Hi Everyone,

Please join me in welcoming Asher Feldman to the Wikimedia Foundation where he is our newest member of the Technical Operations team. He will be starting in the San Francisco office on May 9, 2011, but you may see him around before then. He uses the nick handle of binasher in IRC.

Asher comes with a broad set of database and systems expertise and as a Performance Engineer here, his focus will be on end-to-end stack tuning and troubleshooting, to drive better web site performance, availability, scalability and efficiency.

In his previous jobs, Asher has worked on building and supporting high traffic web properties (e.g., Amazon and Flickr) and non-profits as well (Kiva.org, where he overhauled their web infrastructure and still assists in an advisory capacity.) In addition, he has held senior systems roles in EDS, Barclays Global Investors and Ofoto (Kodak.)

Besides being a self professed 'geek', Asher is a fan of live and dj'd music, epicurean of fine and local foods, caudata wrangler, knitter, and a whiskey taster. He is the proud father of Hazel, who is an ardent fan of Roald Dahl, loves growing and collecting crystals, and all things related to the brothers Mario.

Do drop by 3rd Floor to say hi to him.

Thanks, CT