Randy Shepherd

Summary

Seasoned technology executive and startup veteran with 20+ years of experience in internet technologies. As CTO at GIPHY, I scaled engineering teams, drove technical innovation, and led initiatives that underpinned two successful acquisitions. With a track record of three successful exits, an MS in Computer Science from NYU, and academic leadership as a Clinical Assistant Professor, I bring a unique blend of deep technical expertise, strategic vision, leadership experience, and operational excellence.

Experience

Recurser, Recurse Center Brooklyn, NY

Jan 2025 – Present

Getting inspired, learning, and sharing while self-directing research on AI and Programming Languages.

CTO, GIPHY New York, NY

Mar 2015 – Dec 2019 as VPE; Jan 2020 – Aug 2024 as CTO

Scaled the engineering team from 8 to 54, establishing a culture of innovation that supported two successful acquisitions.
Implemented organizational structures—including product planning, career ladders, and technical practices—that aligned with company objectives and promoted employee growth.
Spearheaded the migration of microservices to the JVM and transitioned infrastructure to Kubernetes, reducing production API servers from 25 to 6 and achieving a 14% reduction in AWS ECS costs.
Developed early key products contributing to GIPHY’s rapid growth while providing continuous technical oversight.
Built and led the ad technology team, generating $19 million in revenue in its inaugural year.
Served as a key member of the acquisition team during Meta’s due diligence process, producing discovery documentation and participating in interviews with Meta’s legal and acquisition teams to ensure compliance with security, IT policies, and regulatory standards (COPA, CCPA, GDPR).
Oversaw diverse teams responsible for media ingestion, API development, microservices, AI, full-stack dev and data infrastructure.

Clinical Assistant Professor, NYU New York, NY

Aug 2016 – Apr 2018

Taught undergraduate courses in systems, programming languages, and computer science to classes of 50–199 students.
Developed and delivered courses such as:
- Object Oriented Programming (https://tinyurl.com/3cjx226j) – An upper-level elective project course in which students implemented a transpiler from a subset of Java to C++.
- Computer Systems Organization (https://tinyurl.com/ymjkpwv2) – A 200-level course covering the internal structure of computers, assembly language programming, pointers in high-level languages, and other topics.
Advised students on academic and career advancement.

Director of Engineering, Tapad New York, NY

Feb 2013 – May 2016

Led two engineering teams (4 direct reports overseeing 10 engineers) focused on developing software for online advertising campaign management.
Drove hiring initiatives—including resume screening, interviews, internship hosting, and recruiting through specialty programs such as HackNY—to strengthen the organization.