K o t t e r v a
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crossroads • critical decisions • turning points
* inspired by the French concept, "Quatervois"
My name is Dustin Kirkland. I provide advice, coaching, consultation, and support to entrepreneurs, executives, and investors.
I am an experienced software engineer, engineering manager, startup chief technology officer, as well as product manager, and chief product officer.
My passion is helping startup founders productize innovations, adopt best practices, and avoid anti-patterns.
Please reach out through LinkedIn if I can be of assistance...
Experience
Experience
As a full time software engineer, product manager, and executive leader,
I've designed, built, launched, sold, supported, and operated technology products at:
As a full time software engineer, product manager, and executive leader,
I've designed, built, launched, sold, supported, and operated technology products at:
Software Architect,
Linux
Product Manager,
Kubernetes On-Prem
Managing Director,
Head of Consumer Product Platform
VP, Engineering
(Current)
Advice
Advice
As an advisor, consultant, and investor, I've supported the founders of:
As an advisor, consultant, and investor, I've supported the founders of:
About Me
About Me
Short Bio
Short Bio
Dustin Kirkland is the VP of Engineering at Chainguard, the safe source for open source. Spanning 25 years as an engineer, product manager, VP of Engineering, VP of Product, CTO, and CPO, Dustin has launched successful hardware, software, and services products at some of the world's largest companies (IBM, Google, Goldman Sachs), as well as leading growth startups (Canonical/Ubuntu, Gazzang, Apex Fintech, Chainguard). Open source software, cloud security, IoT devices, and financial services technology are among his passions and expertise. Dustin enjoys advising startups on strategy, and well-tuned product and engineering methodologies.
Longer Bio...
Longer Bio...
Dustin Kirkland is an engineer at heart, with a penchant for reducing complexity and solving problems at the cross-sections of technology, business, and people.
With a degree in computer engineering from Texas A&M University (2001), his full-time career began as a software engineer at IBM in the Linux Technology Center working on the kernel and security certifications, including a one-year stint as an dedicated engineer-in-residence at Red Hat in Boston (2005). Dustin was awarded the title "Master Inventor" at IBM, in recognition of his prolific patent work as an inventor and reviewer with IBM's intellectual property attorneys.
Dustin then first joined first Canonical (2008) as an engineer (eventually, engineering manager), helping create the Ubuntu Server distribution and establishing Ubuntu as the overwhelming favorite Linux distribution in Amazon, Google, and Microsoft's cloud platforms, as well as authoring and maintaining dozens of new open source packages.
Dustin joined Gazzang (2011), a venture-backed start-up built around an open source project that he co-authored (eCryptFS), as Chief Technology Officer, and helped dozens of enterprise customers encrypt their data at rest and securely manage their keys, (Gazzang was acquired by Cloudera).
Having effectively monetized eCryptFS as an open source project at Gazzang, Dustin returned to Canonical (2013) as the VP of Product for Ubuntu and spent the next several years launching a portfolio of products and services (Ubuntu Advantage, Extended Security Maintenance, Canonical Livepatch, MAAS, OpenStack, Kubernetes) that continues to deliver over a hundred million dollars in annual recurring revenue. With Canonical based in London, an 800+ work-from-home employee roster and customers spread across 40+ countries, Dustin has traveled the world over, connecting with clients and colleagues steeped in rich cultural experiences.
Google Cloud (2018) recruited Dustin from Canonical to product manage Google's entrance into on premises data centers with its GKE On-Prem (renamed 'Anthos', and then 'GKE Enterprise') offering, with a specific focus on the underlying operating system, hypervisor, and container security. This work afforded Dustin a view deep into the back end data center of many financial services companies, where he still sees tremendous opportunities for improvements in security, efficiencies, cost-reduction, and disruptive new technology adoption.
Seeking a growth-mode opportunity in the fintech sector, Dustin joined Apex Clearing (now, Apex Fintech Solutions) as their first Chief Product Officer (2019), where he led several organizations including product management, field engineering, data science, and partnerships. He drastically revamped Apex's product portfolio and product management processes, retooling away from a legacy "clearing house and custodian", and into a "software-as-a-service fintech" offering instant brokerage account opening, real-time fractional stock trading, a secure closed-network crypto solution, and led the acquisition and integration of Silver's tax and cost basis solution.
Drawn back into a large cap where he could have greater impact, Dustin joined Goldman Sachs (2021) as a Managing Director and Head of Platform Product Management, within the Consumer banking division, which included Marcus, and the Apple and GM credit cards. He built a cross-functional product management community and established numerous documented product management best practices, processes, and anti-patterns. Although the products won numerous industry awards, macroeconomic headwinds led to downsizing the consumer business, and provided Dustin the impetus to establish his own startup advisory practice -- Kotterva.
He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife Kim and their two daughters.
