TERRY HORNER

Staff Engineering Manager | Technical Leader | Infrastructure Expert

terry.horner@protonmail.com | linkedin.com/in/terryhorner | terrhorn.github.io | Greenville, South Carolina | Open to Remote

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

Engineering leader with 20+ years of experience building distributed systems and leading high-performing teams. Currently leading GitHub's Code Search platform serving 100M+ developers — the search infrastructure that powers both GitHub.com and GitHub Copilot. Founded the Code Search team from scratch and grew it to 15+ engineers. Expert in search/AI infrastructure, RAG systems, and large-scale ML platforms.

CORE COMPETENCIES

Leadership: Engineering Management • Team Scaling • Technical Strategy • Cross-functional Leadership • Machine Learning Infrastructure • Servant Leadership • Platform Engineering • Crisis Management
Technical: Semantic Search • Vector Systems • Embeddings & Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) • Custom Search Engines • Distributed Systems • Hyperscale Architecture • AI Infrastructure • Programming Languages (Go, Rust, Python, JavaScript)
Business: Product Strategy • AI-Powered Developer Tools • Machine Learning Product Development • Startup Founding • Revenue Growth • Operational Excellence • Developer Experience

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

GITHUB | Remote | 2018 – Present

Staff Engineering Manager, Code Search | June 2021 – Present

• Founded and scaled the team: Built Code Search from a 1-person effort to a 15+ engineer globally distributed team, establishing it as a strategic GitHub priority
• Novel search infrastructure: Led development of novel indexing and retrieval technology from scratch that now powers code search on GitHub.com and GitHub Copilot
• Delivered instant AI context at scale: Led infrastructure strategy that reduced semantic indexing time from 5 minutes to under 60 seconds, enabling immediate codebase-aware AI assistance for millions of developers
• Owned infrastructure architecture: Designed and managed provisioning, scaling, and deployment of search infrastructure supporting both traditional keyword search and semantic search systems
• Enabled distributed AI capabilities: Led product strategy for VS Code local indexing and cloud-based semantic search, providing AI-powered workspace context across environments
• Directly responsible individual: Drove cross-functional collaboration to integrate search platform with AI systems supporting next-generation developer experiences

Senior Engineering Manager, Code Search | September 2020 – June 2021

• Established Code Search as strategic GitHub priority, growing team from 3 to 12 engineers during critical foundation phase
• Led architectural planning for migration from legacy Elasticsearch implementation to novel code-specific search engine

Senior Engineering Manager, Head of Storage Engineering | February 2020 – September 2020

• Managed GitHub's core storage infrastructure teams responsible for Database Infrastructure, Data Pipelines, Data Infrastructure, and Search Infrastructure
• Oversaw storage systems supporting 250M+ repositories with 99.95% uptime SLA
• Company-wide Incident Commander: Served as IC on a 24/7 on-call rotation for all of GitHub, coordinating cross-functional incident response across engineering — including DDoS attacks and critical infrastructure outages
• Established follow-the-sun on-call rotations, created sustainable on-call procedures, and personally participated in hands-on incident response alongside the teams

Engineering Manager, Data Infrastructure | February 2018 – February 2020

• Built platform team supporting GitHub's analytics, machine learning, and business intelligence needs
• Designed and implemented data pipelines processing terabytes of developer activity data daily
• Established data governance frameworks and privacy compliance for enterprise customers

KEEN | Remote | 2014 – 2018

VP Engineering | November 2016 – February 2018

• Led engineering organization of 15+ engineers across platform, data science, and product teams
• Drove technical strategy for real-time analytics infrastructure and customer-facing APIs
• Managed engineering budget and technical roadmap
• Established engineering culture emphasizing accountability, continuous learning, and cross-functional collaboration
• Successfully navigated team through acquisition, maintaining team cohesion and technical excellence

Software Engineer & Data Scientist | June 2014 – November 2016

• Built core analytics platform features and customer-facing dashboard interfaces
• Contributed to open-source analytics tools and developer community engagement

ENTREPRENEURIAL VENTURES | 2003 – 2014

Co-Founder & CTO, Multiple Successful Startups | Remote

• Relify (2012-2013): Co-founded and built machine learning-powered SaaS platform for recommendations-as-a-service, led company through Iron Yard accelerator program and seed funding round
• SendReceive (2006-2012): Co-founded and developed email and text communications platform serving political and enterprise clients, bootstrapped to profitability
• BlueEye Systems (2003-2012): Founded and led consulting firm to profitability, delivering custom software solutions for local and Fortune 500 clients
• Horner Networks (2003-2011): Co-founded systems integration and security company, bootstrapped to profitability (still in operation)

Founded and scaled multiple ventures to profitability without external funding, demonstrating strong business acumen alongside technical leadership. Led full product lifecycle including technical architecture, team building, customer acquisition, and sustainable business operations.

EARLY CAREER & HIGH-PROFILE TECHNICAL ROLES | 1996 – 2003

Lead Developer, New Media Communications | 1999 – 2001

• Architected and delivered mission-critical web platforms for high-stakes political campaigns
• Led technical development for Bush for President (2000) and Bloomberg for Mayor (2001) campaigns
• Built scalable web infrastructure for numerous national political organizations
• Delivered complex projects under extreme time pressure and public scrutiny

Technical Consultant, E-merging Technologies Group | 2001 – 2003
Developer/Server Administrator, Kent State University | 1996 – 1999

EDUCATION

Bachelor of Business Administration, Computer Information Systems
Kent State University | 1995 – 1999

ADDITIONAL EXPERIENCE

Mentor, The Iron Yard | 2013 – 2016
Mentored accelerator startups in business and technical excellence

CTO, ChartSpan Medical Technologies | 2013 – 2014

NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENTS

Endurance Athletics & Goal Achievement

• Completed Race Across America (2,900+ miles) in 6 days, 18 hours, 33 minutes with 8-person team to raise money for Akron Children's Hospital
• Completed Race Across the West (928 miles) in 66 hours, 18 minutes to raise money for the LeBron James Family Foundation
• Finished American Triple-T (ultra-distance triathlon) three times, and Ironman 70.3 thirteen times