About Me
Dynamic AWS Cloud Systems, DevOps, and DevSecOps Engineer with 10+ years of experience automating, securing, and scaling enterprise-grade infrastructures across aerospace, financial services, entertainment, and gaming industries. Proven record of transforming cloud operations—reducing SAP patching cycles by 85% at Amazon Project Kuiper and delivering six-figure cost savings through intelligent automation and observability modernization. Expert in designing resilient, compliant, multi-region AWS architectures leveraging Terraform, AWS CDK, and CI/CD pipelines, while embedding security, compliance, and performance engineering throughout the development lifecycle. Combines a disciplined military foundation with deep technical expertise in Infrastructure-as-Code, Cloud Security, and Systems Engineering to drive operational excellence, accelerate delivery, and strengthen reliability across mission-critical workloads.
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Career & Education Timeline
Work Experience
Amazon (Project Kuiper) – Systems Development Engineer (10/2024 – Present)
- Reduced SAP EC2 patching runtime by ~85% (3–4 hrs → <20 mins) by engineering a Bash + AWS SSM orchestration framework with preflight checks, automated snapshots, patch execution, and post-patch validation across 100+ hosts.
- Built a region-aware, fault-tolerant patching system with rollback protection, maintenance-safe SAP service stop/start sequencing, and compliance reporting—improving reliability and audit readiness in AWS GovCloud & Commercial accounts.
- Designed a universal SSM polling engine to dynamically track patch, scan, and reboot status across multi-region fleets, eliminating manual follow-ups and shortening maintenance windows.
- Automated SAP clustered DB/app server operations, ensuring ordered stop/start sequences to reduce downtime and human error.
- Added safety & observability features including RPMDB corruption detection/remediation, CloudWatch transcript logging, and interactive vs. hands-off patching modes with reboot confirmation prompts.
- Developed and maintained Lambda-based automation pipelines for patching, scanning, and monitoring workflows.
- Created reusable AWS CDK stacks and constructs to provision standardized infrastructure in GovCloud.
- Built CloudWatch dashboards and alarms for real-time operational visibility across ERP/MES environments.
- Authored detailed runbooks, diagrams, and onboarding guides to upskill engineers on complex automation workflows.
- Partnered cross-functionally to triage on-call incidents, support internal tickets, and embed compliance early in design cycles.
Federal Reserve Bank – Sr. AWS Infrastructure Engineer (02/2024 – 10/2024)
- Reduced GovCloud client onboarding time from weeks to days by building Terraform modules and SSM automation playbooks that standardized controls across dozens of accounts.
- Automated IAM, S3, and SecurityHub event handling with Python Lambda pipelines, improving incident response speed and reducing manual toil.
- Implemented account-wide patch compliance controls with auditable reporting to meet internal security benchmarks.
- Published secure-by-default IAM policies and CloudFormation templates to accelerate compliant service adoption.
- Produced enablement assets (how-to guides, Loom videos) that helped teams onboard 2× faster to platform standards.
- Contributed to architecture review boards, embedding security and compliance early in solution design.
Caesars Entertainment – DevOps Engineer (04/2021 – 02/2024)
- Architected and scaled EKS workloads with Terraform + GitLab CI/CD, achieving high availability (99.99% targets) for customer-facing systems.
- Unified observability with Grafana, Prometheus, and CloudWatch, lowering MTTD by ~40% and improving on-call response.
- Drove six-figure annual cost savings via right-sizing, scheduled shutdowns, and Reserved Instances.
- Standardized golden AMIs and OS baselines, reducing vulnerability patch lag and deployment variance across environments.
- Delivered internal GitOps/IaC workshops that upskilled teams and reduced configuration drift.
WB Games – DevSecOps Engineer (10/2020 – 04/2021)
- Built hardened AMIs and GuardDuty/Inspector triage pipelines, reducing critical security findings across AWS accounts.