Media
Media
I thoroughly enjoy public speaking, and have extensive experience speaking at conferences,
appearances on podcasts, as well as leading conversations as an interview host and analyst...
I thoroughly enjoy public speaking, and have extensive experience speaking at conferences,
appearances on podcasts, as well as leading conversations as an interview host and analyst...
Podcast Appearances
Podcast Appearances
SiliconAngle / theCUBE Analyst Coverage
SiliconAngle / theCUBE Analyst Coverage
Matt Moore & Dustin Kirkland, Chainguard | Chainguard Assemble 2025
Christophe Sauthier and Chris Aniszczyk, CNCF | KubeCon EU 2024
Day Three Keynote Analysis | KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA 2023
Interview with David DeSanto, GitLab | KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA 2023
Interview with Josh Atwell & Robert Reeves | KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA 2023
Interview with Snehal Patel & Bobby Allen, Google Cloud | KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA 2023
Interview with Omri Gazitt & David Aronchick | KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA 2023
Interview with Arun Gupta, Intel | KubeCon + CloudNativeCon NA 2023
Day 2 Keynote Analysis, theCUBE Insights | Google Cloud Next 2023
Interview with Pradeep Sandhu, Deloitte & Dan Manley, CME Group Inc | Google Cloud Next 2023
Interview with Tony Ko & Cameron Curtis, Slalom | Google Cloud Next 2023
Interview with Gabe Monroy, Google Cloud | Google Cloud Next 2023
Interview with Dan Fergusson, Glean & John Purcell, DoiT International | Google Cloud Next 2023
Interview with Dan Lah, Red Hat & Venkat Gattamneni, Google Cloud | Google Cloud Next 2023
Interview with Gagan Reen & Blair Stewart, Wipro Limited | Google Cloud Next 2023
Interview with Kyle Bassett & Scott Petry, PwC Canada | Google Cloud Next 2023
Interview with Dave Tsai, Toyota Motors & Gopal Srinivasan, Deloitte | Google Cloud Next 2023
Interview with Raj Verma, SingleStore & Kannan D.R, LiveRamp | Google Cloud Next 2023
Interview with Saurabh Mishra, Quantiphi | Google Cloud Next 2023
Interview with Ionut (John) Grosu, Apptium Technologies | Google Cloud Next 2023
Interview with Ketan Awalegaonkar, PwC | Google Cloud Next 2023
Interview with Will Grannis, Google Cloud | Google Cloud Next 2023
Interview with Gretchen O'Hara, Splunk | Google Cloud Next 2023
Hosting Appearances
Hosting Appearances
KubeCon Barcelona, May 2019
KubeCon Seattle, December 2018
KubeCon Copenhagen, May 2018
Open Source
Open Source
Most of my career has been dedicated to the creation, maintenance,
proliferation of open source software, and ensuring its long term success with commercial viability.
Most of my career has been dedicated to the creation, maintenance,
proliferation of open source software, and ensuring its long term success with commercial viability.
Open source code projects that I've authored and maintained...
Open source code projects that I've authored and maintained...
Bikeshed - random useful tools that do not have a permanent home
Bikeshed is a collection of random but useful tools and utilities that either don't quite fit anywhere else, or have not yet been accepted by a more appropriate project. Think of this package as an "orphanage", where tools live until they are adopted by loving, accepting parents.
Bootmail - automatically email one or more admins when a system reboots
bootmail is a handy utility that will automatically send an email to a configurable list of email addresses each time the system boots. This is perhaps useful for unattended servers that should not reboot often. It appends a configurable list of log files to the email body. If you install the suggested packages, it will also cryptographically sign the email messages.
Byobu - text window manager, shell multiplexer, integrated DevOps environment
Byobu is Ubuntu's powerful text-based window manager, shell multiplexer, and integrated DevOps environment. Using Byobu, you can quickly create and move between different windows over a single SSH connection or TTY terminal, split each of those windows into multiple panes, monitor dozens of important statistics about your system, detach and reattach to sessions later while your programs continue to run in the background.
Dotdee - convert a flat file to a file concatenated from a .d-style directory
eCryptfs-utils - ecryptfs cryptographic filesystem (utilities)
eCryptfs is a POSIX-compliant enterprise-class stacked cryptographic filesystem for Linux. It provides advanced key management and policy features. eCryptfs stores cryptographic metadata in the header of each file written, so that encrypted files can be copied between hosts; the file will be decryptable with the proper key, and there is no need to keep track of any additional information aside from what is already in the encrypted file itself. Think of eCryptfs as a sort of "gnupgfs". eCryptfs is a native Linux filesystem. The kernel module component of eCryptfs is part of the Linux kernel since 2.6.19. This package contains the userland utilities.
Hollywood - fill your console with Hollywood melodrama technobabble
This utility will split your console into a multiple panes of genuine technobabble, perfectly suitable for any Hollywood geek melodrama. It is particularly suitable on any number of computer consoles in the background of any excellent schlock technothriller.
