Aurimas Niekis

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Work Experience

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December 2023 – Moved to Tokyo, Japan

Thruster Industries

CEO & Founder

Work Period
October 2021 – Present
Location
Vilnius, Lithuania
Sector
Technology
Industry
Software / Tech Services
About Company
Thruster Industries is a pioneering technology company focused on delivering innovative solutions in software development, hardware engineering, and integrated tech systems. Known for its expertise in cutting-edge software architecture, embedded systems, and IoT technology, Thruster Industries creates scalable and high-performance solutions tailored to industry needs. The company combines advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data analytics to address complex challenges, transforming them into streamlined, efficient systems. Dedicated to driving progress, Thruster Industries empowers businesses through customized tech integration, enhancing productivity and fostering sustainable growth.
About work experience
As CEO and Founder of Thruster Industries, I lead with a strategic vision that integrates advanced technologies, including AI, large language models (LLMs), and IoT, to drive innovation across software, hardware, and system solutions. My role encompasses both high-level planning and hands-on technical execution, ensuring that each project—from initial concept to final implementation—meets the highest standards of quality, performance, and scalability tailored to each client’s needs.

With expertise spanning AI, embedded systems, software engineering, and next-gen tech, I tackle complex challenges by combining strategic foresight with practical, technical application. I guide Thruster Industries in developing solutions that leverage AI-driven insights, LLMs, and machine learning to stay ahead of industry trends and continually push the boundaries of technological advancement. Each solution we deliver is crafted to maximize impact, aligning with the latest innovations in AI and integrated technology.

In cultivating a culture of excellence and innovation, I focus on creating solutions that deliver transformative value for clients. My leadership has positioned Thruster Industries as a trusted partner in the tech industry, known for delivering custom, high-performance solutions that empower businesses to thrive in an evolving, technology-driven landscape.
Responsibilities
  • Lead Thruster Industries with strategic vision and technical direction
  • Oversee software, hardware, and AI-driven projects from concept to delivery
  • Drive innovation and ensure quality at all development stages
  • Develop solutions focused on IoT, embedded systems, software, and AI
  • Ensure alignment with industry standards and emerging technologies
  • Analyze and resolve complex technical challenges
  • Deliver scalable, high-performance solutions for clients
  • Manage project timelines, resources, and budgets
  • Track progress through project plans and status reports
  • Implement continuous improvements in processes
  • Collaborate with clients to translate needs into solutions
  • Create technical documentation for stakeholders
  • Mentor engineering staff on best practices
  • Evaluate and integrate tools and AI frameworks to boost efficiency
  • Conduct performance and integration testing for reliability
Used Technologies
JavaKotlinPHPGolangC++CPythonTypescriptJavascriptSymfonyAWSGCPKubernetesDockerTerraformOpenAIGPT-4ClaudeAnthropicChatGPTLLMHugging FaceBERTRoBERTaTensorFlowPyTorchLangChainKerasMLflowMySQLPostgresRedisRabbitMQInfluxDBRocksDBElasticsearchELKGrafanaGithubJenkinsRedmineJira
October 2021 – Moved to Vilnius, Lithuania

GMO Research, Inc.

System Division Leader

Work Period
February 2020 – January 2023
Location
Tokyo, Japan
Sector
Communications
Industry
Media / Internet Media & Services
About Company
GMO Research offers an online research solution platform that allows access to our multi-panel and multi-country online panel network - Asia Cloud Panel. While we are constantly expanding our reach in Asia and globally, Asia Cloud Panel consists of over 36 million online consumer panelists across 15 APAC countries/markets, ranging from consumers to CEOs.

GMO Research is a part of and backed by GMO Internet Group - one of the largest Internet Conglomerates in Japan specializing in a number of Internet-related technologies.
About work experience
My role at GMO Research is to lead the modernization of the existing projects, which are using outdated technologies and infrastructure and reform and teach the new way to develop and utilize new technologies.

