Hey, my name is Will, and I’m a platform engineer
Or cloud infrastructure engineer. Or software engineer. I do the “dev” and the “ops” in DevOps.
My day to day work as an employed person involves the development and administration of all things SRE for a cybersecurity platform.
Rather than bore you with paragraphs of text, here are the highlights of what I build, maintain, and support as a platform engineer:
- Cloud computing infrastructure, including applications, networks, databases, storage, and more
- A git server that acts as a centralized location for repository management of the code that builds a platform
- All things CI/CD - automated pipelines that response to actions made within the codebase, allowing for continuous integration and deployment
On a daily basis, I’m deep in the weeds with:
- Terraform, utilizing AWS and other providers
- Helm charts to deploy microservices to Kubernetes clusters
- CI/CD development, administration, and support
- Shell and Python scripting
I do this across dozens of accounts within the major cloud platforms, and a central part of my job is to continuously optimize the infrastructure as code (IaC), empowering deployments of all kinds, like the infrastructure itself and the applications running on this infrastructure, to be increasingly automated.
Previous Roles
DevOps Engineer
For the past few years, I’ve been using Python and Javascript to facilitate event management for a Security Operations Center. I also used cloud native tools to develop and deploy infrastructure to run ETL pipelines.
I’ve been using these tools extensively:
- Terraform
- AWS deployment (VPC, EKS, EC2, IAM, Route53, RDS, Elasticache, and more)
- I know modules in and out, remote modules, local modules, nested modules, git modules, inputs, outputs, everything!
- Kubernetes
- Orchestrated serverless applications to receive, transform, and deliver data
- Elasticsearch
- Lots of API usage to manage and manipulate data
- I’ve done a lot with ingestion, queries, mapping, templates, reindexing, analysis, searching, and more
- ServiceNow (including quite a bit of scripting within the platform)
- StreamSets
- Python
- Javascript
- WSL
- VSCode
Cyber Threat Intelligence
Prior to my current DevOps role, I was the Cyber Threat Intelligence Engineer at H&R Block, and my primary role was to engineer the organization’s response to risk by analyzing the threat landscape and preparing appropriate prevention measures as well as to develop the response for various scenarios.
Firewalls and Networking
Before that, I spent three years in a SOC for which I’d later do DevOps-y stuff. I provided support for all things networking - switching, routing, firewalls, and configuration management.
My specialties were:
- Juniper SRX/EX (with some MX here and there)
- Pulse Secure VPN
- Palo Alto Networks firewalls
IT Consulting
From 2010-2015, I provided tech consulting for homes and business in Lawrence, KS and then the San Francisco Bay Area.
While in those positions, I worked a lot with:
- VMWare ESXi
- Windows Servers
- Synology
- Windows/macOS/Linux/iOS
- Viruses/malware
- Hardware repair
Pre-2010
After earning a Bachelor’s degree, I was a wannabe globetrotter. I lived and worked in South Korea for a little bit, traveling in and around Southeast Asia when I could.
Outside of work
- Being a dad!
- Dungeons and Dragons
- Currently playing off and on: World of Warcraft, No Man’s Sky, Cyberpunk 2077
- Projects around the house (novice DIYer)
- Getting fit, regularly. Okay, semi-regularly. Okay, occasionally.
Check out my Projects