Getting to Know Yuval Bachar

Talent is LinkedIn’s number one operating priority and we have no shortage of talented individuals in technical roles across the company. These are the folks that create, build and maintain our platform, tools and features - as well as write the posts for this blog. We are featuring some of the people and personalities that make LinkedIn great.

Yuval Bachar, a Principal Engineer in global infrastructure architecture and strategy at LinkedIn, has been working on the next generation data center and PoP (Point of Presence)  architecture and design at LinkedIn since November 2015.

Prior to Linkedin, Yuval was the leader and architect for Facebook data center networking hardware. In addition, Yuval was the innovator and driver of the $1/1G optical technology initiative for 100G pluggable modules. Furthermore, he redefined the backbone architecture and integration of colored optics into the switching platforms. He also served as Senior Director of Engineering in the CTO office in the Data Center Group at Cisco, which is responsible for the company’s data center product portfolio and next generation innovation.

What is something not found on your LinkedIn profile?

I was part of the team that designed the original core Internet routers that enabled the explosion of the Internet era from the late 1990s until today.  As part of the design and architecture, we built the first high speed optical IP router with 10G and 40G speeds for the service providers’ internet backbones

I am also a very strong believer and an activist for terminating our dependency on oil. I see electric cars as the future way of transportation. This passion lead me to buy a Tesla, which I love; driving it is so much fun. I also support and promote the Fuel Freedom Foundation.

What are your favorite things to do when you’re not at the office?

Outside of the office I am an avid sports player and fan. I play, coach and referee competitive soccer for different age groups and am a 49ers and Golden State Warriors fan. I also love reading fictional books, and watching the latest Sci-Fi movies – I am an old time Trekkie (Star Trek fan). I am also a wine enthusiast with a special focus for local, Italian, and Spanish wines.

I have an amazing family that I spend most of my time with: my wife, daughter and two golden retrievers. We love to travel all over the world.

You’ve been at LinkedIn for less than two months now – what’s your favorite thing about working at LinkedIn, so far?

My favorite thing about Linkedin is that it's an environment where every employee feels like an owner and makes every effort to do the right thing for the company with little self-promotion and strong team work.

What do you do best at work?

I am an out-of-the box thinker and technologist, constantly thinking about how to make things differently, better, and faster. I strive on figuring out how to create innovation in all the dimensions of my work and as part of a team. I love public speaking to convey new ideas and new technologies to a wider audience.

What do you love most about infrastructure and hardware engineering?

The team. I love working in a small, focused team with one common goal. Infrastructure and hardware engineering is all about building better, larger, faster, more cost-effective, new and disruptive data centers to serve our apps and give our members and app writers the best possible experience.

What’s your vision for the LinkedIn data centers?

LinkedIn’s technology and data centers are at an inflection point that will take us to the next level in how we design, build, and deploy our data centers and PoPs. PoP (Point of Presence) is out worldwide distributed point of connection to our users and customers. I see us being able to build very large efficient data centers to serve the tremendous growth the company has already had and will continue to have in the next several years.

Compared with other companies you have visited, what convinced you to join LinkedIn?

To me, LinkedIn is a perfect combination of size, potential, and opportunities. As an employee-oriented company, LinkedIn makes the workplace a fun and demanding environment for high performance and success with great people and culture.

What are you looking forward to most at LinkedIn?

I am looking forward to contributing to the future of the company vision to change people’s lives and enable a better world. I am also looking forward to working on challenging problems that need solutions and to achieving team success across all of the company dimensions.