Leading a new trend in the company, helping to refactor/rewrite/migrate existing projects to new frameworks and programming languages. Working with DevOps team to teach and introduce the usage of cloud providers like AWS and GCP. Creating tools and templates for new projects to help with local development, continuous integration, continuous deployments, and infrastructure. Improving workflow of developing projects.

Hosting a PHP workshop to teach company PHP developers of the newest frameworks, language new features, and techniques to develop efficient and modern code.
Responsibilities
  • Take up the responsibility of the entire Project
  • Carefully analyse the project and rectify the errors found in the process
  • Undergoing the process of analysis in order to fulfil the requirement of system wide
  • Developing the detailed design structure after understanding the requirements and the design
  • Create and participate in software planning and estimating, status monitoring and reporting
  • Devise new approaches, apply existing criteria in new ways and draw conclusions from comparative situations
  • Software design, prototyping and investigating
  • Software coding and unit testing
  • Systems integration and testing
  • Software documentation
  • Troubleshoot for program errors in existing systems
  • Make recommendations on the assessment of tools and software products
  • Manage and support other software engineering staff
  • Participate in mandated engineering reviews
  • Participate in the pursuit of new business by identifying opportunities and contributing to tender preparation
  • Participate in continuous improvement initiatives
Used Technologies
PHP8PHP7PHP5JavaGolangSymfonyCakePHPAWSGCPKubernetesDockerTerraformMutagenMySQLRedisRabbitMQInfluxDBElasticsearchELKGrafanaGithubJenkinsRedmineJira
February 2020 – Moved to Tokyo, Japan

Sony Music Entertainment UK Ltd (NOW That's What I Call Music)

Senior Software Engineer

Work Period
April 2019 – February 2020
Location
London, United Kingdom
Sector
Communications
Industry
Media / Entertainment Content
About Company
Sony Music Entertainment UK Ltd. provides broadcasting and entertainment services. The Company offers music recording, record marketing, artist marketing, and promotion services. Sony Music Entertainment markets its products worldwide.

NOW That’s What I Call Music is the biggest selling compilation brand in the world.
About work experience
My role at Sony Music Entertainment (NOW That's What I Call Music brand) was to develop API for their mobile music streaming service with hundreds of thousands of subscribers in the United Kingdom market.

I worked with the team to develop new features and improve previous ones to handle the more significant load on servers and reduce the cloud provider service fees by changing used technologies and the way it is utilized.

I have created internal tools to help work with the music library and analytics on mobile apps usage to provide better insight for the team.
Responsibilities
  • Create and participate in software planning and estimating, status monitoring and reporting
  • Devise new approaches, apply existing criteria in new ways and draw conclusions from comparative situations
  • Software design, prototyping and investigating
  • Software coding and unit testing
  • Systems integration and testing
  • Software documentation
  • Troubleshoot for program errors in existing systems
  • Make recommendations on the assessment of tools and software products
  • Manage and support other software engineering staff
  • Participate in mandated engineering reviews
  • Participate in the pursuit of new business by identifying opportunities and contributing to tender preparation
  • Participate in continuous improvement initiatives
Used Technologies
PHP7MySQLSymfonyLaravelDockerAWSElasticsearchGitLabKubernetes

LendInvest Ltd

Backend Software Engineer

Work Period
April 2018 – April 2019
Location
London, United Kingdom
Sector
Financials
Industry
Financial Services / Specialty Finance
About Company
LendInvest is a non-bank mortgage lender in the UK and is a property lending and investing platform. As an alternative Fintech lender in the property market, LendInvest provides fast finance to property professionals and small and medium-sized businesses around the UK.

LendInvest is the UK’s leading platform for property finance. Since starting in 2008, It had lent more than £3 billion of mortgages and has helped put thousands of new or improved homes into the UK housing market.
About work experience
My work at LendInvest was to develop an integration between internal loan book application and Oracle NetSuite application to create and manage transactional documents and transfers.

