Tarus Balog

About Tarus Balog

I am a storyteller, a collector of memories. While there are a number of paths that provide success in business, the strongest and most lasting one is to build relationships with your customers. It may not be the fastest, but working to achieve mutual benefit and becoming a trusted advisor is what endures,I am an outspoken generalist in a world of specialists, I thrive in ever-changing environments and love finding technological solutions to complex problems. I adapt to new technologies quickly, and I can leverage my communication skills to act as a bridge between technical talent and those driving the business. I also have strong community building experience both inside and outside the organization.Most of my technical experience has been in Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), although I was doing it long before Google formalized the discipline and gave it a name, with a focus on monitoring and data analytics. I am a proponent of open source solutions, but have a lot of experience with proprietary software when it makes sense. I really enjoy the integration aspect of technology - the act of getting different tools to work together as one.Having run my own companies for nearly 20 years, I also have a lot of management experience. My management style is to attempt to remove all of the obstacles that prevent the rest of the team from being as productive as possible. Thus I\'ve worked in sales, marketing, finance, HR and legal, and also served as the receptionist, janitor and errand runner. The majority of revenue generated by those companies came from consulting, and I understand the rather unique challenges that are part of a services organization.

Experience

1. Board Observer

   Mariadb Foundation

   Dec 2025 — Present

Education

• University of North Carolina at Charlotte

  Bachelor of Science - BS, Electrical and Electronics Engineering

  1991

Skills

• Public Speaking
• Open Source Software
• Linux
• Opennms