Nicholas Schmidt

CTO | Veteran | Lifelong Geek

I am a veteran, father, and hands-on technologist who is just as comfortable writing code at the terminal as I am guiding strategy in the boardroom. My career has been built on a foundation of deep technical curiosity and a simple mission: to clear the runway for exceptional teams to build resilient, data-driven systems that make a genuine impact.

From modernising distributed energy grids to hardening defence systems, I love the challenge of transforming complex ideas into elegant, secure, and open-source infrastructure.

Core Competencies

  • Technical Leadership: Extensive experience steering technology vision and scaling global engineering teams from early MVP stages through to venture-backed growth and major corporate acquisitions.
  • Systems Hardening & Security: Deep background in network warfare, cryptography, and secure OS deployments (OpenBSD/FreeBSD), specialising in defence-in-depth and cross-domain data transfers.
  • Energy-Tech & Telemetry: Proven track record architecting IoT hardware platforms, grid analytics, smart-grid optimisation, and cloud-native microservices.
  • Mission-Critical Operations: Disciplined, high-stakes project execution across aviation, surveillance, airborne ISR platforms, and automated manufacturing systems.

Experience

bp

Chief Technology Officer (REPS) | October 2021 - Present

  • Houston, Texas, United States

Blueprint Power SK

Managing Director (bp Subsidiary) | November 2022 - Present

  • Bratislava, Slovakia
  • Established and managed the international subsidiary, navigating the regulatory compliance, legal structures, and local operations required for smooth European market entry.
  • Coordinated financial performance and local operations, aligning international engineering staff with broader corporate targets.

Blueprint Power

Chief Technology Officer | December 2017 - October 2021

  • New York, New York, United States
  • Acquired by bp: Helped guide the startup through three rounds of venture funding up to a successful exit with one of the world’s largest energy companies.
  • Team Growth: Formed an international engineering team of 45+ people, opening a dedicated branch in Slovakia to scale development capability.
  • Architecture: Architected a high-throughput IoT hardware platform and cloud-based Kubernetes microservices to drive behind-the-meter building optimisation and energy market integration.
  • Industry Recognition: Recognised by the State of New York as an industry expert in grid security (NIST 800 structures) and modern data telemetry.

STSI Middle East

Chief Technology Officer | August 2016 - April 2018

  • Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
  • Led technical architecture and product solutions spanning signals intelligence, cyber security, and complex airborne and ground-based multi-INT setups.
  • Delivered custom ISR systems to over 10 GCC customer segments across the Middle East and Europe.
  • Acted as Chief Engineer for a specialised PAC P-750 XSTOL Airborne ISR platform.

Director of Security and Integration | September 2015 - September 2016

  • Madison, Wisconsin Area
  • Managed the engineering, security operations, and ITAR compliance for initial customer-facing deployments.
  • Spearheaded the migration of core platform architectures from public cloud services over to FedRAMP-compliant AWS environments.
  • Instantiated software engineering workflows built entirely on Agile methodologies.

XALT Energy (Dow Kokam)

Director of Information Technology & Security | August 2014 - February 2016

  • Midland, Michigan, United States
  • Scaled an initial 3-technician IT shop into a robust, 24x7 enterprise team of 20 IT pros and project managers.
  • Boosted automated manufacturing system uptime by 50+% by implementing rigid, ITIL/ISO-compliant system lifecycles and security operations.

Spec Ops Technology

Founder and Managing Partner (CTO) | 2010 - 2014

  • Washington, DC / Amsterdam / Dubai
  • Exited in 2014: Bootstrapped the business from a clean slate to over $10M+ in annual revenue within two years before a successful exit to new investors.
  • Mobilised 5 global teams to deliver $75M+ in complex technology integration projects across aviation, surveillance towers, and custom software.
  • Served as Chief Engineer and Mission Commander on King Air & Bombardier Global Express Airborne ISR platforms.

KBR, Inc.

Chief Engineer | 2010 - 2012

  • Washington D.C. Metro Area
  • Delivered specialised architecture and consulting focused on cross-domain information security, ensuring secure data transfers between classified and unclassified government networks.

Boeing

Chief Engineer | 2005 - 2010

  • Washington, District of Columbia, United States
  • Promoted to one of the company’s youngest-ever Chief Engineers based on technical performance and leadership experience in the military.
  • Headed the Integrated Defence Systems (IDS) group, managing 150+ engineers across 4 national sites on rapid R&D projects, cross-domain software, and intelligence platforms.
  • Founded the Integrated Products Engineering Team (IPET) to evaluate and secure advanced federal technology contracts.

United States Air Force

Information Security Engineer | March 2002 - March 2008

  • Tampa, Florida, United States

Surf1

Linux System Administrator | January 1997 - January 2000

  • Bitburg, Germany
  • Provided bilingual technical support before transitioning into managing Linux and BSD systems handling dial-in infrastructure, networking, and server monitoring.

Technical Toolkit & Credentials

  • Operating Systems: Linux System Administration, OpenBSD, FreeBSD.
  • Core Competencies: Cybersecurity, Computer Hardware, Network Security, Cloud Microservices (Kubernetes), Relational Databases (SQL).
  • Languages: English (Native), German (Limited Working).
  • Certifications:
    • Google IT Support Professional
    • IT Security: Defence against the digital dark arts
    • Tools of the Trade: Linux and SQL
    • Ethical Hacking with Kali Linux
    • CompTIA A+
    • USAF Journeyman Technical Certification Level 5
    • USAF Boundary Information Protection (BIP) Network Security & Electronic Warfare
    • Harvard University CS50 (Computer Science)