Charese Williams

Charese Williams Email and Phone Number

IT Specialist (InfoSec and Cloud Engineering) - Office of the Chief Technology Officer @ USCIS
Washington, DC, US
Charese Williams's Location
Washington DC-Baltimore Area, United States, United States
About Charese Williams

Charese Williams is a skilled Information Technology Specialist (Information Security/Cloud Engineer) with 25 years of industry experience, currently serving in the Office of the Chief Technology Officer at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). As a Cloud Engineer and Information Security expert, she employs a "security first" philosophy, leveraging technology, innovation, and agile methodologies to facilitate transformations in government services, enhancing their capability to serve national interests.A staunch advocate for adopting platform-as-a-service (PaaS), infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), and serverless technologies, Charese believes that these innovations provide a competitive advantage and streamline implementation and accelerate mission objectives. She is also profoundly engaged with advancing data science, generative AI, machine learning, and natural language processing models, seeing them as crucial tools for future-proofing organizational strategies.Charese has held key leadership positions throughout her career, including Director of Information Technology, Program Director, and Senior DevSecOps Subject Matter Expert. Her extensive track record spans prestigious engagements with Fortune 500 companies such as ManTech, Raytheon, and Best Buy. From her early days at Best Buy's Geek Squad to her current leadership roles, Charese has consistently championed reliable, innovative services, prioritizing security and improving agency operations. Her approach integrates technological excellence with strategic foresight, driving modernization and optimization in the government and private sectors.Skills: Site Reliability Engineer, DevOps Master Integrator, troubleshooter, and blocker resolver! #certsMatter #agileMindset #cloudRules #Security+ #devSecOps

