Mark Griffith — Amazon employee No. 1,037 and the third hire for what would become Fulfillment by Amazon — is retiring after more than two decades with the Seattle-area tech giant.
Griffith spent most of his career at FBA, which handles shipping, customer service, and returns for third-party businesses. He was director of software engineering for FBA and then for Amazon payments. His final role was director of seller fulfillment services.
Griffith penned a lengthy reflection on Substack in which he shares his career journey, what he learned from working at the company, and pithy personal and professional advice.
“I have given my ALL to Amazon for 8 hours+ a day for a long time – but I’ve never given it everything – that is too dangerous – I don’t live to work – I work to live. I work hard; I try to work empathetically and smart and help others – but I am ready to let others carry on,” Griffith said.
— DigitalOcean named Vinay Kumar as chief product and technology officer of the infrastructure-as-a-service company. Kumar, based in Seattle, was previously with Oracle for more than 11 years, leaving the role of senior vice president of cloud engineering.
Paddy Srinivasan, CEO of DigitalOcean, highlighted Kumar’s experience building cloud and AI platforms at scale, his “tremendous product strategy acumen” and his understanding of the “operational rigor required for mission-critical workloads.”
— Lindsay Bayne is now senior director of advocacy at UiPath, a New York-based company that helps businesses automate repetitive, complex tasks.
Bayne was previously at Microsoft for more than a decade, leaving the role of director of the Growth Innovation and Strategy Team.
“I’m honored to join and partner with this incredibly talented team, advocate for our incredible customers, and help showcase the real-world impact of automation and AI,” Bayne said on LinkedIn.
— Christin Camacho is now head of go-to-market for BuildQ, an AI platform for clean energy development and due diligence. Camacho joins the company following nearly seven years at LevelTen Energy, a Seattle-based clean energy marketplace, where she served as vice president of marketing. She previously worked at Redfin.
“BuildQ’s AI accelerates every stage of development for large wind, solar, and storage projects. Ultimately, that means more clean energy projects get built, faster, and that’s a mission I’ve dedicated my career to,” Camacho said via email.
In her new role, Camacho will work with Maryssa Barron, a former LevelTen colleague and founder and CEO of BuildQ.
— Lowell Bander, founding general manager of Seattle’s 9Zero, is changing roles at the climate tech entrepreneurial hub. Bander is taking the title of ecosystem advisor as the organization looks for a new leader. Bander is also an advisor on Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson’s transportation and environment transition team.
— Nate Frazier is now community liaison for the Oregon AI Accelerator. The Portland organization aims to coordinate the state’s entrepreneurial groups, investors and universities to foster AI innovation.
— The Seattle Hub for Synthetic Biology has named the first cohort for its SeaBridge Fellowship, a research training program. In March, the effort received a $10 million grant from the Washington Research Foundation. The scientists will receive two years of financial support plus funding for career development, mentorship training and networking. They include:
- Changho Chun, a postdoctoral scholar in the University of Washington’s Department of Rehabilitation Medicine who is doing research that could aid in treating ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease).
- Ian Linde, a postdoc in the Public Health Sciences Division at Fred Hutch Cancer Center studying the conditions under which gene mutations lead to breast cancer tumors.
- Abigail Nagle, a postdoc in the UW Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology investigating communications between connective tissue and heart muscle tissue.
- Stephanie Sansbury, a postdoc in the UW Department of Biochemistry and Institute for Protein Design researching processes around engineered protein nanoparticles in pursuit of therapeutics.
- Zachary Stevenson, a postdoc in the UW Department of Genome Sciences studying synthetic cellular circuits to broaden the scope of cell programming.
- Julie Trolle, a postdoc in the UW Department of Genome Sciences aiming to engineer cancer-fighting T cells that express multiple genes, thereby improving their ability to kill tumor cells.
- Arata Wakimoto, a postdoc in the UW Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology investigating embryonic development as relates to congenital spine and neural tube disorders.
- Rachel Wellington, a postdoc in Translational Science and Therapeutics Division of Fred Hutch researching cellular recording technologies in the differentiation of stem cells.
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