As a senior engineer in the Financial Services vertical, I am part of a small team focused on building Terraform modules and maintaining infrastructure while also handling ad-hoc requests from internal engineers. I demonstrated my versatility by stepping in as an interim Engineering Manager, covering during my manager's absence and subsequent departure. I successfully led a cross-functional AWS tagging project, working collaboratively with stakeholders, compiling asset lists using the AWS API, creating documentation and videos, and coordinating progress and timelines within sprints. CI/CD pipeline creation using Github Re-useable Actions in order to add layers of code quality for tags. Additionally, I actively volunteer as a mentor for underserved youth, empowering them with coding and programming skills for a competitive edge in the job market.

Throughout my time at the University of Kansas ATS department, I was known for my eagerness to tackle new challenges, my ability to troubleshoot independently, and my focus on continuous improvement. I not only met the department's standards but also actively contributed to enhancing processes and implementations. My commitment to professional development, attention to detail, and the ability to lead in Operations projects made me a valuable asset to the team. Additionally, my capacity to evaluate tasks and projects from a cost vs. long-term value perspective allowed for strategic decision-making that advanced the department's goals.

Worked with our client to onboard an acquisition in the FinTech industry. Leading the conversion of on-prem servers to AWS resources. Build automation around auto-scaling groups for Windows servers running ColdFusion software. Setting up GPOs and managing AD objects. Configure NewRelic dashboards and alerts for the production environment. Work with the security team for vulnerability remediation on servers and resources on an ongoing basis and set up automation to alleviate load on team members. Weekly integration discussions on how to best build out the infrastructure by following best practices in security, operation, reliability, performance, and cost.

Senior AWS cloud engineer in the Americas region for an eCommerce company based in Australia. Worked directly with our largest client, Amway doing project engineering work as part of their Agile scrum team. Provided guidance and technical direction to our service desk staff, often jumping in to help cover. Worked with Hybris, Splunk, Solr, Docker, Zookeeper, in conjunction with many AWS resources such as ECS, EC2, RDS, R53, Lambda, Step Functions, Cloudfront, to deploy entire infrastructure stacks running Hybris eCommerce for clients, new and old. Connected our sales team with a potential lead in the pharmaceutical business thus sparking an initiative by the CEO to encourage other staff to follow suit. Performed quarterly file integrity monitoring checks with Operations Security team using Trend. Multiple time zones and work from home meant adapting and being flexible with schedules, often with meetings starting after hours in order to communicate effectively with Australian teams. Lead CI/CD manager for Amway code deployments using Jenkins. Collaborated with UK and Australia teams to upgrade deployment processes by standardizing the Jenkins bash scripts across all global markets. Cut costs for clients by analyzing AWS resources and eliminating redundant or derelict infrastructure after running monthly expense reports.

Received Certified AWS Solutions Architect (Associate). Took on many responsibilities, specifically in the area of being a technical lead in the area of migrating from Rackspace to AWS cloud architecture, AWS security firewalls, AWS Networking, Lambda, as well as many other AWS technologies. Designed and built the translation engine using DynamoDB NoSQL and API Gateway for the language and content localization goal of the ministry. I took steps in pushing for better security standards in our infrastructure by enforcing Multi-Factor Authentication, stronger passwords, more strict network security groups, access key rotation, log monitoring and alarms. Participated in the “SAFe for Teams” training and went above and beyond in helping the organization implement SAFe. Participated in the forming of Guilds with the goal of bringing new ideas and innovation to the ministry. Implemented new DevOps processes for ODB software development. Advise and guide feature teams for architectural runway. Built scalable infrastructure using AWS CDK and CloudFormation for Wordpress. Focus on microservices to deliver compartmentalized business functionality such as payment processing, content delivery, and user experience.

Devops lead on the web development team responsible for building automation tools used in running the main university website. Responsible for maintaining Drupal installation as well as converting modules from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8. Upon joining the team there was a lack of modern development standards due to the small team size and recent departures causing a need to work closely with all teams and understand their role. Worked across teams to stand up the infrastructure and configure the Solr servers in order to keep the search functionality on the main Davenport website resulting in thousands of dollars saved in subscription costs.

Lead infrastructure engineer and representative to developer and business analyst team for open source university learning management system (Moodle). Responsible for design and building of each academic year’s new architecture alongside developers. Migration into AWS cloud as part of moving legacy software to modern infrastructure. As part of the Tier 3 support this left no one above to escalate to, necessitating quick solutions and judgements when called for. Responsible for scheduling meetings for high-load times throughout the summer and academic year. Through the implementation of Chef, modern automation software using Python and Bash, built stable systems for yearly student and faculty server load in a large-scale high-visibility enterprise environment.

Worked at the Division of Engineering Computing Services support office. Learned user support skills on site, strived for user satisfaction. Gained computer repair and fleet management knowledge. Worked closely with Unix Admin and Windows Admin teams. Responsible for assisting faculty and staff of the college of engineering with any and all computer related requests. If it could plug into a wall, we would handle it. As students, we also had direct contact with all other parts of the broad campus IT division. We learned how to manage hosts and users through Active Directory, learned how to use the Linux shell to look up print queue IP addresses, and install custom engineering software. Trained to clean labs to keep the college at its best.