The service I created is handling thousands of transactional messages from 3rd party service provider into loan book application and creating required documents and records inside NetSuite using integration module I developed for Oracle Netsuite using SuiteScript.
Responsibilities
  • Create and participate in software planning and estimating, status monitoring and reporting
  • Devise new approaches, apply existing criteria in new ways and draw conclusions from comparative situations
  • Software design, prototyping and investigating
  • Software coding and unit testing
  • Systems integration and testing
  • Software documentation
  • Troubleshoot for program errors in existing systems
  • Make recommendations on the assessment of tools and software products
  • Manage and support other software engineering staff
  • Participate in mandated engineering reviews
  • Participate in the pursuit of new business by identifying opportunities and contributing to tender preparation
  • Participate in continuous improvement initiatives
Used Technologies
PHP7JavascriptNodeJSPostgreSQLMySQLSymfony4DockerAWSJenkinsKubernetesOracle NetSuiteSuiteScript

Cortexica Vision Systems Ltd.

Senior PHP Software Engineer

Work Period
July 2017 – March 2018
Location
London, United Kingdom
Sector
Technology
Industry
Software / Tech Services
About Company
Cortexica is a London based, global service provider of practical AI solutions for businesses. Providing clarity and insight from within the noise around AI, Cortexica delivers world-leading Computer Vision image recognition and search technologies supported by industry specific consultancy.

Working with clients across a range of verticals including retail, media, manufacturing and pharmaceuticals, Cortexica’s technology is robust and flexible and can be integrated to any requirements on any system or platform, including on device. The ability to partner with clients to create AI solutions for their specific needs, from innovation to delivery, ensures maximum benefit and return on investment. Cortexica was developed from the Bioengineering Department of Imperial College London, and originated from a pioneering research to reverse-engineer the human visual cortex.
About work experience
My work at Cortexica was to create a client-facing service API to interact with back-end AI technologies developed by the company to help easier integration with them.

I have also created internal tools to visualize client data, usage information, and other information to help our sales team work with its clients using the latest frontend technologies like React & Redux.
Responsibilities
  • Create and participate in software planning and estimating, status monitoring and reporting
  • Devise new approaches, apply existing criteria in new ways and draw conclusions from comparative situations
  • Software design, prototyping and investigating
  • Software coding and unit testing
  • Systems integration and testing
  • Software documentation
  • Troubleshoot for program errors in existing systems
  • Make recommendations on the assessment of tools and software products
  • Manage and support other software engineering staff
  • Participate in mandated engineering reviews
  • Participate in the pursuit of new business by identifying opportunities and contributing to tender preparation
  • Participate in continuous improvement initiatives
Used Technologies
PHP7JavascriptReactReduxMySQLMongoDBSymfony4DockerAWSRabbitMQElasticsearchRedis
July 2017 – Moved to London, United Kingdom

Trivago NV

Senior Software Engineer

Work Period
November 2016 – July 2017
Location
Düsseldorf, Germany
Sector
Communications
Industry
Internet Media / Services
About Company
Trivago N.V., marketed with lowercase styling as trivago, is a Dutch-domiciled transnational technology company specializing in internet-related services and products in the hotel, lodging and metasearch fields.

trivago is a hotel search with an extensive price comparison. The prices shown come from numerous hotels and booking websites. This means that while users decide on trivago which hotel best suits their needs.
About work experience
My work at Trivago consisted of working on two different projects. The first project was to help optimize and improve the search field's auto-suggestion feature by improving API service and optimizing the Apache Solr-based engine to reduce the time and resources required by it.

