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Backblaze Appoints Dan Spraggins as Senior Vice President of Engineering

Business

Backblaze Appoints Dan Spraggins as Senior Vice President of Engineering
Business

Business

Backblaze Appoints Dan Spraggins as Senior Vice President of Engineering

2026-01-05 22:00 Last Updated At:01-06 13:21

SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 5, 2026--

Backblaze, Inc. (Nasdaq:BLZE), the high-performance cloud storage platform for the AI era, today announced the appointment of Dan Spraggins as Senior Vice President of Engineering, further strengthening the company’s executive leadership team as it continues to scale its global storage cloud.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260105935567/en/

Spraggins brings more than two decades of experience leading large-scale software, platform, and AI engineering organizations across global technology companies. In his role, he oversees Backblaze’s engineering organization, driving innovation to support the growing demands of AI and data-intensive workloads.

“Dan’s deep expertise building and operating global-scale platforms and driving AI innovation makes him an outstanding leader for our engineering organization,” said Gleb Budman, co-founder and CEO of Backblaze. “As our customers increasingly rely on Backblaze for AI workflows and mission critical applications, this experience will be instrumental to our continued growth."

Prior to joining Backblaze, Spraggins served as Vice President of Engineering at HP, where he led worldwide software engineering teams responsible for developing and operationalizing AI-driven products and platforms. Earlier in his career, he held senior engineering leadership roles at Rackspace and CA Technologies, guiding the development of distributed systems, data platforms, and customer-facing technologies at scale.

“Backblaze is especially well-positioned, as the need for cloud storage infrastructure increases dramatically with the use of AI and agentic workflows in the enterprise,” said Spraggins. “I couldn't be more excited to join the team and help advance the underlying platform for new AI use cases and verticals. Our strategy is a good one. Strong operational rigor will be key to taking advantage of the large opportunity in front of us.”

Spraggins comes to Backblaze having built and led engineering teams responsible for some of the industry’s most complex cloud and platform systems. In this new role, he will guide the continued evolution of the company’s storage cloud as it supports the next generation of data-driven and AI-powered applications.

About Backblaze

Backblaze (NASDAQ:BLZE) gives businesses the freedom to innovate without limits by removing the barriers of lock-in, complexity, and cost. Our high-performance cloud object storage accelerates AI workflows, powers data-heavy applications, streamlines media management, and protects critical data. As an award-winning independent cloud, we provide unparalleled levels of interoperability that enable over 500,000 of our customers to reach and serve hundreds of millions of end users in 175 countries around the world. For more information, please go to www.backblaze.com.

Dan Spraggins, Backblaze Senior Vice President of Engineering

Dan Spraggins, Backblaze Senior Vice President of Engineering

SEATTLE (AP) — Kaapo Kakko had two goals and an assist, Berkly Catton scored his first two NHL goals, and the Seattle Kraken beat the Boston Bruins 7-4 on Tuesday night.

Jared McCann had a goal and an assist, and Jordan Eberle and Ben Meyers also scored as Seattle extended its point streak to nine games (8-0-1) — the second-longest in franchise history. Matty Beniers, Vince Dunn and Freddy Gaudreau each had two assists, and Joey Daccord finished with 32 saves.

David Pastrnak scored two goals, Viktor Arvidsson had a goal and an assist, and Mason Lohrei also scored for the Bruins. Jeremy Swayman had 20 saves.

Meyers scored with 1:37 left in the second period to put Seattle ahead 3-2, and McCann made it 4-2 with a power-play goal a half-second before the end of the period.

Kakko made it 5-2 midway through the third period, and Catton followed with his second goal of the night with 5:40 left — one period after logging his first career goal on a play that saw Kakko record his 100th career assist.

Lohrei and Arvidsson scored less than 3 minutes apart to pull the Bruins within two, but Kakko sealed it with an empty-netter with 12 seconds remaining.

Eberle opened the night’s scoring at 8:50 of the first period, after Seattle drew nearly two full minutes of 5-on-3 action. The goal was Eberle’s team-leading 15th of the season.

The Bruins toed it nearly 4 minutes later when Nikita Zadorov ripped a pass from deep inside his own defensive zone and Pastrnak beat everybody down the ice to collect the puck off the end boards before beating Daccord.

Catton put the Kraken back ahead at 2:48 of the second, before Pastrnak tied it again into a wide-open net off a feed from Charlie McAvoy at 6:28.

Bruins: Host Calgary on Thursday night.

Kraken: Host Minnesota on Thursday night.

AP NHL: https://www.apnews.com/NHL

Boston Bruins right wing David Pastrnak moves the puck against Seattle Kraken center Frederick Gaudreau, right, during the third period of an NHL hockey game Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Boston Bruins right wing David Pastrnak moves the puck against Seattle Kraken center Frederick Gaudreau, right, during the third period of an NHL hockey game Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Seattle Kraken left wing Jared McCann (19) celebrates with defenseman Vince Dunn (29) after scoring against the Boston Bruins during the second period of an NHL hockey game Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Seattle Kraken left wing Jared McCann (19) celebrates with defenseman Vince Dunn (29) after scoring against the Boston Bruins during the second period of an NHL hockey game Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Seattle Kraken right wing Kaapo Kakko scores an empty net goal against the Boston Bruins during the third period of an NHL hockey game Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Seattle Kraken right wing Kaapo Kakko scores an empty net goal against the Boston Bruins during the third period of an NHL hockey game Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Seattle Kraken center Berkly Catton flicks the puck while facing the Boston Bruins during the third period of an NHL hockey game Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

Seattle Kraken center Berkly Catton flicks the puck while facing the Boston Bruins during the third period of an NHL hockey game Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

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