About Me

I’m Nicholas Weaver, an SVP/CTO with 20+ years leading large-scale software engineering organizations and enterprise architecture functions across retail and consumer-facing industries.

Current Role

Vice President - Digital, Retail, Merchandising & Supply Chain Technology GNC Holdings | Pittsburgh, PA | September 2024 - Present

Leading software engineering and technology transformation for this ~$1B health and nutrition retailer, driving innovation and delivery excellence across digital commerce, retail, merchandising, and supply chain platforms. I’m establishing engineering standards, implementing DevOps practices, and architecting the migration to modern cloud-native architecture with microservices patterns.

Career Journey

My career spans leadership roles at industry-leading companies where I’ve consistently driven digital transformation and engineering excellence:

Starbucks (2023-2024): Led 200+ engineers delivering modern retail technology across 13,000+ locations serving 45M monthly customers. Architected Next Generation POS strategic vision and delivered key initiatives including Guest Checkout and third-party integrations.

Google (2022): Head of Engineering for Search Ads AI/ML, optimizing ML model development pipelines and serving infrastructure at global scale.

Active Measure/DISQO (2022-2023): Scaled engineering organization across USA, Finland, and Armenia, delivering 200% increase in feature velocity.

Dick’s Sporting Goods (2020-2022): Founded enterprise architecture practice and delivered RFID retail solution with $56M first-year EBIT lift.

Nike (2017-2020): Grew engineering organization from 25 to 400 associates managing $100M P&L, delivering 50+ platforms supporting billions in revenue.

Dell EMC (2017): Launched Dell’s first converged hybrid cloud platform bringing Kubernetes to enterprise retail customers.

Intel (2014-2017): Led 150-person engineering organization, co-founded Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), and established Kubernetes as industry standard.

Core Expertise

Software Engineering Leadership

  • Large-scale engineering organizations (200-400+ associates)
  • Engineering standards, agile methodologies, and DevOps practices
  • $50M-$100M+ technology budget management
  • Building high-performing, globally distributed teams

Enterprise Architecture

  • Cloud-native architecture (AWS, Azure, GCP)
  • Microservices, API design, and container orchestration
  • Legacy system modernization and platform integration
  • Event-driven architecture and real-time streaming

Modern Retail Technology

  • Digital commerce and eCommerce platforms
  • Point-of-Sale (POS) systems and retail edge computing
  • Supply chain, merchandising, and warehouse management
  • Omnichannel experience platforms

Notable Achievements

  • Co-founded Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), serving on executive board
  • Co-inventor on US Patent 8990550 for secure communications technology
  • Delivered 40-60% improvements in deployment velocity across multiple organizations
  • Led transformative initiatives with measurable business impact ($56M+ EBIT at Dick’s Sporting Goods)
  • Architected platforms scaling to billions of products and transactions

Industry Leadership

Board Positions:

  • Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) - Executive Board Member
  • Cloud Foundry Foundation (CFF) - Executive Board Member