The second project was to help create synchronization of MySQL database clusters across data centers worldwide by developing a Java-based MySQL slave server technology. It uses Kafka connect technology and ProtoBuf to sync the incremental changes instead of sending whole datasets, which improved performance and reduces the data burden of great distances between data centers across the globe.
Responsibilities
  • Create and participate in software planning and estimating, status monitoring and reporting
  • Devise new approaches, apply existing criteria in new ways and draw conclusions from comparative situations
  • Software design, prototyping and investigating
  • Software coding and unit testing
  • Systems integration and testing
  • Software documentation
  • Troubleshoot for program errors in existing systems
  • Make recommendations on the assessment of tools and software products
  • Manage and support other software engineering staff
  • Participate in mandated engineering reviews
  • Participate in the pursuit of new business by identifying opportunities and contributing to tender preparation
  • Participate in continuous improvement initiatives
Used Technologies
PHPJavaJavascriptReactMySQLHadoopKafkaSolrSaltStackDockerVagrant

Freshcells System Engineering GmbH

Senior Software Engineer

Work Period
July 2015 – November 2016
Location
Düsseldorf, Germany
Sector
Communications
Industry
Internet Media / Services
About Company
freshcells systems engineering GmbH is a software and consulting company from Düsseldorf. We design, develop and maintain professional and complex software solutions.
About work experience
My work at Freshcells mainly consisted of developing ETL-based technology to aggregate and calculate data mainly for the biggest European travel operators to provide up-to-date information on availability and pricing. Improving existing data flow performance and reducing the cost of running.
Responsibilities
  • Create and participate in software planning and estimating, status monitoring and reporting
  • Devise new approaches, apply existing criteria in new ways and draw conclusions from comparative situations
  • Software design, prototyping and investigating
  • Software coding and unit testing
  • Systems integration and testing
  • Software documentation
  • Troubleshoot for program errors in existing systems
  • Make recommendations on the assessment of tools and software products
  • Manage and support other software engineering staff
  • Participate in mandated engineering reviews
  • Participate in the pursuit of new business by identifying opportunities and contributing to tender preparation
  • Participate in continuous improvement initiatives
Used Technologies
PHPRubyElixirJavaJavascriptReactReduxMySQLHadoopKafkaCassandraElasticsearch
July 2015 – Moved to Düsseldorf, Germany

MailerLite

Senior Backend Software Engineer | Big Data Architect

Work Period
February 2015 – July 2015
Location
Vilnius, Lithuania
Sector
Communications
Industry
Internet Media / Services
About Company
MailerLite is an email marketing software designed to help people of all skill levels easily create personalized marketing campaigns to stay connected with their audience.

Build great relationships and connect with your audience on a human level using features like a drag & drop editor, landing page builder, rich-text editor, automationtools, pop-ups, surveys, templates, e-commerce tools, campaign reports, A/B testing, segmentation, abandoned carts, and more.
They also offer integrations with the most popular software tools including WordPress, Zapier, Shopify, PayPal and WooCommerce.

Additionally, MailerLite provides educational content like monthly webinars, product tutorials and extensive email marketing guides to ensure that their users succeed. They are known for their 24/7 exceptional customer support and for being a remote-first company. They also offer a Forever Free plan and paid plans with advanced features.
About work experience
My work at MailerLite consisted of two projects. The first one was to research and develop a better way to provide analytics for our clients which required investigating big data technologies and developing service which could withstand hundreds of billions rows of data and aggregation service to provide up to date statistics to our clients.

The second project was to develop a web-based tool to design a graphical landing page for clients to use with their email campaigns using the AngularJS framework.
Responsibilities
  • Manipulating, cleansing & processing data using big data tools.
  • Responsible for loading, extracting and validation of statistical data.
  • Analysing raw data, drawing conclusions & developing recommendations transformation scripts to manipulate data for data loads and extracts.
  • Developing data analytical databases from complex analytical source data.
  • Performing daily system checks.
  • Data entry, data auditing, creating data reports & monitoring all data for accuracy.
  • Designing, developing and implementing new functionality.
  • Monitoring the automated loading processes.
  • Advising on the suitability of methodologies and suggesting improvements.
  • Carrying out specified data processing and statistical techniques.
  • Supplying qualitative and quantitative data to colleagues & clients.
  • Software design, prototyping and investigating
  • Software coding and unit testing
  • Systems integration and testing
Used Technologies
PHPRubyJavaJavascriptAngularJSMySQLHadoopCassandraRedisnginx
February 2015 – Moved to Vilnius, Lithuania

