Andrea Della Corte

Background

About

Technical program leader with combined experience in agile project management, software development, lean process implementation, information security and system design.

Certified SAFe Program Consultant® and Large-Scale Scrum Practitioner® able to simplify, clarify and drive large cross-functional projects and organisational improvements, establish clear chains of accountability and manage escalations.

Release manager focused on implementing disciplined processes that do not impact the quality of time sensitive goals and foster collaboration.

Technical mentor able to turn complex business requirements in successful development plans and implementations by anticipating and making trade-offs.

Trust builder firmly believing in information security as crucial component for the company’s success.

Work Experience

Head of Program Management, Games Tech Unit, Improbable.io

Sep, 2018 - Present1 year 8 months

Accountable for the Game Tech Unit PMO function, managing a team of 8.
- Installed a program management capability in a complex matrix organisation, improving the predictability of delivery against existing and new business committments.
- Drove PMO best practices and governance, identifying, developing and sharing best practices for project management processes, tools and templates.
- Organised key performance review meetings, preparing for steering committee meetings and consolidating project and programme status reports.
- Established protocols for changing the scope of projects and / or programs. Ensured the change processes is followed.
- Made sure plans are of high quality, providing effective data for the portfolio.
- Advised the project teams on appropriate tools and techniques for managing stakeholder relationships.
Principal Technical Delivery Manager, Improbable.io

Jun, 2017 - Sep 20181 year 3 months

Accountable for the definition and continuous improvement of the delivery metrics, supporting the successful implementation of the business roadmap.
- Organised quarterly planning sessions for the Games Business Unit 3 divisions, comprising of 22 teams and 3 geographic regions.
- Responsible for converting the Product Marketing strategy into technical projects to be driven across multiple units.
- Extended and continously evolved the Project Management, Scrum and Kanban implementations across multiple teams.
- Defined a new joiner Delivery training and an employee to employee mentoring program.
Adjunct Professor, University of Salerno

Oct, 2017 - Jan, 20184 months

Taught Agile and Lean software development methods to 60 MEng Software Engineering students.
- Led a development competition between 8 teams, evaluating the project best managed and the technical solutions quality.
Technical Program Manager, Amazon.co.uk

Jul, 2016 - Jun, 201711 months

Program manager for the global release of Amazon's video streaming services to 200 new countries.
- Led a cross-functional team of 8 engineers, 2 QAs and 1 designer for the delivery of a time-critical V1 product on 15 third-party devices.
- Increased the release cadence from 3 to 1 week, by aligning multiple teams on test automation, software quality and release best practices, while also reducing the QA team size from 26 to 6 resources.
- Part of an elite train-the-train program for delivering security awareness and testing best practices training to senior and new employees.
Security Technical Program Manager, Amazon.com

Nov, 2014 - Jul, 20161 year 8 months

Managed the security program for threat reduction, policy compliance, vulnerability management of Amazon’s 27 subsidiaries.
- Participated in 5 Merge and Acquisition projects, performing security due diligence and developing processes that ensured critical risks would be resolved earlier.
- Security certifier responsible for the architecture review, threat modelling, code investigation and penetration testing of critical applications handling highly confidential data.
Technical Program Manager, Amazon.com

Jan, 2014 - Nov, 201410 months

Responsible for the delivery of functionalities on 12 concurrent new devices, with more than 70 stakeholder teams on a global scale.
- Delivered a new demo system that reduced production costs by $500,000 for the Kindle Paperwhite and each eInk subsequent releases.
Software Development Engineer, Amazon.com

Jan, 2013 - Dec, 201311 months

Developed both Web (RESTful, in Ruby on Rails and Javascript, on AWS infrastructure) and Android (FireOS flavor, in Java) applications for the Kindle Offline Retail team.
- Delivered a scalable system for storing, querying and visualising customer usage metrics requested by the product and marketing team.
- Worked with external dependent teams to identify and resolve critical integration issues.
Software Development Engineer, Ansaldo STS

Apr, 2011 - Dec, 20121 year 8 months

Developed software in C and C++ for CADX, the next generation railway system.
- Investigated and resolved over 100 customers' change requests on frontend (Qt) and backend functionalities (C++).
- Led a large refactoring of the codebase utilising best practices like design patterns and Test Driven Development, and completely removing a dependency on a legacy library as a result.

Skills

Organisational design
strategy alignment agile / lean scaling high-frequency decision making reporting and outreach escalation management
Engineering
c++ system design ruby (on rails) continuous integration amazon web services tooling and automation
InfoSec
threat modelling penetration testing merge and acquisition

Education

Computer Engineering, Master in Engineering, University of Salerno

Jan, 2008 - Jan, 2011
110 Cum Laude / 110 (GPA 3.90)
Erasmus Exchange Student, Researcher, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

Jan, 2010 - Jan, 2011
Computer Engineering, Bachelor, University of Salerno

Jan, 2004 - Jan, 2008
107 / 110 (GPA 3.66)

Awards

Corporate Strategy University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Awarded on: March 19, 2020
SAFe Program Consultant®, SAFe 4.6 scaledagile.com

Awarded on: Sep 29, 2019
Business Strategy University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Awarded on: Aug 28, 2019
Managing the Organization: From Organizational Design to Execution University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Awarded on: Jul 21, 2019
Designing the Organization: From Strategy to Organizational Structure University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Awarded on: Jun 15, 2019
Applications of Everyday Leadership University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Awarded on: Jan 26, 2019
Foundations of Everyday Leadership University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Awarded on: Dec 31, 2018
Certified LeSS Practitioner®, Large-Scale Scrum less.works