Musica - web application for browsing and listening to your music
Musica is a web application for browsing and listening to your music. Songs are organized hierarchically in folders of Artists, and sub-folders of Albums. The PHP script presents an interface for navigating among artists and albums. It dynamically generates playlists, allows for downloading single songs, entire albums, and links to Wikipedia articles on artists and albums.
Orange Box - Orange Box master node easy installation
Orchestra - superceded by MAAS
Petname - generate pronounceable, perhaps even memorable, pet names
This utility will generate "pet names", consisting of a random combination of an adverb, adjective, and proper name. These are useful for unique hostnames, for instance. The default packaging contains about 2000 names, 1300 adjectives, and 4000 adverbs, yielding nearly 10 billion unique combinations, covering over 32 bits of unique namespace. As such, PetName tries to follow the tenets of Zooko's triangle: names are human meaningful, decentralized, and secure.
golang-petname - golang library for generating pronounceable, memorable, pet names
This package provides a library for generating "pet names", consisting of a random combination of an adverb, adjective, and proper name. These are useful for unique hostnames, for instance. The default packaging contains about 2000 names, 1300 adjectives, and 4000 adverbs, yielding nearly 10 billion unique combinations, covering over 32 bits of unique namespace. As such, PetName tries to follow the tenets of Zooko's triangle: names are human meaningful, decentralized, and secure.
python-petname - python library for generating pronounceable, memorable, pet names
This package provides a library for generating "pet names", consisting of a random combination of an adverb, adjective, and proper name. These are useful for unique hostnames, for instance. The default packaging contains about 2000 names, 1300 adjectives, and 4000 adverbs, yielding nearly 10 billion unique combinations, covering over 32 bits of unique namespace. As such, PetName tries to follow the tenets of Zooko's triangle: names are human meaningful, decentralized, and secure.
Pictor - web application for browsing your pictures
Pictor is a simple web application for browsing your pictures in a in a filesystem (without a complicated database schema). Pictures are organized in filesystem directories of any depth. Albums are directories that contain pictures. Thumbnails are generated and cached as necessary, and images are dynamically resized on the fly. Pictor is useful as for low-traffic browsing of your pictures on a local webserver, but is not necessarily recommended for high traffic picture sharing, as Pictor's dynamic image scaling can be cpu-intensive.
Pollen - Entropy-as-a-Service web server
Pollinate - seed the pseudo random number generator in virtual machines
This client will connect to one or more Pollen (entropy-as-a-service) servers over an (optionally) encrypted connection and retrieve a random seed over HTTP or HTTPS. This is particularly useful at the first boot of cloud images and in virtual machines, to seed a system's random number generator at genesis, and is intended to supplement the /etc/init.d/urandom init script.
PowerNap - reduce the power consumption of a system when inactive
Run-one - run just one instance of a command and its args at a time
SSH-Import-ID - securely retrieve an SSH public key and install it locally
SWLines
Testdrive - run the daily Ubuntu ISO in a virtual machine
Testdrive helps you download and run the daily Ubuntu development ISO in a virtual machine on your local hardware. It is strongly recommended that you have a CPU with VT and sufficient memory on your system to host virtual machines. In this case, testdrive will use KVM to host your virtual machines.
Transcode in Parallel
Docs | Launchpad | Github | News | PPA | Ubuntu
Update-MOTD - compliments pam_motd in libpam-modules
This package installs a script that immediately dynamically generates a message-of-the-day by running scripts installed in /etc/update-motd.d, in lexical order. Other packages, or system administrators should symlink scripts into /etc/update-motd.d, pre-pending a 2-digit number to handle ordering. The functionality formerly provided by this package is now integrated into pam_motd, in libpam-modules.
What-Utils - simple package query utilities
Ubuntu features that I'm responsible for:
Ubuntu features that I'm responsible for:
The service command
Aubergine background in Ubuntu's debian-installer and ncurses screens
Projects that I've contributed to:
Projects that I've contributed to:
patches to support software RAID
Red Hat's Installer, Anaconda
patches
PAM
dynamic pam_motd.c
Debian package mantainer
Ubuntu packaging
screen
Newt
mdadm
patches
Intellectual Property / Article Citations
Intellectual Property / Article Citations
Early in my career at IBM, I spent considerable time, effort, and creativity
creating a portfolio of intellectual property, yielding some 75+ patents, and I was named an IBM Master Inventor in 2004. I also contributed to IBM's defense of Linux and Open Source, during a tumultuous period for free software.
Early in my career at IBM, I spent considerable time, effort, and creativity
creating a portfolio of intellectual property, yielding some 75+ patents, and I was named an IBM Master Inventor in 2004. I also contributed to IBM's defense of Linux and Open Source, during a tumultuous period for free software.
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