Michael Pasternak - Director, Sales Engineering

Michael Pasternak

Director, Sales Engineering - US Healthcare at Zscaler

Chicago, Illinois, United States

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Summary

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Senior

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Top School

Michael Pasternak is an award-winning IT executive and presales leader with 17 years of experience building and scaling high-performing sales engineering teams across cybersecurity and infrastructure, currently directing Sales Engineering for Central Majors at Zscaler from Chicago. He blends deep technical hands-on skills—contributing to notable open-source Django projects like django-mptt and django-autocomplete-light—with enterprise presales acumen to close strategic deals and shepherd mission-critical deployments. Michael is known for removing operational barriers, improving CI/CD and release pipelines, and translating complex technical constraints into clear executive-level decisions. His background spans systems engineering and IT leadership at Dell and large financial institutions, giving him a practical grasp of modern datacenter, security, and compliance challenges. He also pursues open-source work in Python and AI in healthcare, reflecting a curiosity that bridges applied engineering and domain-specific innovation.

17 years of coding experience

11 years of employment as a software developer

Implementing Cisco Works LMS (CWENT), Implementing Cisco Works LMS (CWENT) at Cisco Systems, San Jose, California

CISSP Boot Camp, CISSP Boot Camp at Creative Breakthroughs, Inc, Troy, Michigan

Leadership for Managers, Leadership for Managers at Dale Carnegie Institute, Troy, Michigan

Intrusion Detection In-Depth, Intrusion Detection In-Depth at The SANS Institute, Bethesda, Maryland

University of Detroit Mercy

Project Management Fundamentals, Project Management Fundamentals at New Horizons, Troy, MI

Bachelor of Science - BS, Administration, Bachelor of Science - BS, Administration at Central Michigan University

Certified OnBase Administrator, Certified OnBase Administrator at OnBase, Cleveland, Ohio

Certified Novell Administrator, Netware 5, Certified Novell Administrator, Netware 5 at New Horizons, Troy, Michigan

Business Development Sales Training, Business Development Sales Training at CUNA Mutual Group

Github Skills (16)

testing10

autocomplete10

github-ci10

javascript10

githubaction-workflow10

python10

cicd10

django10

documentation9

css9

caching9

database-api8

databases8

release-management8

database8

Programming languages (17)

JavaCSSC++JinjaCGoCommon LispPerl

Github contributions (5)

yourlabs/django-session-security

Jun 2014 - Jul 2022

A little javascript and middleware work together to ensure that the user was active during the past X minutes in any tab he has open. Otherwise, display a warning leaving a couple of minutes to show any kind of activity like moving the mouse. Otherwise, logout the user.

Role in this project:

DevOps Engineer

Contributions:22 commits, 4 PRs, 17 pushes in 8 years 1 month

Contributions summary:Michael primarily focused on improving the project's build and deployment process. They migrated the project to GitHub Actions, updating the build process, and included badges in the README. Additionally, they updated the version number and release tags, suggesting a role in managing releases. These actions indicate a strong emphasis on improving the continuous integration and continuous deployment pipeline.

couplejavascriptmousepython3minutes

yourlabs/django-autocomplete-light

Jul 2012 - Feb 2018

A fresh approach to autocomplete implementations, specially for Django. Status: v4 alpha, v3 stable, v2 & v1 deprecated.

Role in this project:

Full-stack Developer

Contributions:26 commits, 4 PRs, 17 comments in 5 years 8 months

Contributions summary:Michael contributed significantly to the django-autocomplete-light project by implementing new features and improving existing ones. Their work included adding functionality for inlines and customizing the UI by adding new CSS styles. They also refactored Javascript code related to the widget's behavior and fixed a bug with the "Create" option. Additionally, they enhanced the demo project by adding new examples and making them more accessible to new users.

implementationspythondjangoapproachstatus

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