Charese Williams's Current Company Details
USCIS

Uscis

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IT Specialist (InfoSec and Cloud Engineering) - Office of the Chief Technology Officer
Washington, DC, US
Website:
uscis.gov
Employees:
4852
Charese Williams Work Experience Details
  • Uscis
    It Specialist (Infosec And Cloud Engineering) - Office Of The Chief Technology Officer
    Uscis
    Washington, Dc, Us
  • Uscis
    It Specialist (Infosec/Cloud Engineering) - Office Of The Chief Technology Officer
    Uscis Mar 2024 - Present
    Washington , D.C. , Us
    I lead the integration of cutting-edge technology and enterprise-level policy development, tackling complex challenges in cloud engineering, information security, networking, and zero trust frameworks. With a focus on driving innovation, I develop solutions and optimize processes to enhance operational efficiency, scalability, and resilience.As an IT Project Manager, I oversee a high-performing cloud engineering team, ensuring alignment with organizational strategy and adherence to industry best practices. Serving as a complex solution integrator, I act as a key liaison among operations teams, engineers, solution developers, ISSOs, and senior leadership—including Branch Chiefs, the CTO, CISOs, and the CIO—facilitating seamless collaboration across stakeholders.I provide strategic technical guidance on microservices architecture, CI/CD pipeline methodologies, and API strategies, delivering impactful, forward-looking solutions that advance digital transformation initiatives. My efforts reinforce a steadfast commitment to security, innovation, and operational excellence.
  • Uscis
    Information Technology Specialist (Information Security)
    Uscis Oct 2023 - Mar 2024
    Washington , D.C. , Us
  • Reese Technologies Incorporated
    Founder + Principal
    Reese Technologies Incorporated Jul 2021 - Present
  • Trinity Ii Corporation
    Director Of Information Technology
    Trinity Ii Corporation Jan 2018 - Present
    Provided comprehensive technical expertise, addressing issues of any scale with a focus on effective problem-solving and seamless resolution. Implemented technology solutions across various domains, including biometrics, networking, printing, software, and hardware management. Leveraged a broad technical skill set to enhance operational reliability and support strategic objectives, ensuring that technology served as a catalyst for efficiency and innovation across the organization.
  • Cloudbees
    Cloudbees Advisory Board Member
    Cloudbees May 2019 - Nov 2024
    San Jose, California, Us
    Serve as a trusted voice of the federal space and client community to the board of executives of product development and strategy at Cloudbees #beeHive
  • Small Biz
    Director Of Information Technology (It)
    Small Biz Mar 2022 - Jun 2022
    Lead, grow, and develop a high-performing, diverse technology organization.Partner with business and technology leaders to develop and implement the Technology strategy in alignment with the overall company vision & goals.Work alongside the CEO, product owners, architects, and team members to ensure solutions meet the needs of our users and enable strategic business outcomes.Anticipate and manage business and technology evolution, building towards our future.Unleash innovation and teamwork by championing a one-team mindset in an environment that values diversity and calculated risk-taking, open to new ideas and novel solutions.Communicate enterprise vision, strategies, critical success factors, and plans.Define department objectives; Identify and address group development needs to create high-performance technology services organizationDevelop relationships that promote trust and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the overall organizationDevelop and maintains a network of industry contacts, performs, or directs research on industry trends, competitors, business, and technology products; analyzes trends and makes strategic and tactical recommendationsEnsure technical and business architectures are well aligned to achieve strategic outcomesDevelop short- and long-term strategies surrounding government acquisitionAttend relevant industry conferences, trade shows, forums, and industry days to grow strategic relationships with customers, investors, and important government figures
  • Mantech
    Inclusion And Diversity Marketplace Pillar Committee Member
    Mantech Dec 2021 - Mar 2022
    Herndon, Virginia, Us
    A representative voice from the collective within the ManTech family, nominated by leadership to advance, through engagement and alignment, Diversity & Inclusion across ManTech and outward to our clients and partners in the technology services arena. I specifically serve within the Marketplace pillar.
  • Mantech
    Scrum Master Lead | Agile Coach
    Mantech Nov 2021 - Mar 2022
    Herndon, Virginia, Us
