Pedro Celis is currently a Distinguished Engineer in the SQL Server group where he has architectural oversight responsibilities for all of the services of the SQL Server product. He also manages the central architecture team, a group of world-class architects in the database field that guide the strategy and architecture of the SQL product and its components, and drive innovation and incubation projects.

He worked in California for Britton-Lee Systems before joining the Non-Stop SQL group of Tandem Computers. He worked for nine years for Britton-Lee Systems and became one of the few persons ever named Technical Director.

In 2003, Celis was nominated by President Bush to serve a two year term on the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC). This 25-member committee is made up of information infrastructure experts from industry and academia that advise the president on how to maintain U.S. pre-eminence in information technology.

He holds an engineering degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology (ITESM), and M. Math and Ph. D. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo in Canada. Celis worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Waterloo and later as an assistant professor at the Computer Science Department at Indiana University in Bloomington Indiana. He holds around 15 U.S. patents.