- Founded Query.Farm, a product studio focused on extending DuckDB with developer tools and extensions that help teams embed DuckDB into modern data systems.
- Created 25+ open-source DuckDB extensions downloaded over 2 million times and used thousands of times daily. Extensions span data streaming (Kafka, WebSocket, Redis), Apache Arrow Flight integration, spatial operations, cryptography, fuzzy matching, templating, probabilistic computing, and HTTP client/server capabilities.
- Developed Airport, a DuckDB extension integrating with Apache Arrow Flight for high-performance data transfer. Presented this work at Apache Arrow Summit 2025 and DuckCon Amsterdam, speaking internationally on database architecture and modern data analytics patterns.
- Built notable open-source projects including ShellFS (shell command integration), Lindel (spatial indexing with Z-Order and Hilbert curves), Radio (real-time event streams), and Tributary (Kafka integration for DuckDB).
- Provide consulting services for teams embedding analytics, optimizing performance, and building custom data tools with DuckDB and Apache Arrow.
Rusty Conover
Description
I build data infrastructure that scales. As founder of Query.Farm, I've created 25+ DuckDB extensions downloaded over 2 million times, integrating modern analytics with Apache Arrow Flight, Kafka, and real-time streaming systems. I've presented at DuckCon in Amsterdam and Apache Arrow Summit 2025, sharing innovations in high-performance data transfer and embedded analytics.
My career spans building businesses from scratch (GearBuyer: $0 to $21M) and leading platform engineering at major financial firms (Schonfeld, JP Morgan, Two Sigma), where I've scaled distributed systems to process trillions of rows and hundreds of petabytes of data. I specialize in turning complex technical challenges into elegant, production-ready solutions—whether that's cloud-native data platforms, probabilistic computing tools, or real-time video streaming systems serving millions of users.
I combine deep technical expertise in distributed systems, databases, and cloud architecture with a proven track record of recruiting and mentoring high-performing teams that deliver exceptional results.
My career spans building businesses from scratch (GearBuyer: $0 to $21M) and leading platform engineering at major financial firms (Schonfeld, JP Morgan, Two Sigma), where I've scaled distributed systems to process trillions of rows and hundreds of petabytes of data. I specialize in turning complex technical challenges into elegant, production-ready solutions—whether that's cloud-native data platforms, probabilistic computing tools, or real-time video streaming systems serving millions of users.
I combine deep technical expertise in distributed systems, databases, and cloud architecture with a proven track record of recruiting and mentoring high-performing teams that deliver exceptional results.
Experience
Query.Farm
Founder
April 2025 - Present
Schonfeld Strategic Advisors
Head of Cloud Data Platform
July 2021 - September 2024
- Built and led an 11-person global engineering team to create Schonfeld's cloud-native data platform for quantitative trading, processing hundreds of datasets including one exceeding a trillion rows. The platform became the foundational infrastructure for systematic trading research and production workloads.
- Architected a modern data lakehouse combining Apache Arrow, DuckDB, Apache Iceberg, and SQLite with AWS services (Athena, Lake Formation, S3, Lambda, Step Functions). Delivered enterprise-grade capabilities including immutability, complete data lineage tracing, point-in-time querying, and change data capture—critical requirements for financial trading systems.
- Designed for flexibility and choice: researchers and portfolio managers accessed data seamlessly through Jupyter Notebooks, Databricks, KDB, R, or any tool they preferred, eliminating lock-in and accelerating time-to-insight.
J.P. Morgan Chase & Company, New York
Executive Director / CTO
May 2018 - May 2019
- Led ROAR, a distributed platform for real-time prediction and forecasting. Set technical direction with serverless architecture on AWS, managed team of developers and cryptographers, and navigated enterprise cybersecurity and compliance requirements.
- Collaborated with academic and industry researchers on machine learning and cryptography, successfully evangelizing secure multiparty computation techniques within the organization.
Two Sigma Investments LLP, New York
Vice President
June 2015 - February 2018
- Led platform engineering for quantitative simulation workloads on AWS and GCP. Built petabyte-scale caching framework scaling to thousands of instances, custom Docker storage drivers, and enhanced Mesos/Spark integration for large-scale distributed computing.
- Served as cloud computing subject matter expert, performed security audits, created AWS API proxy with enhanced security policies, and mentored team members on cloud architecture and distributed systems.
Lucky Dinosaur LLC, New York
President and Founder
2014 - 2015
- Built live video streaming platform for New York Fashion Week, Lincoln Center, and major fashion brands (Marc Jacobs, Calvin Klein, Michael Kors). Delivered hundreds of terabytes to millions of viewers, including real-time video on the New York Times homepage, scaling to 850,000 requests per minute.
- Developed novel "live clipping" encoding technology and cloud-based transcoder supporting adaptive bitrate streaming for iOS, Android, and web clients.
ParrotSnap LLC, New York
Co-founder / CTO
2014 - 2015
- ParrotSnap is a cloud-based platform for financial modelers that helps them save, organize and annotate and search cross-referenced source information in Microsoft Excel.
- I developed and released various Perl open source modules.
- Failed to estimate the difficulty of selling to large financial institutions.
InfoGears Inc., Bozeman, Montana
Co-founder / CTO
2002 - 2014
- Lead all aspects of technology development grew the business from a startup to a mature operating business.
- Supervised development and maintained a full software stack for e-commerce, CRM, and recurring billing with over $30 million in transactions annually. Clients included AT&T, Outdoor Research, Icebreaker, and Simms Fishing.
GearBuyer, Bozeman, Montana
Co-founder / CTO
2007 - 2014
- Built price comparison website for outdoor gear and electronics, growing sales from $0 to $21 million. Partnered with 100+ merchants including Amazon, REI, Patagonia, and Backcountry.
- Developed web crawling infrastructure, image similarity search engine using SIFT keypoints, and product deduplication using dynamic programming and simulated annealing to match products across stores without relying on UPC codes.
Zoot Enterprises, Bozeman, Montana
Systems Programmer
1998 - 2002
- Engineered distributed consumer credit decision platform and web application stack, specializing in transaction processing, fraud prevention, and system redundancy for Wells Fargo, LendingTree, and Bank of America.
Education
Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana
B.S. Computer Science
1998 - 2002