    Here’s a polished and professional version of your Scrum Master experience for LinkedIn:As a Scrum Master, I facilitate the effective delivery of high-quality products by guiding teams in Agile practices and fostering collaboration across stakeholders. Key responsibilities include:Leading backlog refinement sessions to optimize sprint team performance and product delivery, leveraging Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for continuous improvement.Mentoring and coaching Product Owners, Agile teams, and Technical Deployment Managers/Scrum Masters in Agile methodologies, ensuring alignment with best practices.Guiding teams through essential Scrum ceremonies, including Daily Stand-Ups, Sprint Planning, Retrospectives, and Scrum-of-Scrums, to maintain focus and productivity.Monitoring teams’ adherence to Agile norms and providing actionable recommendations for process improvements.Developing training materials, FAQs, and supplemental documentation to support continuous learning and Agile maturity across all team members.Collaborating with technical leadership, stakeholders, Product Owners, and teams to evolve Agile processes and ensure alignment with organizational goals.Delivering remote workshops and teaching Agile concepts to promote continuous improvement and maximize business value delivery.By fostering a culture of collaboration, adaptability, and continuous improvement, I help drive teams to achieve their goals and deliver exceptional value to the organization.
  • Mantech
    Program Director | Devops Cloud Subject Matter Expert (Sme)
    Mantech May 2021 - Mar 2022
    Herndon, Virginia, Us
    • Drive partner deployment and utilization of Amazon Web Services, Containerized, and hybrid platforms by supporting ManTech and other DHS Federal clients (USCIS, CBP, FEMA, ICE, DHS) in pre-sales technical efforts, business development, requirements gathering, Proof of Concepts, and reviewing of designs to guide RFP/RFI/RFC responses and submittals.• Serve as a trusted Technical Solutions Lead for pipeline pursuits for future business development and company growth.• Interface with the Innovation and Capabilities Office (ICO) to better align technology investments to upcoming pipeline pursuits to drive business growth and revenue, quarter over quarter.• Look for new avenues of business on currently held contracts and help increase the PWIN rate of recompetes.
  • Mantech
    Program Director | Senior Technical Project Manager | Devops Cloud Subject Matter Expert (Sme)
    Mantech Feb 2019 - May 2021
    Herndon, Virginia, Us
    • Sole focus day to day is providing consultation to the team and client, ensuring that industry best practices in regards to security, quality, microservices, networking, application development, and customer service are at the forefront, alleviating blockers from the DevOps team of 20+ to allow them to deliver as efficiently as possible. • Responsible for the creation of Weekly Status Report of Accomplishments the team produces for contract and Monthly Program Management Review Presentation and other contract deliverables. • Scrum Master, facilitator of Agile ceremonies (Planning sessions, product increment meetings, Sprint Reviews, Daily StandUps, Sprint Retrospectives). Provide Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and After Action Reports (AAR) when required. • Lead cross-team initiatives for multi-system patching and vulnerability analysis of cloud systems and services. • Used the AWS CLI to achieve 97% efficiency during environment cutover tasks for blue-green deployments; created health checks for Sonatype Nexus ensuring optimum service delivery and availability.• Heavily involved in RedHat OpenShift 4.5 Solution Architecture to successfully deliver in the span of two months. Current skills actively used: F5 Big-IP, slack, CloudBees Jenkins (CI + Core + Jenkins file + Blue Ocean), GitHub, Microsoft Suite, putty, grafana, docker, MySQL, bash, YAML, python, cloud formation, AWS CLI, Microsoft’s IIS, chef automate 2, chef, Amazon Linux, Centos and Rhel 6+7+8, SolarWinds, New Relic, Pentaho, windows server 2012 + 2016 + 2019, active directory GPO, User and computer management, Sonatype Nexus (Repository, + IQ lifecycle Server + Firewall), pivotal cloud foundry, ServiceNow, Adobe photoshop, Nginx, apache2, SSL application and certificate rotation, incident response team, RedHat Satellite, Foreman, Katello, Twistlock, Kubernetes, RedHat OpenShift, Helm, Ansible, tenable.io, Amazon Web Services (AWS).
  • Mantech
    Technology Solutions Board Council Member
    Mantech Feb 2017 - May 2019
    Herndon, Virginia, Us
    Collaborate with board members to Provide technical solutions at a corporate scale for the Infozen sector of ManTech
  • Mantech
    Sr. Technical Lead (Devsecops) | Platform And Cloud Integration
    Mantech Aug 2017 - Feb 2019
    Herndon, Virginia, Us
    * Sole focus day to day is providing consultation to the team and client, ensuring that industry best practices in regards to security, quality, microservices, networking, application development, and customer service are at the forefront, alleviating blockers from the DevOps team of 20+ to allow them to deliver as efficiently as possible. * Great relationship with the government client; checks in when needed/daily stand-ups. * Responsible for the creation of Weekly Status Report of Accomplishments the team produces for contract and Monthly Program Management Review Presentation and other contract deliverable items. * Scrum Master, facilitator of Agile ceremonies (Planning sessions, product increment meetings, Sprint Reviews, Daily StandUps, Sprint Retrospectives). Provide Root Cause Analysis (RCA) and After Action Reports (AAR) when required. * Backup to the Director of DevOps when he is away or unavailable. * Lead cross-team initiatives for multi-system patching and vulnerability analysis.