Fosco can build anything

My Stance on Free Speech

For the last several years, I have been a strong defender of free speech in my professional work. Like Spinoza, I believe that the pursuit of truth and the development of a vibrant, democratic society depend on the unfettered expression of ideas, even those that may be uncomfortable or controversial. Similarly, Ben Horowitz's emphasis on open communication resonates with me, as I recognize the importance of allowing diverse perspectives to contribute to the growth and success of communities and organizations. I want to make it clear that my personal beliefs are separate from the content that users may post on platforms I've worked on. Instead, I view my role as upholding the right of all individuals to express themselves freely, without censorship or bias, within the bounds of the law.

Professional Experience

Chief Technical Officer

Gab AI, Inc. | November 2020 - Present

Dramatically improved stability, performance, and scalability of Gab Social, an existing platform serving 6 million users with up to 120M monthly page views
Designed and implemented Gab AI, an uncensored AI chat and image generation platform, from concept to production
Developed an entire advertising platform, Gab Ads, from scratch, complete with a self-service dashboard and lightning fast ad serving
Led end-to-end technical operations, including data center negotiations, server installation, and software development
Managed and optimized a lean engineering team, significantly improving overall platform reliability and efficiency
Developed expertise in AI model fine-tuning and large-scale inference
Maintained 24/7 on-call availability for four years, ensuring continuous platform operation
Implemented and ran an open-source bug bounty program, enhancing platform security
Completely rebuilt and optimized GabTV's video ingestion pipeline, reducing processing time from video length to minutes
Developed a custom SMTP validation service, significantly reducing operational costs
Built a streamlined donation collection system, improving user experience and conversion rates
Managed a 250TB media storage cluster for Gab Social
Developed the Dissenter web browser, a high-performance fork of Brave with custom features
Engineered custom solutions across various domains, including email infrastructure, content delivery, and user authentication

Developer Advocate / Production Engineer

Facebook & Parse | February 2013 - October 2020

Created Parse Server, becoming a top open-source project at Facebook with 14k+ stars and 160+ contributors
Managed the MySQL fleet, responsible for all deployments to the full cluster
Optimized MySQL upgrade deployment process, reducing release cycle time from 3 months to under 1 week
Worked on the Open Source team, the OSMeta team, and the Apache Spark and RocksDB teams, helping manage their respositories and working with the communities around them
Developed both the Parse and Facebook SDKs for PHP, garnering over millions of downloads and growing huge communities
Served as Developer Advocate, conducting Q&A sessions, speaking at F8, Oktane, and other tech conferences

Lead Developer

Optimo IT | 2011 - 2013

Developed a dynamic application platform for rapidly building native mobile apps for schools and organizations
Built diverse projects ranging from Windows Mobile barcode scanners to early adoption of Node.js for web APIs

Systems Analyst Specialist

TMG Health | 2006 - 2010

Worked across multiple departments, becoming an expert with the Trizetto FACETS application and database
Co-developed a secure provider portal with isolated data warehouse and ETL orchestration
Led a team in building a CMS reconciliation process, saving the company over $1M annually

I'm happy to provide further history, and more details on any of these experiences, upon request.

Fosco Marotto