NFQ

Software Engineer

Work Period
December 2012 – February 2015
Location
Kaunas, Lithuania
Sector
Communications
Industry
Internet Media / Services
About Company
Founded in 2002, NFQ is an international digital innovation company. It builds large-scale web development, business digitalization, BI and data science projects, and provides UX, UI, and CRO services, for travel, retail, transport-and-logistics, and sharing-economy businesses across the globe. NFQ supports clients across their full business cycle with comprehensive solutions – like the world leading metasearch engines it has built for Kayak and HomeToGo. Business transformation and data-driven decisions for the digital age are enabled with in-house developed products: like Stovendo, which gives retail customers a seamless online and in-store experience, or Sensus Aero – the state-of-the-art airport ground service management system now implemented at more than 15 airports, serving Turkish Airlines, Wizz Air, Aeroflot, and many more.

The NFQ team of over 400 top-tier developers and data scientists in Lithuania, Germany, Vietnam, and Singapore is pushing the boundaries of possible beyond expectations.
About work experience
My work at NFQ consisted of mainly working on many PHP-based web projects, mainly in the e-commerce sector, creating custom modules and solutions for our clients.

I also participated in local developer groups and activities to help fellow developers in the company.
Responsibilities
  • Create and participate in software planning and estimating, status monitoring and reporting
  • Software design, prototyping
  • Software coding and unit testing
  • Troubleshoot for program errors in existing systems
Used Technologies
PHPSymfonyPythonRubyJavascriptMySQLRabbitMQElasticsearchELKRedisnginx

Apartment Hunterz

Software Engineer

Work Period
June 2012 – December 2012
Location
Kaunas, Lithuania
Sector
Communications
Industry
Internet Media / Services
About Company
Apartment Hunters focuses on representing independent property owners and managers of apartments, houses, duplexes, townhouses and condos. We represent 6-12 unit independently owned and managed smaller apartment buildings as well as over 300 management companies who each manage 10-75 various communities throughout Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Diego area & San Francisco Bay Area.
About work experience
My work at ApartmentHunterz mainly consisted of developing data mining modules to gather data for our apartment metasearch system.
Responsibilities
  • Create and participate in software planning and estimating, status monitoring and reporting
  • Software design, prototyping
  • Software coding and unit testing
  • Troubleshoot for program errors in existing systems
Used Technologies
PHPJavascriptMySQL

IREC Baltic

IT Specialist | IT Consultant

Work Period
October 2009 – July 2012
Location
Kaunas, Lithuania
Sector
Construction
Industry
Real Estate
About Company
IREC Baltic is a real estate development company engaged in a full range of services – from analysis, planning, and construction to exploitation. A thorough assessment of needs and situation, an appropriate selection of a plot or an already existing object and its accommodation for the intended use allow us to solve even the hardest tasks of planning and construction.

A professional team and trustworthy partners make for a fluent and optimal process of project implementation while our innovative thinking and creativeness turn every project into a unique object that at the same time is completely compliant with the requirements. The entirety of these processes enables IREC Baltic to implement even the most ambitious projects impeccably and raise the bar of both quality and quantity to new heights each time.
About work experience
My work at IREC Baltic mainly was to help the company with IT technologies while also developing some internal tools to improve their workflows.
Responsibilities
  • Maintain company computers
  • Consult with IT questions
  • Develop company internal tools
  • Develop company website
Used Technologies
PHPJavascriptMySQL

Project History

Symfony

Contributions

Project Period
2016 – Present
About Project
Contributing new code and bug-fixes to well know PHP web framework Symfony.
Used Technologies
PHP

Thruster PHP Framework

Contributions

Project Period
2016 – Present
About Project
Researching and developing asynchronous PHP application framework for high-performance and high-availability systems.
Used Technologies
PHP

PHP Funct

Contributions

Project Period
2016 – Present
About Project
Researching and developing an PHP library with commonly used code blocks for faster development.
Used Technologies
PHP

