Ralph Goers
Nextiva Fellow Architect at The Apache Software Foundation
Tempe, Arizona, United States
Summary
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Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolRalph Goers is a seasoned software architect and engineering leader with over 25 years of experience building large-scale, production systems and growing teams—from early multi-OS client-server systems to modern SOA and REST architectures. As Nextiva’s Fellow Architect he scaled an engineering organization, slashed build/deploy times, and introduced service-oriented frameworks while using Apache Flume to eliminate database contention in call rating pipelines. A long-time Apache contributor and former VP of Apache Logging Services, he is the primary author of Log4j 2 and has contributed critical fixes and features to widely used projects like Log4j2, Spring Boot, Commons VFS, Flume and SLF4J. He blends hands-on backend engineering with systems and ops expertise—working across JVM logging internals, distributed data flows, and platform integration—and has a track record of shipping audit logging and high-throughput data solutions at companies like Intuit. Based in Tempe, AZ, he pairs deep open-source stewardship with practical product impact, and unexpectedly brings toolsmith and system-administration skills honed since the 1980s to complex modern architectures.
21 years of coding experience
31 years of employment as a software developer
MBA, MBA at California State University, Northridge
Stackoverflow
8,951reputation
1.1mreached
467answers
0questions
spring-boot
top-5%
java
top-1%
maven
top-5%
log4j
top-1%
slf4j
top-5%
logging
top-1%
Github Skills (43)
dependency-management10
apache-commons10
application-framework10
unit-testing10
jvm10
api-design10
testing10
app-framework10
logger10
apache10
java10
vfs10
javas10
apache-commons-lang10
api10
Programming languages (11)
Github contributions (5)
apache/logging-flume
Jun 2012 - Oct 2022
Apache Flume is a distributed, reliable, and available service for efficiently collecting, aggregating, and moving large amounts of log-like data
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:4 reviews, 137 commits, 61 PRs in 10 years 5 months
Contributions summary:Ralph's commits primarily focused on upgrading the Log4j version and supporting configuration via HTTP(S). Their work included modifying Java code related to HTTP sinks and URI configuration providers, indicating involvement in core Flume functionality. They also addressed unit tests, suggesting a focus on ensuring code quality. The commits demonstrate the user's role in modifying source code to improve the software's functionality.
apachebig-dataflumejavaapache-flume
apache/logging-log4j2
May 2010 - Jan 2023
Apache Log4j is a versatile, feature-rich, efficient logging API and backend for Java.
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:138 reviews, 2091 commits, 158 PRs in 12 years 10 months
Contributions summary:Ralph contributed to the Log4j2 project, focusing on enhancements and bug fixes within the core logging framework. The commits demonstrate work on the `LoggerStream` class to ignore linefeed characters, remove an extraneous substring, and add custom logging levels to the `Level` class. They also implemented updates to the logging framework, included changes to the `JndiManager` and related classes to prevent recursion and protocol restrictions.
problemslog4j2structured-loggingloggingasync
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