- Embedded Snyk, Checkov, and Trivy into CI/CD to shift security left and block vulnerabilities pre-production.
- Standardized KMS and SCP guardrails to enforce consistent data protection and least-privilege access.
- Ran threat modeling and tabletop exercises, directly improving risk posture and audit readiness.
- Partnered with developers to implement OPA policies and pragmatic least-privilege practices.
Hulu – Sr. AWS Infrastructure Engineer (08/2019 – 10/2020)
- Delivered reusable Terraform modules (VPC, IAM, RDS, ECS), accelerating infrastructure provisioning by ~60%.
- Standardized CI/CD with GitHub Actions + Jenkins, cutting deployment errors and improving release cadence.
- Automated DR snapshot rotation, reducing RTO from hours to minutes for key services.
- Implemented budget alerts and cost forecasts with finance, driving ~10% annual cloud savings.
- Centralized logging (Fluentd → Kinesis → Elasticsearch), improving root cause analysis speed and on-call efficiency.
TaskUs – IT Site Manager / Sr. AWS Cloud Engineer (01/2018 – 08/2019)
- Designed site-level AWS infrastructure with automated backups and SNS alerts, improving recovery readiness and stakeholder visibility.
- Automated onboarding workflows and workstation deployment via PowerShell and Bash, reducing time-to-productivity for new hires.
- Maintained Wi-Fi, firewalls, and VoIP with centralized logging to improve troubleshooting speed and uptime.
- Performed Well-Architected reviews and remediation plans to uplift reliability for production workloads.
- Managed vendor relationships and licensing (GSuite, Atlassian, Okta), optimizing costs and user access governance.
Magic Leap – Systems Engineer (08/2016 – 01/2018)
- Created system hardening scripts and automated Linux patch deployment, reducing configuration drift and vulnerability exposure.
- Deployed CloudWatch Logs with unified dashboards, improving operational visibility for production apps.
- Collaborated with security/compliance on HIPAA and SOX readiness, aligning infrastructure to regulatory controls.
- Managed Azure and AWS resource groups for R&D and production workloads with cost and access governance.
- Implemented backup/restore procedures for VMware and physical hosts, strengthening recovery posture.
- Developed Python automation for audits and API-based integrations to remove manual steps.
Great Healthworks – Systems Engineer (03/2014 – 08/2016)
- Deployed and maintained 150+ LAMP servers on AWS EC2 with custom AMIs, improving repeatability and time-to-deploy.
- Built internal tools for inventory tracking, update rollouts, and user management to reduce manual ops.
- Designed PCI-DSS-aligned systems with encrypted S3 storage and segmented networks to protect cardholder data.
- Led training sessions on IT operations, security awareness, and automation best practices.
- Scaled MySQL and PHP apps with dev teams, improving performance and reliability.
- Owned incident response and recovery with documented playbooks for high-priority systems.
US Army – IT Support Specialist (02/2003 – 07/2013)
- Served as Tier 2/3 escalation for software, network, and hardware issues across global sites.
- Managed Active Directory, DHCP/DNS, and WSUS for 1,000+ users and systems with high availability.
- Led multi-site IT teams, training junior staff and standardizing SOPs for patching and hardening.
- Built and maintained secure communications environments supporting overseas missions.
- Recognized for leadership and innovation in resource-constrained deployments.
Skills & Tools
Education
Keller Graduate School of Management
M.S. Information Systems Management, 2017
(Graduated in 2017 — practically the stone ages in tech years 🪨💻)
DeVry University
B.S. Computer Information Systems, 2016
(Graduated in 2016 — back when "cloud" was still mostly marketing ☁️😉)
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.
About the Human
Running on cloud power, curiosity, and clean code.
Drones
Testing limits — capturing the world one aerial shot at a time.
Spinning
Pushing watts and playlists — legs move, mind clears.
Driving
Downshifting into bliss — every turn's a vibe in motion.
Aviation
Clouds above, code below — always chasing altitude.