Entry access control and tracking system

Freelance

Project Period
2015
Location
Lithuania
About Project
Research and develop and integrated system for entry (door, gate, escalator, elevator, and etc) control and tracking.
Responsibilities
  • Designed electronics modules based on ARM Cortex M0 and ARM926 to interact with existing hardware.
  • Designed software for electronics module and central operating server using C++, NodeJS, PHP, Ruby, MySQL and Linux
Used Technologies
CC++Embedded MCUPHPNodeJSJavascriptRubyMySQL

Geolocation tracking and analysing for transport

Freelance

Project Period
2015
Location
Lithuania
About Project
Research and develop and integrated system for cargo expedition company to track and analyse transport vehicles.
Responsibilities
  • Designed electronics module based on ARM Cortex-A8 to communicate with vehicle on board computer via CAN bus, track location using GPS and communicate with main server via Cellular Data Modem.
  • Designed software for electronic module and main server to display current status, analyse data and track company vehicles using C++, PHP, NodeJS, RethinkDB, HTML5, ReactJS,
Used Technologies
CC++Embedded MCUARM Cortex M0ARM926GPSCANPHPNodeJSJavascriptRubyMySQLRethinkDB

6LoWPAN based visualized art installation

Art Installation

Project Period
2014
About Project
Developed small art installation based on early access TI 6LoWPAN Sub-1Ghz modules and Edge router to create wireless light installation for a friend artist using C++ and Processing.
Used Technologies
CC++6LoWPANSub-1GhzEmbedded MCUARM926NodeJS

Areas of Expertise

  • Software Engineering

    CC++C#CrystalDelphiElixirGolangJavascriptJavaNodeJSPHPRubyRustTypescript

  • Embedded Software Engineering

    ASMCC++CrystalFreeRTOSRust

  • Web Application Development

    CakePHPExpressLaravelRuby on RailsSpring BootSymfony

  • Frontend Software Engineering

    AngularJSBabelBootstrapCSSES6ES7HTML5JavascriptJSXReactReduxTailwindcssTypescriptWebPack

  • Mobile Software Engineering

    CordovaReact Native

  • Big Data Engineering

    CassandraElasticsearchHadoopHiveKafkaPrestoRabbitMQSpark

  • Database Engineering

    AlgoliaCouchBaseElasticsearchInfluxDBLuceneMySQLMemSQLMariaDBMemcacheMongoDBPostgreSQLRedisRethinkDBSolr

  • Version Control

    CVSGitBitBucketGithubGitLabMercurialSVN

  • Virtualization & Containerization

    DockerVagrantVirtualBoxVMware ESXiVMware FusionVMware Workstation

  • DevOps

    KubernetesAnsibleChefPuppetTerraformSaltStackJenkinsTravisGithub Actions

  • Monitoring Tools

    New RelicSentry

  • Cloud Platforms

    AWSGCPDigitalOcean

  • Task Management

    JiraRedmineGithub

  • Software Architecture

    SDLCSLASLOSOASPAUML

  • Team Lead / Project Lead

    AgileCode ReviewCommunicationConflict ResolutionDelegatingExtreme ProgrammingGiving & Receiving FeedbackKanbanLeanPair ProgrammingOrganizationProblem SolvingScrumTeam TrackingTechnical Decision MakingTechnical Documentation

  • Digital Electronics

    Atmel AVR 8-BitARM Cortex L0ARM Cortex L4ARM Cortex M0ARM Cortex M1ARM Cortex M3ARM Cortex M4ARM Cortex M7ARM Cortex A5ARM Cortex A8ArduinoBeagleBoneRaspberryPiSTM32 seriesAtmel SAM seriesCANRS-485EthernetWiegand6LoWPANSub-1GhzWiFi

  • Analog Electronics

    Power ConvertersAmplifiers

  • Schematic & PCB Design

    AltiumCircuitDesignEagleKiCAD

  • CAD Software

    Autodesk InventorOpenSCADLibreCAD

  • Design Software

    Adobe PhotoshopAdobe IllustratorSketch