Sam Lightstone

Sam Lightstone is the creator of MakingItBigCareers.com as well as Program Director and Senior Technical Staff Member with IBM’s Software Group, where he works for one of the world’s largest software engineering teams on product strategy and R&D. Sam is a sought-after public speaker, author, inventor, recruiter, and mentor. He has presented to dozens of Fortune 500 companies, industrial and scientific conferences, and major universities on topics related to careers, new technology, and emerging research needs. Sam has been quoted in eWeek, InformationWeek, InfoWorld, and the MIT Technology Review. His management career has spanned from small high-performance applied research teams up to large-scale projects with more than 200 staff across multiple geographies.

Sam is the founder of the IEEE Data Engineering Workgroup on Self Managing Database Systems and a member of the International Advisory Committee of the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Autonomous and Autonomic Computing Systems. Sam is inventor and co-inventor of more than 30 patents and patents pending and author of several books and scientific papers. In 2003 he was awarded the title of IBM Master Inventor for his contributions to IBM’s patent portfolio and his sustained work mentoring software engineers about the process of invention. He has a Bachelor of Applied Science in Electrical Engineering from Queen’s University and a Master of Computer Science & Software Engineering from the University of Waterloo.