* Created scripting via AWS CLI to achieve 97% efficiency during environment cutover tasks for blue-green deployments; created health checks for Sonatype Nexus ensuring optimum service delivery and availability.* Obtained the Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Master certification in Jan 2019!Current skills actively used: F5 Big-IP, slack, Jenkins, cloudbees Jenkins, nexus, git, Github, google hangouts, skype for business, Microsoft outlook, good mail, putty, grafana, docker, MySQL, bash, python, cloudformation, AWS CLI, Microsoft’s IIS version 7, chef automate 2, chef, chef-server, chef-zero, windows, Amazon Linux, Centos and Rhel 6 + 7, SolarWinds, new relic, Pentaho, windows server 2016, active directory GPO, user and computer management, nexus repository, nexus iq server, nexus firewall, Redhat Openshift, pivotal cloud foundry, ServiceNow, GitHub enterprise, Adobe photoshop, Nginx, apache2, SSL application and certificate rotation, incident response team
  • Mantech
    Sr. Dev Ops Engineer
    Mantech Feb 2016 - Aug 2017
    Herndon, Virginia, Us
    Great understanding of Agile best practices (backlog groom and create appropriately sized stories | managed Kanban boards for the Dev support tracked stories. * represent my team at the morning scrum of scrums* oversee the CI pipeline and all of its accompanying infrastructure: - Jenkins (executes about 1,000 builds a day from multiple teams) | Build Nodes/Agents (AWS with SWARM plugin) | HP Fortify SCA (security analysis) | SonarQube 5.6 (code quality analysis) | Nexus - 3.3.0! * currently playing around with Jenkins 2.66 and solely populating it with jobs via Jenkins groovy dsl and a groovy seed job. Views. Also playing with docker * seeks ways to optimize the build process on a consistent basis. * GitHub Enterprise - successfully migrated 40+ repos from gitlab to Git Hub Enterprise * Chef - writing/refactoring cookbooks - achieving idempotency in chef - performing code reviews for chef cookbook and recipe standards. * Code reviewer for dsl, ruby (chef), yaml (terraform) * AWS - used AWS CloudFormation templates to automate environment creation - created automated Jenkins jobs using the aws cli to stop instances (servers) at certain hours to reduce cost using aws cli. - Use ruby and bash to automate repetitive tasks. - empower others to automate everything :-)* install and configure log analysis tools for ease of troubleshooting. * assist the customer with facilitating and remediation for security audit scans and findings * assists developers and management when needed * Deploys and troubleshoot custom code to production within an on-call support role * Troubleshoot Java and ruby stack traces with failed application startups and failed chef client runs.* managing Flexera installation* technical proposal writer/contributor for a govt contract re-compete bid and tech demo participant
  • Mantech
    Ci/Cd + Devops Aws Engineer
    Mantech Sep 2014 - Feb 2016
    Herndon, Virginia, Us
    Maintain Jenkins (Install plugins and upgrades + configure jobs), Sonar, Nexus, Confluence, and GitLab, JIRAFix dev AWS windows workstations (STS/Eclipse, tomcat, oracle, mule, apache activemq, mongodb)Provision and maintain RHEL 6.7 Linux servers to development/test stack + install enterprise software (tomcat mongodb activemq etc) with chef/knife + add them to the ad domain. Experience with mongodb (dumping/restoring)Create quick bash shell + chef scripts to script repetitive tasksTroubleshoot gradle developer builds and identify Root Causes for failures. Use git and help others with reverts, merges, cherry-pick, amends, rebase and to track down commits across branches and tags. Create + Update and improve idempotency in chef cookbooks, environments, roles, data bags, environments, encrypted data bags, and certificatesYum updates/patching of Linux serversMonitoring 8 AWS based environment that consists of Load Balancers, EC2 Instances (m3.xlarge, m3.meduim, c3.xlarge,etc.) VPCs (route tables, network ACLs, peering connections, security groups), RDS (Oracle +MySQL) provisioning, restoring from snapshot (scripted this with the usage of the RDSCLI). Flow logs. Cloud watch, route 53, s3, IAMMigrated environment from server architecture to AWS.Troubleshoot Java and Ruby (chef) stack traces and route cause analysis via tracing the code base. Six sigma tasks that take longer than expected that are outside of my teams control (port and firewall changes, network provisioning)Perform production deployments with Jenkins/Chef and monitor with New Relic + CloudWatch. Assist with upstream and downstream partner maintenance.Test kitchen, Berkshelf + docker for CI/CD of chef infrastructure. Assisted in a partial system data migration (monitoring, deploying, integration configuring, RDS snapshot and restoring)UsedCloud Formation Templates to quickly stand up architecture!
  • Resolvit
    Ci/Cd Engineer (Temp-To-Hire)
    Resolvit Mar 2014 - Sep 2014
    Buenos Aires, Ar
