This shift allowed him to serve as chief software engineer but also to take on outside consulting projects.

FORBES: Leading at Your Limits

Amit Ghate is a mechanical engineer who, after 10 years of consulting practice, decided to transition to a career in stock trading.

FORBES: We Must Stop Treating the President As Our Savior

In 2005 Lankford ditched a comfortable salary, hired away an engineer from Reuters and went hunting for consulting gigs optimizing speed performance for trading firms and hardware vendors.

FORBES: Picking The Fastest Black Boxes