About Erik
Erik is a longtime engineer turned executive and Big 4 director, now acquisition entrepreneur. He is an operations & process improvement leader enabled through software & data who has worked for organizations from corporate startups to turnarounds and from mid-market to the Fortune 100.
With the "STARS" (start-up, turnaround, accelerated growth, realignment, sustaining success) model as a reference, the bulk of Erik's career has been spent on start-up situations, followed by turnaround, with a hybrid of turnaround and accelerated growth as the closest match for his recent work at Deloitte.
Erik has tended to wear a lot of hats leading software architecture and development, often serving as product owner at the same time by using his expertise to relate to the work that needs to be performed. And while he is technology agnostic, catering solutions to client needs, he has significant experience implementing open source tooling and technologies.
In recent years, Erik has focused on building data-intensive products using a unique blend of accumulated data, software engineering, and practical enterprise architecture expertise. As part of this experience, he has the building of several data platforms under his belt, recognized as an early adopter of Databricks who founded Databricks Community Meetup Chicago (now with over 600 members) in February 2019 and worked with the owners of DB-Engines to add Databricks to its database rankings in April 2022.
As a creative outlet and side hustle, Erik writes for "Erik on Software" and enjoys responding to a variety of technology-themed media queries, participating in community discussions, and reviewing books offered by authors and publicists each year. On a personal note, he is also a lifelong runner who can be found on Chicago area trails-over-rails running paths if you wake up early enough in the morning.
While Erik originally started Erik on Software after joining a boutique consulting firm to focus on software engineering, the meaning of "software" has since broadened to refer to business in general due to the idea that every business is becoming a software business. To tie together the original purpose of "Erik on Software" with what it has eventually become, he recently replaced the original tagline with the following:
Every business is becoming a software business, catching up with humans who have been software all along.
Erik on Software was recently replatformed and refreshed, with a migration from Typepad to Ghost, but some post-migration tasks remain, including the configuring of additional redirects and fixing some formatting and images. Recent posts are being prioritized, as some older posts may be sunsetted.
Google Analytics was configured at an early stage, having since recorded page views by visitors from over 175 countries. The top 10 visiting countries since inception include the United States, United Kingdom, India, Canada, Germany, France, Australia, China, Brazil, and Netherlands. The top 10 visiting cities since inception include Chicago, New York, London, Bengaluru, Sydney, Singapore, Toronto, Melbourne, San Francisco, and Paris.