About Me

This is me presenting at Texata

Hi there, I’m Matthew

I’m a software engineer who likes creating apps and businesses. I have a lot of experience with ‘big data’ technology, and with web-app tech like Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, Node, and Vue.js.

I currently run my own software consultancy Rathbone Labs. I spend my workdays helping businesses with Hadoop, Spark, Kafka, Splunk, Databricks, and more.

I also co-created, and maintain, Beekeeper Studio, a popular open source SQL editor and database manager. Beekeeper Studio is cross platform and works with all your favorite databases. We have a large focus on usability, so it feels really good to use.

I’m a father and husband, and would not be doing anything useful without my super smart and supportive wife, Alexandra.

Why I blog about big data

‘Big data’ is a total mess of competing technologies, concepts, and workflows. Getting started with a project in this area is very tough.

I started blogging about Hadoop after overcoming a challenging bug and wanting to warn others. It sort of blossomed from that into a range of articles and tutorials aimed at helping newcomers find their way in this rapidly changing industry.

My goal is to make your life with Hadoop and related technologies easier, so let me know how I can help!

My Experience

Prior to running Rathbone Labs, I’ve mostly spent my time starting companies, leading engineering teams, and building useful software.

I have been VP of engineering at Kickbox, raised VC money and built a data analytics start-up called Beekeeper Data (shut down in 2018), ran an engineering team at Shoutlet (acquired by Spredfast), built data infrastructure at Foursquare, and created a real-time analytics engine at Drop.io (acquired by Facebook). I also build and sold 99Inbound, a form API and form-builder app.

I’ve spent a lot of time building Hadoop clusters, data ingestion pipelines, data reporting software, map-reduce jobs, and all sorts of horrible hacks to get nice clean data.

I have a MS in Computer Science from the NYU Courant School of Mathematics, and a LLB Law Degree from Northumbria Unversity.