Christopher Olsen
Engineering Leader · Software Architect · Founder
Engineering executive with nearly three decades of experience spanning systems programming, platform architecture, team leadership, and company founding. I bring a rare combination of deep technical fluency and genuine business acumen — approaching every challenge with a founder's sense of ownership: identify what's broken, design the solution, drive it to delivery.
30+ Years of Experience
3 Companies Founded
$650K Capital Raised
Currently
Solutions Architect at VS Media (Westlake Village, CA) — elevated from department-level engineering manager to company-wide scope, co-authoring the long-term technology vision and serving as the technical bridge between business stakeholders and engineering across Web, Chat/Infrastructure, RevOps, and Systems. Leading a multi-quarter platform modernization consolidating 24 customer-facing surfaces onto a unified modern stack with a 6-engineer cross-departmental team.
Career Arc
Apr 2025 – Present
Solutions Architect — VS Media
- Elevated from department-level to company-wide scope — co-authoring the long-term technology vision and serving as the technical bridge between business stakeholders and engineering across Web, Chat/Infrastructure, RevOps (payments/PCI), and Systems.
- Author solution design documents that give technical managers a clear architectural foundation; define non-functional requirements (scalability, security, performance, accessibility, KPI measurement) across all departments.
- Spearheading Project Neptune — a multi-quarter initiative migrating all 24 customer-facing surfaces from a fragmented legacy stack (three deployment models, three teams) to a unified SvelteKit + TailwindCSS platform with NATS JetStream and a Go-based WebSocket service for real-time data; 4 backend systems fully converted, full completion targeted for 2027-Q1.
- Established SvelteKit coding standards, code review practices, and AI-assisted development guidelines covering prompt engineering, model selection, and security considerations across engineering departments.
- Evaluate and select technologies through structured comparison of competing options, documenting analyses and presenting findings to stakeholders, leadership, or technical managers depending on architectural impact.
May 2024 – Apr 2025
PHP Framework Engineering Manager — VS Media
- Established the company's first formal SDLC — introducing structured requirements gathering, SRS documentation, technical specs, MVP targeting, and task breakdown; trained the broader web development department on SOLID principles and PSR/PER coding standards; scope creep reduced to near zero and average task close time dropped from over a week to 1–3 days.
- Led a 3-developer team to architect and build Project Neptune, a custom PHP 8 framework built on Slim PHP with PHP-DI and Latte following PSR/PER standards — a modernization bridge between legacy PHP 5.4/7.2 systems and a PHP 8 codebase; formalized a mono-repo toolchain for automated code review, committing, merging, and deployment.
- Architected OAuth 2.0 integration with X/Twitter and Google, enabling secure third-party authentication for platform users.
- Designed and delivered a 1099 generation and secure electronic delivery system processing 300–400 1099s annually for affiliates and broadcasters.
- Overhauled the white-label-aware homepage performer sorting algorithm based on individual performance data — drove a 3% increase in registrations with over 20% of new registrations converting to first money.
Apr 2023 – May 2024
PHP Engineering Manager — VS Media
- Led a 9-person BizDev engineering team supporting affiliate and media buying traffic operations; partnered closely with Traffic and Affiliate business teams to translate business needs into engineering specifications and deliverables.
- Architected overhaul of the platform's attribution system, correctly attributing over 70% of users previously misattributed to house accounts back to their originating affiliates — individual affiliates saw attribution increases of 20%+ and first-money KPI improvements of over 10%.
- Designed and built 1Click API enabling affiliates to programmatically add, manage, and transfer users across platform accounts.
- Designed and delivered a postback system allowing affiliates to monitor real-time KPIs including account creation events and user spend activity.
- Conducted 30/60/90 reviews for new hires and bi-annual assessments for existing team members; delivered monthly training sessions that improved engineering practices, release cadence, and overall code quality.
Nov 2021 – Apr 2023
Lead PHP Developer → Senior PHP Developer — VS Media
- Served as subject matter expert and primary code reviewer for the development team; conducted technical interviews to assess candidate proficiency as part of the engineering hiring process.
- Redesigned the CRON management system to detect hot spots and distribute jobs to prevent system overload.
