Alexandre Bertails

Highlights

• Expert at functional programming and API design. I have been building systems and libraries (almost exclusively) in Scala since 2008. I am very comfortable with Typelevel libraries like cats, cats-effect, or fs2. I have coached and mentored many engineers over the years.
• Skilled at designing distributed systems. I have extensive experience building high-volume HTTP APIs, data processing pipelines, and micro-services. I have worked with various data technologies such as Postgresql, Mysql, Cassandra, Kafka, or Spark.
• Deep expertize with domain modeling and knowledge representation. I design domain modeling languages (most recently, Upper at Netflix) and help organizations organize their data as shareable knowledge using Linked Data, Schema.org, and ontology design. Expert at designing and federating GraphQL APIs.
• Experienced with and not afraid of dealing with legacy systems and codebases.
• Excellent communicator, comfortable giving public talks as well as presentations to senior leadership or non-technical people. I have extensive experience writing and collaborating on technical standards and design documents. I have practical experience of working cross-functionally with non-technical collaborators, ranging from project managers to product managers and creatives.

Professional experience

Jan 2022 - ongoing

Netflix • Los Gatos, CA

Senior Software Engineer - Unified Data Architecture (Dec 2023 - ongoing)

I lead the Unified Data Architecture (UDA) team, where I designed and shipped Upper, a domain modeling language for Netflix's core business domains.

Senior Software Engineer - Data Platform (Jan 2022 - Dec 2023)

Member of the Data Discovery team for the Netflix Data Platform, enabling users/clients to interact with the platform capabilities and find relevant assets.

• Led initiative to federate the Data Platform APIs into the Enterprise GraphQL gateway.
• Maintained, migrated, and federated domain graph services for workflow orchestration and notebooks into the Enterprise GraphQL gateway.
• Maintained the GraphQL Search service for the Data Platform.

Mar 2015 - Jan 2022

Apple • Cupertino, CA

Software Engineering Manager - Apple Media Products

Led the engineering team building the platform for AMP (Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Podcast, …) to move its legacy infrastructure to Kubernetes across multiple clouds. Also managed secrets and identity services.

Senior Data Engineer - Fraud Engineering, Algorithms, Risk

Data engineer supporting data scientists through better tooling.

• Maintained our timeseries library for aggregating data in streaming+batch jobs, and for querying models in realtime services.
• Reduced time-to-market for onboarding new Spark jobs from days to minutes.
• Built highly scalable regex-based filtering engine for Spark.
• Implemented GDPR requirements for Fraud's infrastructure.

Staff Engineer - Marcom

Involved in everything data for apple.com in Apple’s Worldwide Marketing Communications. Single-handedly and dramatically improved apple.com's SEO posture.

• Strategized, implemented, and deployed Apple's Knowledge Graph as structured data using the Schema.org ontology and Linked Data principles.
• Oversaw various content management systems and publishing pipelines for the marketing and retail organizations.
• Architected and delivered Today at Apple.
• Joined and represented Apple's interests in the Schema.org Community Group.

Feb 2014 - Feb 2015

Pellucid Analytics • New York, NY

Pellucid makes a tablet- and browser-based software solution for data visualizations.

Senior Software Engineer

Started on the data team and later moved to the vizualization team.

• Designed a graph-based query language and API on top of Datomic using the Linked Data Platform and banana-rdf.
• Implemented the Grammar of Graphics as a DSL in Scala.
• Wrote data extractors for SEC filings.
• Editor for the W3C Linked Data Patch Format as part of the Linked Data Platform (LDP).

Jul 2009 - Feb 2014

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) - Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) • Cambridge, MA

The W3C is an international consortium that develops open standards to ensure the long-term growth of the Web.

Software and System Engineer

I was part of the W3C Systems Team where I led the development of a unified platform for the W3C validators and participated (editor, team contact, software engineer) in various RDF and Linked Data Working Groups.

• Maintained w3.org and various services as the W3C Webmaster.
• Created banana-rdf, a library for RDF in Scala, and read-write-web, a pre-Solid server for personal data.
• Editor for the W3C Recommendation RDB2RDF - Direct Mapping.
• Co-organized nescala and Boston Scala.

May 2008 - Jul 2009

Atos - Open Source Center • Paris, France

Atos is an international IT services company.

Software Engineer

I worked for the French National Library on their digital library and preservation project SPAR.

• Implemented data transformation pipelines, from data modeling in RDF to SPARQL queries using Virtuoso.
• Typical Java stack: Maven, J2EE, Spring.

Sep 2007 - Apr 2008

Entropic-Synergies • Paris, France

Entropic-Synergies is a web-agency specialized in social games.

Software Engineer

Implemented white-label products to be licensed to various Websites.

• Implemented a game engine for web browser games using J2EE and Adobe Flex.
• Real-time stock market game for LeFigaro.fr.
• E-learning platform for 1001lettres.com.
• Real-estate search engine for Comintoo.
• Foodstuff search engine and data scraper for LesProteines.com.

Mar 2006 - Sep 2007

INRIA • Saclay, France

INRIA is the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control.

PhD candidate

I was researching certified compilers for synchronous languages à la Lustre using the Coq proof assistant. I was also teaching Computer Science and Networks at Telecom ParisTech, IFIPS, University of Paris XI, and University of Paris VII.

Education

2006

MSc in Computer Engineering at Telecom ParisTech • Paris, France

2006

MSc in Computer Science at MPRI - University Paris VII • Paris, France

2003

BSc in Computer Science at University Paris VII (ranked 1st) • Paris, France

Language proficiency

French

native

English

fluent