# Gian Merlino

> Gian Merlino is the co-founder and CTO of Imply, the company commercializing Apache Druid - the open-source real-time analytics database he co-created while at Metamarkets. A Caltech computer science graduate with roots at Yahoo, Merlino has over 1,000 commits to Apache Druid and served as the project's inaugural PMC chair. Imply reached unicorn status in May 2022 with a $100M Series D, bringing total funding to $215M. Based in San Francisco, Merlino is a recognized expert in operational analytics, real-time data infrastructure, and the convergence of batch and streaming architectures.

- **Role:** Co-Founder and CTO at Imply
- **Organizations:** Imply, Apache Software Foundation, Apache Druid PMC
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** BS in Computer Science, California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
- **Known for:** Co-created Apache Druid (2012), now a top-level Apache Software Foundation project, Served as inaugural PMC chair of Apache Druid, Over 1,000 commits to Apache Druid codebase

## Career timeline

- **2007** — Graduated from Caltech with BS in Computer Science
- **2007-2011** — Senior software engineer at Yahoo
- **2011** — Joined Metamarkets Group as data infrastructure engineer
- **2012** — Co-created Apache Druid with Fangjin Yang, Eric Tschetter, and colleagues at Metamarkets; published Druid research paper
- **2013** — Apache Druid open-sourced; Merlino becomes early committer and PMC member
- **2014-2015** — Spoke at QCon San Francisco on hybrid batch/real-time architectures
- **2015** — Co-founded Imply Data with Fangjin Yang (CEO) and Vadim Ogievetsky (Chief Experience Officer)
- **2015-present** — Serving as CTO at Imply, leading technical direction and Apache Druid development
- **2018** — Spoke at Strata Data Conference on SQL layer in Druid
- **2021** — Keynote speaker at ApacheCon @Home on system design philosophy
- **2022-05** — Imply raises $100M Series D at $1.1B valuation (unicorn status)
- **2022-09** — Imply announces major open-source contribution for Apache Druid
- **2022-10** — Keynote speaker at Current 2022 (next-gen Kafka Summit) in Austin, TX
- **2025-05** — Stepped down as Apache Druid PMC chair after inaugural tenure; Abhishek Agarwal assumes role
- **2025-10** — Keynote speaker at SREday San Francisco on observability and BI convergence

## Achievements

- Co-created Apache Druid (2012), now a top-level Apache Software Foundation project
- Served as inaugural PMC chair of Apache Druid
- Over 1,000 commits to Apache Druid codebase
- Co-founded Imply, which reached unicorn status ($1.1B valuation) in May 2022
- Helped raise $215M total funding for Imply including $100M Series D
- Keynote speaker at Current 2022, ApacheCon @Home, SREday San Francisco 2025
- Published foundational research paper 'Druid: A Real-time Analytical Data Store'
- Pioneered SQL-based ingestion and multi-stage query engine for Apache Druid
- Speaker at premier conferences: QCon, Strata, O'Reilly Data Conference

## Latest updates

- **2025-10** — Keynote at SREday San Francisco on 'What Observability Can Learn From BI: Decoupling for Speed, Scale, and Flexibility'
- **2025-05** — Transitioned Apache Druid PMC chair role to Abhishek Agarwal after serving as inaugural chair
- **2022-10** — Keynoted Current 2022 in Austin, TX - the next-generation Kafka Summit
- **2022-09** — Imply announced major open-source contribution for Apache Druid including financial guarantee for users
- **2022-05** — Imply raised $100M Series D led by Thoma Bravo, achieving $1.1B unicorn valuation

## Links

- Website: https://imply.io
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gianmerlino
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/gianmerlino
- GitHub: https://github.com/gianm
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/implydatainc/

---

Profile page: https://yespress.io/gian-merlino
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-26