after the project acquisition. requirements analysis, portal architecture and coordination of an international developer team in locations London, Frankfurt and Hamburg as well as the deployment of the web portal. Technologies: ASP.NET, .NET Platform, Microsoft CMS, Microsoft SQL-Server 01/2006 – 04/2006 - Nestlé Nestea Web Portal, http://www.nestea.de In team development of a new web portal marketing a refreshment drink. The portal services include greeting cards, games and photo albums. Presentation of solution concepts during the acquisition process. Requirements analysis, coordination of the development and procurement of the hosting hardware. Technologies: PHP, AJAX, MySQL, CVS From February 2005 to September 2006 (1 year 8 months) Frankfurt Am Main Area, GermanySenior Software Developer @ Jamba! is an international mobile content and entertainment provider. 03/2004 – 01/2005 - SMS Workflow Engine Design and implementation of a workflow engine for processing bulk SMS-orders generated after TV-Ads. Also:internationalization of the workflow engine, code reviews and coaching of junior software developers. 11/2003 – 03/2004 - Mobile Payment Platform Design and Implentation of a mobile payment solution for the administration and billing of subscriptions (Vodafone M-Pay, E-Plus MT Billing). Coordination of tests and project rollout. 05/2003 – 10/2003 – iLove Dating Portal, http://www.ilove.de Design and development of core features of the ilove dating portal. Developed the user management and image upload and data management modules. 10/2002 – 04/2003 - Multimedia Message Service(MMS) Platform Design and development of an enterprise MMS platform consisting of services to create, receive, deliver and bill MMS messages. Optimization of reception and delivery process for fast bulk delivery using JMS. 03/2002 – 06/2003 - Mobile Content Download Platform Design of the architecture of platform for the managing, hosting and secure delivery of mobile content. Implementation of security components which support Digital Rights Management (DRM). Consultant during the maintenance, further development and internationalization of the download platform. Technologies: Java Enterprise (J2EE), Enterprise Java Beans (EJBs), BEA WebLogic, JMS, WAP, MMS, SOAP via SSL, UML, Rational Rose, Oracle From February 2002 to January 2005 (3 years) Berlin Area, GermanyFreelancer / Software Engineer @ Online Now! manages and hosts internet domains for international partners. At Online Now, I designed and developed a software system for the management, registration and billing of internet domains in Germany (“.de” domains). Customer could register domains and send change requests using a web interface or through signed emails, which the system processed automatically. The emails from the denic and customers were parsed, decoded and processed similar to data from web forms. Technologies: PHP, MySQL, Email Protocols (POP3, SMTP) From September 2000 to August 2001 (1 year) Berlin Area, GermanyFreelancer / Software Engineer @ Admin IT builds custom software solution in the B2B sector, among others a a UML modelling software system. I built the code generation module which generated C++ code from an XML-repository from inside a UML-modelling software system. Technologies: C++, XML, UML, Microsoft Visual Studio From November 2000 to January 2001 (3 months) Berlin Area, GermanyFreelancer / Software Engineer @ The BVG, Berlin's main public transport company, operates the underground railway, tram and bus networks and is the largest local transport company in Germany. At BVG, I extended the salary and payroll management system. The algorithms from the predecessor software written in COBOL were ported to new C++ application. Technologies: C++, Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC), UML, Visual Studio, COBOL From August 1998 to December 2000 (2 years 5 months) Berlin Area, GermanySoftware Engineering Intern @ The ISC is a management and IT-system consulting company which also offers software analysis and development services. As a intern, in a team of 3 developers, I built a testing and performance measurement system of a life insurance software system. The software managed customer data and insurance policies and contained components for risk analysis calculation. Technologies: Perl, Oracle, ODBC, IBM DB2, Oracle SQL Plus, Oracle SQL Loader, UNIX, AWK From March 2000 to June 2000 (4 months) Berlin Area, GermanyStudent Employee in Software Engineering @ The ISC is a management and IT-system consulting company which also offers software analysis and development services. In a team of several developers, I developed a Company Information Registry software system for the justice department to manage company registration information within a federal state. This registry software has been deployed in several federal justice department courts in Germany such as Bavaria and Lower Saxony. Technologies: Microsoft Visual Basic, Oracle, SQL From July 1999 to February 2000 (8 months) Berlin Area, Germany

Master of Business Administration (MBA), General Management - Dual Award @ Anglia Ruskin University From 2007 to 2009 Master of Business Administration (MBA), General Management - Dual Award @ Berlin School of Economics and Law From 2007 to 2009 Bachelor of Science (BSc), Computer Science @ Beuth Hochschule für Technik Berlin From 1996 to 2002 Bachelor of Science (BSc), Computer Science @ University of Zimbabwe From 1995 to 1995 GCE Advanced Level @ Mpopoma High School From 1993 to 1993 GCE Advanced Level, Lower Six @ Mzilikazi High School From 1992 to 1992 GCE Ordinary Level @ Milton High School From 1988 to 1991 Gugulethu Ncube is skilled in: Agile Methodologies, Java, MySQL, PostgreSQL, E-commerce, Project Management, Unix, PHP, Team Leadership, Mobile Applications, Web Applications, Apache, Python, Java Enterprise Edition, IT Leadership