For this week’s fireside chat, we sat down with our VP of Platform Engineering, Marco Sanvido.

Marco received his PhD in Computer Science from ETH Zurich in 2002 and served as a postdoc researcher at the University of California, Berkeley from 2002-2004. After his research, Marco began holding leadership positions in the Engineering field, serving as Director of Engineering at Pure Storage for seven years, VP of Engineering at Styra for almost three years, and VP of Engineering at MemVerge for just over a year before joining the Robust Intelligence team. Coming from a platform background, Marco brings his past expertise in designing, building, and deploying platforms to RI, and the project of accelerating product deployment and delivery. 

Throughout our conversation with Marco, one thing became clear: Marco is a people person, and he went into management as a way of helping people. 

What made you interested in machine learning/artificial intelligence?

Machine learning and artificial intelligence are becoming pervasive technologies to help companies create better products/services and customer experiences. They are permeating almost every industry, and it’s exciting to be part of that.

I believe in staying in step with the direction of industry change. Robust Intelligence’s solution solves organizations’ struggles with securing their AI in production. I’m energized by new challenges, and I find it rewarding to work on something that creates immediate value.

How would you describe your own leadership style and what motivates it? 

As a manager, my main focus is helping people be successful. My ideology is ‘servant leadership’ - I strive every day to remove roadblocks that might prevent the team from working well together.

A successful team leads to a successful company. I get a lot of energy from lifting the team up, and by making myself ready to jump on things that make the whole company work better.

What’s a day in the life as a VP of Platform Engineering for Robust Intelligence look like?

As VP of Platform Engineering, my job description is to lead RI’s team of dev ops engineers on a daily basis and to help lead the strategic direction and development of the company. 

My primary goal is to make the team work well and remove roadblocks along the line, from coding to shipping the product. I try to take on some of the painful tasks (like writing documents, et cetera) that people don’t like, to do so that I can remove the pain and help the team focus on the more challenging items.

In my first few weeks at RI, I’ve been trying to do just that, so that the team can work towards planning the next product release.

‍What do you find the most satisfying or exciting about working at Robust Intelligence? 

Working with smart people is always exciting, and you learn a lot. The company culture is very strong, and the environment is incredibly engaging. 

It’s energizing to work with a team of brilliant people on solving big problems and learning every day.

Why did you decide to join Robust Intelligence? What brought you to the job?

Machine learning has the power to bring transformative change across essentially all industries in the coming years, and Robust Intelligence is working towards making that change possible by ensuring the security and efficacy of ML models across the spectrum. It’s an incredible opportunity to be a part of that.

Beyond the opportunity to work in the cutting-edge of industry change in the tech world, I’m attracted to Robust Intelligence as a company – both in terms of mission and culture. 

During the hiring process, I had dinner with the team. They didn’t discuss work at all – which is a signal to me that they really like each other! That type of camaraderie makes for a great work  environment and I’m thoroughly enjoying myself.

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One of the strengths of the Robust Intelligence team is the diversity of experience and skills that each of its members brings to the workplace. Marco’s varied background, and enthusiasm for staying in step with industry change, already adds so much to the workplace and company culture. 

We’re so thrilled to welcome him to the team, and for the next release of RIME.