I’m the CEO of zystem, Inc., and our product, zymtrace, is a continuous profiling platform for GPU and CPU workloads.
My work and previous experience give me a unique perspective on AI workloads, cloud-native observability, eBPF, containers, Kubernetes, and OTel.
Outside of work, you’ll usually find me on a long bike ride, playing chess, tinkering with Arduino boards, writing about my experiences, or spending time with my family.
Prior to co-founding zystem, I worked as Principal Product Manager at Elastic. Before that, I was part of the AppDynamics acquisition into Cisco, where I worked as a Solution Architect and eventually transitioned into a Product Management role. Earlier, I was part of the Yammer acquisition into Microsoft. I left Microsoft to join AppDynamics after witnessing the power of observability over my handcrafted DIY solutions at Yammer/Microsoft.
I discovered eBPF from the need to manage and observe my home-lab Kubernetes cluster. I stumbled across Cilium and Hubble, and everything changed from that point—I became a strong believer in the technology. I focus on this space because I’ve seen many organizations invest in observability solutions but struggle to fully leverage them due to the pain and overhead of instrumentation, code changes, and operational complexity.
Anyways, if you’re still reading, here’s what I accomplished at Elastic before leaving to pursue a bigger dream:
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Elastic Universal Profiling: This eBPF-based profiling solution was quite the journey! I joined the team shortly after Elastic acquired optimyze.cloud. My mission? Find product-market fit for “prodfiler,” integrate it with the Elastic stack, launch it publicly, and open-source it. The cherry on top? Contributing it to the OpenTelemetry project. Leading a team of successful founders as PM, I helped build trust, achieve milestones, and witness the power of open-source collaboration. Launching, open-sourcing, and contributing to OTel – that takes some serious product know-how! Read all the blogposts on this amazing journey from here - https://www.elastic.co/blog/author/israel-ogbole
- eBPF Kubernetes Observability: Think “pixie project” on steroids! Leading the product charter for this solution, we’re auto-discovering L4 connectivity, metering it like Cilium Hubble, aggregating L7 traffic, and seamlessly integrating with OTel – all while automatically including and correlating profiling signals. We’re even building towards automatic language app instrumentation. This means customers get a faster time-to-value with automatic insights, ditching the manual setup struggles they face today.
- BI and Telemetry: Let’s talk data! I passionately advocated for the lack of data impacting critical business and product decisions. Guess what? I got tasked with fixing it 😅 ! Assembling a data-loving team, we set a clear strategy and goal: “know our customers” by centralizing data insights, mining inferences, and identifying patterns. My role as PM was clear: paint a picture of the future and why we should reach for it, and give the team autonomy and the tools they need to get us to that vision. The team grew from 2 to 5, with external hires joining the internal crew. We’re fueled by the power of data-driven decision making!
- Cloud Observability: Since July 2024, I begun PM-leading Cloud Observability. My mission? Making it ridiculously easy for customers to ingest logs, metrics, and traces from AWS, Azure, and GCP. While the Elastic Agent approach exists, my immediate focus is driving the agentless, push-based approach using solutions like AWS Firehose, Cloudwatch metrics, and GCP Dataflow. But most importantly, I keep reminding the team that our job doesn’t end at data ingestion. Defining how customers use data to unlock insights is paramount!
Prior to my current role at Elastic, I was an Engineering Product Manager at Cisco AppDynamics.
I started as the Product Manager for Cloud-Native Observability, which became the very first feature to launch with the release of AppDynamics Cloud (which was later rebranded to Cisco Observability Cloud). I also expanded my charter into tagging. This was a challenging task, as it required collaboration across teams, cross-PMs, and platforms to execute the ingestion of tags and labels from Kubernetes, cloud services, and even custom tags. I defined how customers could use this powerful tool to find the “needle in the haystack.”
Prior to becoming a PM at AppDynamics, I was a Solutions Architect, focusing on presales (Q3-Q4) and post-sales (mostly Q1-Q2).
I thrive in fast-paced environments, collaborating closely with engineering, design, and marketing teams to deliver exceptional products. My journey from software engineer to product leader gives me a unique perspective, enabling me to bridge the gap between technical complexity and business impact.
My Approach
I believe great products are born from a deep understanding of customer pain points. It’s not about building what’s popular, but what truly solves problems. I’m driven by innovation and the thrill of turning ideas into reality. Data-driven decision making is at the core of my approach, ensuring we’re always building the right thing.
My Skills
- Technical Depth: Strong foundation in cloud-native technologies and architecture.
- Customer Focus: Passionate about understanding and meeting customer needs.
- Leadership: Proven ability to build and inspire high-performing teams.
- Strategic Thinking: Skilled at crafting product vision and roadmap.
- Analytical Mindset: Data-driven approach to decision making.
My Tech Background
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MBA in Data Analytics, Distinction - Learn more
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MSc in Telecommunications Engineering, Distinction
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BSc in Computer Science, 2:1
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HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate
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Certified Kubernetes Application Developer
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Google Cloud Platform Certified Architect
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The Open Group Framework (TOGAF 9) Certified
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Microsoft Certified Solution Architect: Azure Cloud Platform