- Ported legacy PHP 5.2 codebase into Dockerized images deployed as Kubernetes pods; redesigned Memcached and Session classes to improve resiliency and session consistency.
- Built internal platform for task creation, Git repository setup, and CI/CD pipeline configuration; collaborated with Systems on automation tooling for SSL certificate management and white-label domain provisioning.
2019 – 2021
IT Director — Empower Group Partners
- Led a 3-person IT team for a 60-employee merchant cash advance firm — responsible for all infrastructure, end-user support, budget planning, and technology planning.
- Designed and deployed an Asterisk-based PBX serving as both the company phone system and auto dialer platform — a mission-critical tool for outbound sales operations.
- Managed network infrastructure, workstation fleet, and executive technology support; led implementation of Ricochet CRM supporting core lending and merchant relationship workflows.
2014 – 2019
CTO & Co-Founder — SpherePBX
- Co-founded and served as CTO for a 20-person hosted VoIP provider; independently pitched and secured $400K in venture capital funding.
- Architected an end-to-end multi-tenant VoIP platform spanning Asterisk infrastructure with high-availability configuration supporting inbound/outbound call routing, IVR, voicemail, and call recording.
- Built a customer-facing self-service portal enabling account management, call detail record (CDR) access, and real-time provisioning of desk phones and softphones.
- Negotiated and established carrier and platform partnerships with OnSIP, VoIP Innovations, and thinQ for SIP trunking, number porting, and DID provisioning; integrated Bandwidth.com for E911 emergency services compliance.
- Hired, led, and mentored an engineering team of 4; owned the technology roadmap, infrastructure decisions, and vendor relationships — grew platform to 200+ customers.
2010 – 2014
CEO & Lead Architect — uBix Technologies
- Founded and led uBix Technologies (team of 14) as CEO and lead software architect — personally designed and built the company's core platforms while managing operations, business development, and a small team of developers; independently secured $250K in angel investment funding.
- Architected and built the uBix Cube — a FreeBSD/Samba-based managed server appliance delivered as a subscription ITaaS product with file serving, local filesystem snapshots for instant recovery, and automated offsite backup with a rapid unit-swap replacement model to minimize customer downtime; scaled to 100+ business subscribers including Aleutian Capital Group.
- Extended the platform with an Asterisk-based local PBX add-on, delivering hosted telephony without additional on-site hardware complexity.
- Designed and operated all company infrastructure on FreeBSD — email systems, backup infrastructure, and web-based customer management and internal admin portals.
2000 – 2010
Founder & Owner — Domain Atlantic
- Founded and operated a boutique IT services firm; grew to a team of 4 serving hundreds of web hosting and domain registration clients alongside regional infrastructure project work.
- Won and delivered USAC E-Rate infrastructure projects for a dozen schools across Oklahoma, Florida, and Maryland — encompassing structured cabling (100+ drops per site), WLAN deployment, networking, and PBX installations.
- Provided managed IT support and hosted services to businesses of all sizes; notable clients included Trian Partners and Wormser, Kiely, Galef & Jacobs LLP, both New York City-based firms.
1998 – 2001
Network Administrator — Web Express · Programmer — Plug'nPay
- Implemented Long Island's first OC3 SONET ring using open-source technology (FreeBSD-based router with fiber ATM interface); planned and executed migration from BSD/OS to FreeBSD across all hosting servers, replacing commercial Cisco routers with FreeBSD-based machines.
- Managed subscriber internet services including dialup, T1/T3, and DSL; maintained internal infrastructure including internet uplinks, routers, servers, dialup modem banks, and a client co-location datacenter.
- At Plug'nPay: built the MVP of eWallet™ — a one-click shopping platform enabling secure storage of customer billing, shipping, and demographic data for reuse across merchant transactions; assisted with deployment of a fault-tolerant Oracle database environment on Sun server hardware.
Press
The Wall Street Journal
"This was a tragedy and I personally don't feel that anybody should capitalize off of it."
Following the September 11 attacks, Christopher built the World Trade Center Memorial site the next day — uploading photos of the missing, victim lists, and a card of hope that collected hundreds of signatures within two hours. The site accepted no advertising.
