CAREER OBJECTIVE

Obtain employment in the field of IT where I can leverage my technical and leadership skills. Strong desire to work in a leading edge environment and achieve a lasting career with a forward-thinking company.

 

PERSONAL BACKGROUND

Passion for IT service management and systems engineering for high-profile web, ecommerce and online banking sites. Experienced Systems Engineer working with enterprise architecture, improving manageability and streamlining operations through automation. My breadth of systems knowledge and effective communication skills enables me to solve complex engineering challenges and delight customers. Unafraid to challenge the status quo and possess a mindset for protecting the customer experience.

 

Written for Penton Media (Windows IT Magazine) about scripting and approaches to automate computer administration. Founder of SCOMGUY; a professional services company solving challenges with System Center products. Authored commercial management packs, ghost writer, implemented complete monitoring solutions for partners, Microsoft, Expedia, True Blue and other enterprise clients in the Pacific Northwest.

 

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Microsoft, Inc.Jan 2014 – Present

Sr. Service Engineer, OSG                                                                                                                Redmond, WA

Working as a Sr. Service Engineer responsible for Microsoft’s Cloud game streaming incubation platform. In this hybrid PM/Engineer role, I’m focused on service design, security and ensuring live site reliability in a 365/24/7 environment. Participate in DevOps on-call, troubleshooting and resolving issues with production systems.

 

·               Author systems architecture specifications; review software specifications and provide infrastructure guidance

·               Planning, scoping and choreographing global infrastructure and cloud service implementations

·               Design and implementation of solution to monitor Azure cloud services and generate alerts

·               Cultivating cross-org partnerships to deploy a new hardware platform within the Microsoft data centers

·               Provision Azure and AutoPilot environments to enable feature deployment into production

·               Hardware and services lifecycle planning within Microsoft data centers and Windows Azure subscriptions

·               Create playbook documentation for troubleshooting live service and operationalizing services

·               Participate in post-mortems, triage issues, gathering data and driving improvements back to Development

·               Ensure platform and services are designed to operate within Microsoft standards and security practices

·               Skilled in leading discussions to action oriented outcomes; landing accountabilities and task ownership

·               Server management, Windows Azure, cloud services, storage accounts, account security and monitoring

 

Microsoft, Inc.April 2013 – Jan 2014

Sr. Service Engineer, XBOX                                                                                                                Redmond, WA

Working as a Sr. Service Engineer responsible for Microsoft’s next generation cloud gaming systems. In this role, I’m focused on delivering infrastructure related projects and ensuring live site reliability in a 365/24/7 environment. The group dynamic entails extrapolating service requirements from cross-discipline stakeholders and translating into discrete tasks.

 

·               Service discovery, diagramming and support of complex multi-platform service architecture

·               Automating repetitive tasks and troubleshooting processes through PowerShell

·               Extrapolating health models from service dependencies when instrumentation is nonexistent

·               Improved service availability of infrastructure analyzing and correcting AutoPilot scale units

·               Provide Service Engineering expertise to PM, Dev and SDETs within multi-discipline, agile feature team

·               Document incident management and Operational process workflows for DevOps on-call

·               Coordinate hardware procurement and data center resources across organizations

·               Drive monitoring and optics improvements of service health

·               Evaluated paradigms for scalable and resilient cloud gaming storage

·               Evangelist for common configuration across AutoPilot environment and Azure subscriptions

 

Microsoft, Inc.Sept 2011 – April 2013

Lead Sr. Service Engineer, Monitoring (BPOS), O365 SecurityRedmond, WA

·               Proven technical manager leading a team of systems engineers specializing in monitoring

·               Drive resolution of monitoring platform instability issues and decreased alert noise by orders of magnitude

·               Enhanced monitoring optics by identifying KPIs and measuring availability through SLA reports

·               Developed POC to monitor Azure hosted applications with custom SCOM management packs

·               Implemented an automated daily audit to proactively detect configuration drift and unhealthy components

·               Ownership of entire BPOS monitoring tools stack (SCOM, Keynote, custom synthetics)

·               Authored functional specifications and health models for custom application management packs

·               Reduce deployment costs by raising quality bar and implementing MP authoring best practices

·               Improved the existing design to enable resilient monitoring systems for DR and capacity

·               Engineered and deployed large-scale SCOM 2007 and 2012 management groups in secure environments

·               Design, evangelize and implement security solutions spanning the Office 365 Org

·               Envision creative monitoring solutions to work across O365 technologies and teams (security MPs)

·               Support infrastructure systems lifecycle from procurement through decommission

·               Lead daily triage meeting to review issues, project status and assign work items to vendors

·               PO management, invoice approvals and forecasting department FY needs (budget over 1 million dollars)

·               Resource allocation for projects and customer monitoring requests (management pack development)

·               Created new and refined existing processes to streamline incoming workflow to department

·               Research feasibility of technologies such as Splunk, Orchestrator, SCVMM and SCCM through POC

 

Covestic, Inc.Mar 2008 – Sept 2011

Sr. ConsultantKirkland, WA

·               Infrastructure and operations management consulting (design, troubleshooting, improvements)

·               Project Manager for monitoring solutions within the Covestic manageability consulting practice

·               On-time delivery of all projects using tested and mature project management disciplines

·               Author commercial SCOM management packs for server roles within Windows Server 2008

·               Analyze legacy MPs to ensure parity, upgradability and consistent monitoring experience with new MPs

