Matt Riffle CISSP Certified Scrum Master

Pittsburgh, PA, USA - [email protected]

Leader of People and Technology (In That Order)
Technology professional, software developer and team leader with more than 25 years’ experience across the spectrum of IT, who has built teams that work well together, work well with others, and marry the latest technologies with common sense. And did it all while maintaing my own software development projects.

I have transitioned my career from one where I spend the majority of my time telling people what to do to one where I am spending most of my time doing (aka writing code).

About

Once upon a time, I was a student at the University of Pittsburgh, spending many wild and crazy late nights in the computer lab, teaching myself HTTP and CGI and other acronyms that were going to define the future but hadn’t quite made it into the curriculum yet. After graduation, I moved down the road and across one of Pittsburgh’s famous three rivers to to take part in creating a new industry.

For 25.5 years, I worked at Pair Networks, a pioneering Web Hosting company, and now a subsidiary of Liberated Sy ndication. As Vice-President of Technology, I spent the last 18 of those years overseeing the entire technical operation of the company.

At the end of 2022, I made the “unconventional” decision to exit a guaranteed contract and enter an uncertain job market. I did so knowing that the systems and leadership were in place at Pair to take it in to the future.

Now I'm spending the second act of my career getting back to what I love the most -- architecting and writing software.

Education

University of Pittsburgh

Bachelor of Science
Computer Science

Certifications

CISSP Certified Scrum Master

Skills

Project & Team Management
  • Agile, Traditional

Programming Languages
  • Perl, PHP, Javascript, Python

Automation
  • Ansible, Puppet

System Administration
  • Linux (Primarily Debian-based), FreeBSD, macOS

Network Administration
  • Juniper, FRR

Interests

My main interest is my family, and a small group of friends who might as well be. I have a wife, kids, and now grandkids, not to mention a dog, cats, and a gecko, and in general I prefer to be wherever they are.

Since 2005, I've run dozens of half-marathons, four full marathons, and a smattering of races at other distances. Occasionally I've even enjoyed it, though mostly I enjoy replenishing the calories burned, afterward. My AthLinks profile has a pretty complete recording of how slow I am.

I enjoy writing fiction. Perhaps someday I'll enjoy letting other people read it.

My geeky collection of pop culture stuff is already bigger than I have room to display, and only gettings moreso. My wife and I collect Masters of The Universe, and I collect Star Wars, Monster Cereals, and Classic Mac, among other things, as well as Lego of all sorts.

Articles

I publish business-related articles on LinkedIn.