Valejo (Jo) Johnson

About Me

With a distinguished military background and deep expertise in DevOps, I specialize in building resilient, automated AWS cloud infrastructures that power businesses forward. My journey has taken me through industries like finance, entertainment, and gaming — delivering cloud-native solutions for everything from high-availability EKS clusters to cross-account Terraform modules.

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Work Experience

Amazon (Project Kuiper) – Systems Development Engineer (10/2024 – Present)

Developed and maintained Lambda-based automation pipelines for system patching and monitoring.
Created AWS CDK stacks and constructs for reusable infrastructure components in GovCloud.
Built CloudWatch dashboards and alarms for real-time visibility across environments.
Authored detailed runbooks and diagrams to onboard engineers to complex workflows.
Worked cross-functionally to triage internal support tickets and on-call incidents.
Collaborated with product and security to embed compliance early in design cycles.

Federal Reserve Bank – Sr. AWS Infrastructure Engineer (02/2024 – 10/2024)

Created Terraform modules and SSM automation documents to streamline GovCloud client onboarding.
Built Python Lambda functions for IAM, S3, and SecurityHub event automation and alerting.
Developed account-wide controls for patch compliance across multiple environments.
Published secure-by-default IAM policies and CloudFormation templates.
Produced technical guides and Loom videos to support internal developer enablement.
Contributed to cloud architecture review board documentation and approvals.

Caesars Entertainment – DevOps Engineer (04/2021 – 02/2024)

Architected and deployed highly available EKS workloads using Terraform and GitLab CI/CD.
Implemented dynamic DNS updates and service discovery across Kubernetes clusters.
Integrated Grafana, Prometheus, and CloudWatch for unified observability.
Enabled cost-saving strategies via right-sizing, scheduled shutdowns, and Reserved Instances.
Created golden AMIs and standardized OS baselines for all environments.
Delivered internal workshops on GitOps and IaC best practices.

WB Games – DevSecOps Engineer (10/2020 – 04/2021)

Designed hardened AMIs and enforced GuardDuty/Inspector findings triage pipelines.
Shifted security left by embedding Snyk, Checkov, and Trivy into CI/CD pipelines.
Established SCP and KMS usage standards across multiple AWS accounts.
Conducted internal threat modeling and tabletop exercises for critical systems.
Collaborated with developers to implement least privilege principles and OPA policies.
Documented security workflows and supported compliance audits.

Hulu – Sr. AWS Infrastructure Engineer (08/2019 – 10/2020)

Led Terraform implementation for VPC, IAM, RDS, and ECS infrastructure-as-code modules.
Standardized CI/CD deployments using GitHub Actions and Jenkins pipelines.
Developed disaster recovery plans and automated snapshot rotation across environments.
Worked with finance to create AWS budget alerts and cost forecasts.
Implemented centralized logging with Fluentd, Kinesis, and Elasticsearch.
Provided on-call support for production outages and scaling incidents.

TaskUs – IT Site Manager / Sr. AWS Cloud Engineer (01/2018 – 08/2019)

Designed site-level AWS infrastructure with backup automation and SNS alerts.
Automated onboarding workflows and workstation deployment via PowerShell and Bash.
Maintained sitewide Wi-Fi, firewalls, and VoIP systems with centralized logging.
Performed AWS Well-Architected reviews to improve production reliability.
Managed vendor relations and licensing for GSuite, Atlassian, and Okta tools.
Provided budget reports and hardware lifecycle planning to executive team.

Magic Leap – Systems Engineer (08/2016 – 01/2018)

Created system hardening scripts and automated patch deployments across all Linux systems.
Deployed AWS CloudWatch Logs and unified dashboards for key production apps.
Collaborated with security and compliance teams on HIPAA and SOX readiness.
Managed Azure and AWS resource groups and subscriptions for R&D and production teams.
Implemented backup and restore procedures for VMware and physical hosts.
Developed Python scripts for infrastructure audits and API-based integrations.

Great Healthworks – Systems Engineer (03/2014 – 08/2016)

Deployed and maintained over 150 LAMP servers with AWS EC2 and custom AMIs.
Built internal tools for inventory tracking, update rollouts, and user management.
Designed PCI-DSS-compliant systems with encrypted S3 storage and network isolation.
Led training sessions on IT operations, security awareness, and automation practices.
Worked closely with software teams to scale MySQL databases and PHP apps.
Handled emergency outages and data recovery with documented playbooks.

US Army – IT Support Specialist (02/2003 – 07/2013)

Served as Tier 2/3 escalation for software, network, and hardware troubleshooting globally.
Managed Active Directory, DHCP/DNS, and WSUS for 1,000+ users and systems.
Led IT support teams across multiple sites, training junior soldiers and civilians.
Documented SOPs for system hardening, patching, and secure configurations.
Built and maintained secure communication environments for overseas missions.
Awarded for leadership and innovation in resource-constrained environments.

Skills & Tools

AWS Terraform EKS CDK Python Bash PowerShell CloudFormation GitLab CI/CD Typescript Ansible SALT Jenkins Github Version Control JIRA HIPAA Compliance SOX Compliance Sharepoint CDN Linux Windows RHEL Active Directory CIDR Nutanix VMWare SQL

Education

Keller Graduate School of Management
M.S. Information Systems Management, 2017
DeVry University
B.S. Computer Information Systems, 2016

Courses & Certifications

Terraform with AWS, API Gateway Deep Dive, YAML Essentials, Jenkins, Chef, Bash, GoLang, PowerBI, Machine Learning with Python, Security+, Ethical Hacking, Linux Admin, Cisco Networking/Security, CloudFormation, and more.