Skills
Ansible, Bash, Python, Salt, Terragrunt, Terraform, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Kerberos, LDAP, Prometheus, Grafana, Nagios, Linux, Java, SQL, Git, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Maven, Hadoop, Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP), Cloudera Data Platform (CDP), Apache httpd, Apache Tomcat, Kanban, Scrum
Experience
Senior Site Reliability Engineer
Sentry
January 2022 to Present
- Automating infrastructure and service deployment using Terraform, Salt, and Kubernetes.
- Implementing infrastructure changes to improve Sentry’s reliability and availability.
- Working embedded with product teams to implement broad-reaching projects.
- Consolidating divergent deployment configurations to simplify managing and supporting Sentry’s offerings.
- Led infrastructure setup for new European region of SaaS product.
- Updated Terraform to support deploying consistently across multiple regions.
- Added Terragrunt to Terraform setup to reduce duplication of code and simplify provisioning similar resources going forward.
- Updated Kubernetes manifest templating to support multiple regions.
- Worked with product engineers to support their changes required to enable the new European deployment.
- Updated the Single Tenant product offering to be more easily supported and to bring it in-line with the SaaS offering to allow for simpler and more frequent updates, moving from bi-weekly highly manual to immediate automatic releases.
- Developing tooling to support self-serve support model for Sentry’s product engineering teams.
- Leading incident role play sessions to familiarize engineers with incident management processes and to assit them in getting comfortable with the services making up Sentry’s offering, their failure modes, and troubleshooting steps.
- Providing 24/7 support for Sentry’s offerings.
Lead Platform Engineer, Data & Analytics (DNA)
Royal Bank of Canada
June 2018 to December 2021
- Provided technical leadership to DNA’s Platform Engineering Big Data team.
- Managed day-to-day workload assignments and prioritization of the DNA Platform Engineering Big Data team.
- Led RBC’s EDL 2.0 platform design and build leveraging Cloudera Data Platform (CDP) Private Cloud Base.
- Defined new worker types to more optimally target capacity needs while continuing to meet application performance requirements and to provide more flexibility for future cluster expansion.
- Worked with the Enterprise Data Architecture team to create all architecture and design artifacts.
- Worked with RBC’s enterprise security teams to ensure alignment with enterprise standards and requirements.
- Positioned the new platform to provide additional capabilities to better meet RBC’s future needs.
- Led the build of an evaluation environment for application teams to identify migration pain points, and to complete migration planning.
- Containerized operational support tools to allow for easy maintenance and deployment.
- Developed CI/CD pipelines for containerized tools.
- Developed CI/CD pipelines for Ansible role and playbook development, leveraging Ansible Molecule as a testing framework.
- Defined procedures and standards for team workflows to allow more consistent delivery.
- Researched and evaluated tooling and platforms to provide additional options for addressing RBC’s data processing and storage needs.
- Led migration of Sensu monitoring system to a containerized Prometheus deployment to simplify deployment and support processes, allowing more effective metrics collection and alerting.
- Led evaluation of Microsoft Azure cloud for Hadoop disaster recovery purposes.
- Provided 24/7 level 3 support for the production support team.
Senior Platform Engineer, Data & Analytics (DNA)
Royal Bank of Canada
January 2016 to June 2018
- Designed and built RBC’s new enterprise multi-tenant Hadoop (Hortonworks Data Platform - HDP) clusters with roughly 370 worker nodes in production.
- Developed and managed internal monitoring and system management tools.
- Integrated interfaces with Microsoft Active Directory leveraging both Kerberos and LDAP.
- Defined standards for creating security policies in Ranger.
- Scripted Hadoop on-boarding to simplify the on-boarding of users and applications.
- Configured Red Hat Linux to integrate with Microsoft Active Directory using SSSD.
- Automated system setup of all services and tools using Ansible roles & playbooks.
- Wrote knowledgebase articles to simplify support and user interactions with our systems.
- Organized and directed the successful upgrade of the HDP 2.4.2 environment to HDP 2.6.3, supporting 100+ application tenants.
- Identified breaking changes required to complete the upgrade.