    Continuous Integration DeliveryMaintain Jenkins (Install plugins and upgrades + configure jobs), Redmine, Sonar, Nexus, Confluence, and GitLab, JiraFix dev windows workstations (STS/Eclipse, tomcat, oracle, mule, apache activemq, mongodb)Create quick bash shell + chef scripts to script repetitive tasksTroubleshoot builds and deployments down to the responsible party + offending commits and environmental influences together with the development teams. Use git and help others with reverts, merges, cherry-pick, amends, rebase and to track down commits across branches and tags. Utilizing new relic for server and process monitoring.Troubleshoot Java and Ruby (chef) stack traces and provide explanations and fixes to their errors via tracing the code and logs.
  • Raytheon Technologies
    Senior Multi-Disciplined Engineer Iii
    Raytheon Technologies Aug 2012 - Feb 2014
    Arlington, Va, Us
    Maintain the Defect Tracking Tool, Jenkins, Hudson, Maven, Nexus, Red Hat Linux (RHEL) servers, Windows Servers, and Subversion Versioning Control for the Test System.Troubleshoot and analyze all problems and issues encountered with all the above systems, in addition to JBOSS, Apache, Oracle 11.2g Database and Java.Created, Merged, and Maintained Software Baselines kept in Subversion.Maintained and created software builds and deployments in 3 virtual VMWare ESX environments + 2 Physical Environments (On house and at the Customer Site).Compiled extensive documentation for Custom Software builds and deployments and Hardware Documentation for a large scale enterprise software system. Created scripts to automate deployments when successful builds compile for a large scale enterprise software system.Provided 24/7 support to the customer at their facility in WV.
  • Geek Squad
    Counter Intelligence Agent
    Geek Squad Oct 2006 - Aug 2012
    Us
    Tailor customer solutions to their needs. Remove viral threats by hand. Diffuse customer situations with improper diagnosis and unexpected repair time extensions.
  • Raytheon Technologies
    Computer Systems Technologist Ii
    Raytheon Technologies Jun 2009 - Apr 2012
    Arlington, Va, Us
    In this role, I was responsible for gathering and analyzing requirements for test case creation based on as-built custom code, ensuring alignment with Agile Spiral time-boxing methodologies. I developed and maintained comprehensive test cases, test data, expected outcomes, and supporting documentation to guarantee system readiness prior to code promotion into the Non-Production environment.My work involved conducting thorough regression testing for software releases, ensuring functionality remained consistent across critical milestones and updates. Additionally, I managed and maintained essential development tools, including Hudson/Jenkins, Nexus (1.x), and Subversion, providing seamless support for a development team of over 50 professionals.I oversaw the development, testing, and integration environments, which were built on Dell BL460 and BL380 racked servers running VMware ESXi virtualization software. These environments included RHEL 5 and Windows Server 2008/2012 systems, with EMC SAN storage network-mounted to virtual servers to ensure robust infrastructure performance.A key aspect of my role was coordinating and merging code releases with the Operations and Maintenance team in West Virginia. This collaboration ensured forward compatibility and stability across all GA releases of the code base. I also developed deployment orchestration scripts using Bash and Java scripting, enabling automated software deployment and startup through Jenkins pipelines.To maintain system reliability, I designed and implemented continuous polling health checks to monitor environment viability and readiness. These checks proactively identified and addressed potential issues, ensuring smooth operations and optimal system performance.
  • Raytheon Technologies
    Summer Intern
    Raytheon Technologies May 2008 - Sep 2008
    Arlington, Va, Us
    Created a report that extracted defects from Seapine Test track pro and emailed daily the status of a specified range of tickets. Was written in C++/HTML. Helped deploy a critical custom code software release to satellites.
  • Raytheon Technologies
    Summer Intern
    Raytheon Technologies May 2001 - Sep 2001
    Arlington, Va, Us
    Information Archiving to offsite location to stay in line with policies and categorizing.
  • Raytheon Technologies
    Summer Intern
    Raytheon Technologies May 2000 - Sep 2000
    Arlington, Va, Us
    Asset Tagging, Help Desk Support Technician
  • Raytheon Technologies
    Summer Intern
    Raytheon Technologies May 1999 - Aug 1999
    Arlington, Va, Us
    Filing, HR Generalist, Help Desk Technician

Charese Williams Education Details

  • Purdue Global
    Purdue Global
    Cyber Security Management
  • University Of Maryland Eastern Shore
    University Of Maryland Eastern Shore
    Computer Science Towards Business
  • Laurel High School
    Laurel High School
    University High School Program

Frequently Asked Questions about Charese Williams

What company does Charese Williams work for?

Charese Williams works for Uscis

What is Charese Williams's role at the current company?

Charese Williams's current role is IT Specialist (InfoSec and Cloud Engineering) - Office of the Chief Technology Officer.

What schools did Charese Williams attend?

Charese Williams attended Purdue Global, University Of Maryland Eastern Shore, Laurel High School.

Who are Charese Williams's colleagues?

Charese Williams's colleagues are Abdel Alfa, Justin Wickersham, Mark Emmons, Shaffie Soliman, Muhammad Saleem, Emilia Totzeva, Macy Stubbs.

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