Nick Ciubotariu

Auctane CTO · AI optimist

About

I’m a tech leader, curious builder, and unrelenting tinkerer. Over two decades, I’ve worked at the intersection of science, technology, and people, shipping software and AI you’ve used, and possibly yelled at.

I’ve led very large engineering organizations at Microsoft, Amazon, PayPal, Venmo, Nasdaq, and now Auctane. I’ve worked hands-on with algorithmic AI since 2015 and generative AI for the past four years, and have deployed both at enterprise scale. I’m a named inventor on multiple US patents spanning speech recognition and natural language understanding, ML-driven financial transaction systems, digital asset custody, and streaming encryption.

Outside work I box, rock climb, cook food that’s mostly edible, and occasionally edit spy fiction thrillers for friends who may or may not have been actual spies.

Currently building

  • Locationate private beta
    An honest local intelligence layer for any city. Real recommendations with reasoning, plus the avoid lists no review site will give you. Launching in seven cities.
  • Syncade alpha
    A next-generation, AI-assisted software development platform.

Patents

Named inventor on US patents across AI/ML, financial systems, and security. Highlights include Nasdaq’s Dynamic M-ELO (the world’s first SEC-approved AI-powered exchange), the custody backbone of Nasdaq Digital Assets, ML-based latency prediction for Amazon Search, speech recognition and visual messaging at Alexa, and streaming authenticated encryption. Full list on Justia →

Selected work

  1. Chief Technology Officer, Auctane 2024 →
  2. SVP, Engineering, Nasdaq 2021 – 2024
    Cloud & Enterprise Architecture, AI, and Nasdaq Digital Assets. Built Nasdaq Digital Assets from zero to private beta. Shipped the world’s first AI-powered exchange. Founded and co-led Nasdaq’s AI Governance Council.
  3. VP & CTO, Venmo → PayPal 2020 – 2021
    Started as CTO of Venmo. Expanded scope to PayPal Checkout, then to CTO of all PayPal Product Technology, the full branded experience: Venmo, Checkout, Digital Wallet, QR, and Xoom.
  4. SVP, Software Engineering, Bright Machines 2018 – 2020
    Built and grew world-class engineering and science teams in Seattle, Israel, and Europe, and shipped two production versions of smart robotics and data intelligence platforms.
  5. Engineering leadership, Amazon 2014 – 2018
    Head of Platform Engineering & Applied Science at Amazon Cloud Drive. Earlier, Sr. Engineering Manager in Alexa and Head of Platform & Infrastructure in Amazon Search.
  6. Engineering leadership, Microsoft 2008 – 2014
    Led teams in Developer Division (DevDiv), .NET, and Windows Server. Architected and moved Microsoft’s first major property to the cloud (MSDN). One of three engineers that developed and shipped the first version of what ultimately became Application Insights.

Elsewhere