- Worked with application teams to identify impact of platform changes and plan for their required code changes.
- Built a new upgrade evaluation cluster for application upgrade testing so as not to impact business as usual development efforts during the upgrade testing.
- Developed upgrade life cycle for the platform so that teams would have a more consistent upgrade cadence.
- Provided technical leadership to DNA’s Platform Engineering Big Data team.
- Provided 24/7 level 3 support for the production support team.
Implementation Analyst IV, Delivery and Support Services
Symcor
April 2012 to January 2016
- Provided expertise to projects for implementing middleware systems across all development, test, and production systems, working with developers, testers, project managers, and internal and external clients.
- Built solutions that are simple to set up and maintain, to ensure consistent deployment and configuration.
- Effective at navigating change processes, coordinating multiple stakeholders to ensure rapid progression from initiation through to completion and avoiding unnecessary delays.
- Automated and managed build and deployment processes, allowing greatly reduced deployment time requirements and consistent deployment procedures.
- Investigated and remediated security issues, addressing newly-discovered vulnerabilities via configuration changes or upgrades.
- Led creation of best practice processes and procedures to ensure system implementations are consistent, reliable, and scalable.
- Standardised Apache httpd configuration across the company to simplify configuration management, ensure proper security levels, and allow for easier problem investigation.
- Standardised Apache Tomcat setup of our applications to allow for easy updates and consistent configuration.
- Spun up proof of concept setups to evaluate new products, ensuring they integrate effectively with existing systems and meet business requirements.
- Implemented and managed client facing single sign-on (SSO) integrations leveraging SAML 2.0.
- Developed and managed internal monitoring and system management tools.
- Provided 24/7 support for middleware systems including WebSphere MQ, Apache httpd, Apache Tomcat, Apache Geronimo, WebSphere AS and IBM Sterling Connect:Direct.
Implementation Analyst III, Delivery and Support Services
Symcor
September 2009 to March 2012
Implementation Analyst II, Delivery and Support Services
Symcor
July 2008 to September 2009
Interactive Media Developer
Metroland Media Group
May 2008 to June 2008
- Developed Mississauga community web sites using ASP.Net, PHP, JavaScript and MySQL.
Automation Specialist
Metroland Media Group
March 2006 to April 2008
- Developed and maintained workflows and scripts for the MKS Integrity based C-198 compliance ticket system.
- Developed applications and scripts to simplify maintenance of Active Directory user accounts, desktop systems, and server systems.
- Developed SharePoint WebParts to add increased Active Directory functionality.
- Administrated the MKS Integrity system, including ticket management, application maintenance and server maintenance.
- Developed processes to synchronize data between various systems including Active Directory, a third party email system, Lawson, BMC Service Desk Express, and MKS Integrity.
- Maintained and re-developed KiXtart based login scripts.
- Provided backup support for desktop and server support team.
- Used BMC Service Desk Express to track and maintain support tickets for all incidents.
Active Directory Roll Out Technician
Metroland Media Group
May 2005 to February 2006
- Migrated Windows 2000 workstations and user profiles from an existing Windows NT 4.0 domain to a new Windows 2003 Active Directory domain for over 1,000 users.
- Updated existing KiXtart login scripts to simplify maintenance.
- Created VBS tools to aid in Active Directory user account management.
Information Systems Technician
Diageo Canada
May 2003 to December 2004
- Provided second level technical support to 500 employees; including 1 national office, 7 regional offices, and 4 production plants.
- Used Remedy’s Action Request System to track and maintain support tickets for all incidents.
- Investigated and fixed lost or incorrect customer order data caused by errors in interfaces between various sites & ERP systems.
- Created test cases for user testing of a new web-based expense system and walked users through testing procedures.
- Reorganized telecommunication services by identifying and canceling duplicate and unused services; recommended the most cost effective provider, and simplified future budget tracking, saving the company over $50,000 per annum.
Education & Training
ITIL v3 Foundations Certification
November 2008
- Loyalist Certification Services
Bachelor of Computing (BCMP) in Computing and Information Science
September 1999 to April 2003
- Queen’s University