Awarded on: Sep 01, 2017
Certified Scaled Agilist®, SAFe 4.0 scaledagile.com

Awarded on: Jan 01, 2017
Security+ comptia.org

Awarded on: Nov 01, 2015
Security Certifier amazon.com

Awarded on: Oct 15, 2015, Sep 01, 2013
Certificate of Proficiency in English cam.ac.uk

Awarded on: Mar 01, 2010
Monastery: Winner Project Open Source Game Coding Competition 6

Awarded on: Apr 02, 2013
VimCity: Winner Project Open Source Game Coding Competition 5

Awarded on: Nov 06, 2011

Publications

Classification and Forecasting of Stock Market Data: Distance Based Methods and Relevance Learning, University of Salerno

Published on: Feb 26, 2011
Pattern Recognition Techniques for Semantic Matching between Web Services, University of Salerno

Published on: Sep 02, 2008

Interests

Videogames

retro-gaming mmos virtual realities
Social

mentoring global warming animal welfare

References

Nicolas Vinet

I worked closely with Andrea in the past year and during that time he was key in the delivery of Amazon Video Livingroom programs. Andrea loves processes, shaping them to fit any difficult situations. And he is not shy in trying new ways of working and learning from them. He played a critical role in the success of the delivery of Text-to-Speech last year. His passion, enthusiasm and attention to details helped getting engineers together in a a single goal; deliver the best experience for our customers. It was a treat working with him and I look forward for the day our path will cross again.
Shaun Barker

Andrea made a massive impact on the AV team as soon as he arrived. Organised, methodical, technical and to the point. Andrea has no patience for inaction, and will always use his significant powers of persuasion, and determination to ensure he gets the outcomes that he needs. A bastion of the customer at all times, Andrea is a significant asset to any modern tech company. He knows his tech (he even writes code if you don't keep your eye on him!!), he knows his agile, he has strong communication skills, and can dig himself out of any rathole he finds himself in. I would gladly work with Andrea if the opportunity was to arise.At all times Andrea carries himself with confidence and takes professional pride and passion to a new level. SAD FACE Andrea is leaving us!
Rahul Pandit

Andrea worked in my team as a Technical Program Manager when i was managing the Amazon Kindle Device team. He is a very methodical and detailed oriented Technical Program Manager with great soft skills. He has a very cheerful, positive attitude that rubs off on the team as well. He has always demonstrated a great bias for action and a willingness to roll up his sleeves to quickly tackle any problem no matter how big or small. In fact, i would say one of his key strengths is getting things done in time with excellent quality. Kindle Demo API is a horizontal API spanning 30+ teams like Video, Music, Books, Home, etc for multiple device types and platforms like Eink, Tablet etc. He partnered with around 30+ business and technical teams managing multiple projects in parallel and shipping all of the projects on time with great quality. He showed the ability to partner with other technical and business teams to deliver results combined with his technical expertise and leadership principles. While he has the capability to dive deep into technical problems, he also looks at problems from a customer perspective to determine solutions that meet project goals in an efficient and cost effective mannern. He is one of the best Program Managers that I have worked with and would welcome the opportunity to work with again in the future.
Monica Bush

Andrea’s contributions to the Amazon Subsidiary Security team were highly valued and appreciated. He helped manage risk assessments for M&A as well as improve the security posture for all Amazon subsidiaries. His strengths include being able to rapidly and proactively assess gaps in order to steer teams to a planned path of success. He is a champion of ownership with leaderly qualities to manage cross-functional projects that require both detailed project management and security technical competence. In addition to planning-the-plan, his hands-on work ethic helped to drive the delivery of a critical business initiative for maintaining measurements of each subsidiary’s security posture. He worked with an unsurpassed positive attitude even in the most demanding of times. It was a pleasure to work with Andrea, I hope to have the opportunity again in the future.
Stephen Safko

Andrea worked for me for about two years at Ansaldo. Andrea was a bright young engineer. Any task I gave him, he tackled with enthusiasm and worked very hard to find an answer to the problem. The solutions he came up with were very well thought out and he always completed the projects on time if not early. Andrea was a great engineer for us and I would love to work with him again someday.
Simone Leonardo Maccanti

I worked with Andrea for the CADX project, we worked together for Train Management subsystem. He is incredibly smart and intelligent: also with my experience, more than one time I asked him advice about code, subsystems, and so on. He has an authentic passion for coding, and to solve problems.
Andrea Cardaropoli

Through the years, we worked on various projects and I was always impressed by his way of doing a great job. He is not only a wise and eager developer but also an inspiring manager. Andrea is an amazing team player who can take on even the most challenging projects. When you get to connect with him, you'll discover an amazing person with unique skills!
Mark Hirsch

I worked with Andrea as a colleague and fellow team member to provide software solutions and innovations to Ansaldo's product line. Andrea has demonstrated a dedication to performing the highest quality of work. He has the foresight to recognize when to rewrite and / or reorganize existing software and to implement improvements that are beneficial in the long term when doing so is not necessarily an immediate goal. He always looks at problems from a customer perspective and finds solutions that meet project goals in an efficient and cost effective manner. He is quick to explain technical concepts when needed and is a pleasure to work with. Andrea will benefit any organization he is a member of.
Michael Biehl

Andrea visited the Johann Bernoulli Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science in Groningen for several months. Within the Intelligent Systems group he has completed a master thesis project under my co-supervision. The project concerned, among other things, the application of machine learning techniques in the area of financial time series analysis. Andrea has worked extremely efficiently and thorought. His level of independence was outstanding and he obtained exciting results of very high quality. Te project has benefitted a lot from Andrea's own ideas and contributions beyond its original outline.