Mike Tavella
@miketavella
I’m a technology executive specializing in platform engineering, cloud strategy, and scaling teams.
ItalyWhat I'm looking for
I’m a technology executive with 20+ years in software and cloud engineering R&D and over a decade leading globally distributed teams. I combine strategic vision with hands‑on execution to scale multi‑tenant, cloud‑native platforms, improve delivery velocity, and reduce operational costs—achieving outcomes such as 40% ops cost reduction and measurable uptime improvements.
As a CTO and fractional technology advisor I’ve built engineering functions from scratch, delivered privacy‑tech SaaS platforms, integrated ML features, and led compliance efforts (HIPAA, GDPR, CCPA). I partner with growth‑stage and enterprise teams to modernize architectures, drive technical strategy, and mentor engineering leaders to deliver secure, scalable, data‑driven products.
Experience
Work history, roles, and key accomplishments
Fractional CTO & Advisor
Freelance
Dec 2017 - Present (7 years 8 months)
Provided Fractional CTO and strategic engineering advisory to SMBs and startups across Europe and Asia, serving 3+ European SMBs and 3+ Asian startups and scaling teams of 5–15 engineers while stabilizing platforms and delivering technical roadmaps.
Chief Technology Officer
Preava
May 2020 - Mar 2025 (4 years 10 months)
Built the engineering function and enterprise privacy-tech SaaS platform, growing the team to 15+ engineers, maintaining 100% uptime with CI/CD, and delivering ML-powered real-time threat detection within 60ms SLAs to secure enterprise contracts.
Software Manager
Glory Global Solutions
Nov 2011 - Dec 2017 (6 years 1 month)
Led global firmware and software R&D, standardizing SDLC across 9 products, scaling the Shanghai R&D team 6x, and engineering banknote recognition algorithms that improved accuracy and system throughput.
R&D Engineer
EPFL, Siemens, Técnico Lisboa, University of Genoa, IST, DCS
Jan 1999 - Jan 2011 (12 years)
Held progressive R&D roles (1999–2011) developing real-time embedded systems, EEG-based ML classifiers, signal and speech processing, and robotics vision/motor algorithms to reduce latency and improve system performance.
Education
Degrees, certifications, and relevant coursework
SUShanghai Jiao Tong University
Master of Business Administration, Business Administration
2014 - 2016
Completed a Master of Business Administration at Shanghai Jiao Tong University from 2014 to 2016.
UGUniversity of Genoa
Master of Science, Robotic Engineering
2003 - 2007
Completed a Master of Science in Robotic Engineering at the University of Genoa from 2003 to 2007.
UGUniversity of Genoa
Bachelor of Science, Biomedical Engineering
2001 - 2003
Completed a Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Genoa from 2001 to 2003.
Tech stack
Software and tools used professionally
Availability
Location
ItalyAuthorized to work in
Job categories
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