·               Management packs developed for the SCOM Product Group are downloadable from the Microsoft catalog

·               Health modeling and building XML management packs conforming to best practices learned in the field

·               Configure virtual environments using Hyper-V and SCVMM for management pack testing

·               Provide Operations Manager training, automation, support, bug fixes and documentation

 

Washington MutualAug 2007 – Mar 2008

Architect II, Online BankingSeattle, WA

·               Lead Architect for System Center Operations Manager 2007 management groups

·               Migration of MOM 2005 to SCOM 2007 including infrastructure and management pack conversion

·               Updating custom XML based management packs and managing monitor overrides

·               Evaluation, testing and recommendations for implementation of management packs in PPE and PROD

·               PowerShell scripting to automate MP builds, deployment and administration of SCOM

·               Liaison between project, product and development teams to implement updates during release cycles

·               Maintain balance between projects and resources within production and development environments

·               Drive and define monitoring standards and specifications for Ops and off-shore Tier 1 Support teams

 

 

Zango, Inc.Sept 2006 – Aug 2007

Lead Systems EngineerBellevue, WA

·               Managed North American operations team, delivering Internet advertising and video downloads

·               Liaison between Project/Product/Development teams, coordinating weekly code releases

·               Automate time consuming tasks and evangelize best practices amongst peers and executives

·               Design reviews; manage workflow and deliverables for daily work requests and Ops related projects

·               Monitor resource utilization within production environments and implement improvements

·               Manage vendor relationships and refine server management techniques

·               Develop and define policies, standards and documentation for peers and off-shore NOC

·               Implemented a QA environment for e2e pre-deployment process testing and improve quality of releases

·               Accountable for troubleshooting and maintaining corporate and production resources

·               Microsoft Exchange 2003, Windows 2003, IIS, Active Directory, SQL 2005, clustering, SMTP servers, Operations Manager 2007, Shavlik patch management

·               Dell, IBM and HP hardware support, Raritan KVM over IP, F5 BIG-IP and ASP.NET platform

 

 

Microsoft, Inc.Feb 2006 – Sept 2006

Systems Engineer (MSN)Redmond, WA

·               Provide engineering support and implementation of complex live.com Internet systems

·               Participate as a key member in an operations team focused on delivering MSN services

·               Support content publishing platform feeding content from disparate sources into the MSN portal

·               Consult with product development and test teams during pre-release product cycles

·               Perform application performance monitoring and analysis to resolve production systems issues

·               Planned and migrated antiquated monitoring tools to MOM 2005 across MSN shared platform

·               Deployed the first SQL 2005 mirrored system in MSN production as alternative to other HA solutions

·               F5 Big-IP and Citrix NetScaler traffic management subject matter expert for MSN portals team

 

 

Costco WholesaleMar 2003 – Feb 2006

Ecommerce AnalystIssaquah, WA

·               Ownership of complex infrastructure projects and evaluating emerging technology

·               F5 BIG-IP load balancer upgrade of all production and test environments (total 14)

·               Developed complex server deployment automation for all production, test and Developer computers

·               Subject matter expert for scripted server deployments and administrative automation

·               Designed and deployed enterprise monitoring solution using Microsoft MOM 2000 and 2005

·               Systems engineering, identifying performance bottleneck, support procedures and capacity planning

·               System security auditing, mentoring junior staff members and final escalation point for technical issues

·               Disaster recovery planning, network troubleshooting, F5 BIG-IP configuration (4.x and 9.x), Microsoft clustering, Active Directory, Redline image caching, Windows security auditing and Avocent KVM over IP

 

Diagnostic UltrasoundMar 2002 – Mar 2003

Sr. Web AdministratorBothell, WA

·               Administrator for production systems that comprise a growing revenue stream for the corporation

·               Appropriated colocation facility to house the highly available n-tier Internet infrastructure

·               Developed a scripted automation framework for deploying Windows 2000 Server

·               Performance monitoring, troubleshooting and maintenance of the server systems

·               Deploy and management of Watch Guard and Nokia Check Point FW-1 / VPN-1 devices

·               Cisco wireless access points, configuration of Dell, Cisco & Extreme network switches

·               Deployed redundant F5 Big-IPs for load balancing and SSL management

·               Implemented a corporate network monitoring solution using MRTG

·               Secured network communications between Corp and Prod using IPSEC and secure applications

·               Improved DNS manageability by consolidating 15 corporate domains to a single third party DNS provider

 

 

Walt Disney Internet GroupJuly 1997 - Mar 2002

Sr. Windows Systems AdministratorSeattle, WA

Primary duties include researching technology and writing functional specifications for Enterprise level projects. These include the implementation of an Active Directory forest in the heterogeneous UNIX, NT 4 and Windows 2000 environment. Thorough understanding of domains, trusts, WINS, SMTP, DHCP, NNTP, SNMP, DNS and other essential components of a Microsoft BackOffice environment. Gathered requirements for all production server builds and developed a modular unattended automated installation process for Windows 2000 Server. The process of identifying and deploying machines using a common framework has saved the company tens of thousands of dollars in support costs alone over the last year. Work closely with Software Engineers to successfully plan, design and implement complex n+ tier web based applications and document support procedures for on-call staff.

 

Perform all aspects of IIS web server administration and support for web sites such as ABCNEWS, ESPN, ABC TV, the GO.com portal and more. Responsible for the deployment of large IIS web server farms, capacity and bandwidth planning, monitoring, networking, remote administration and performance tuning. Other duties include mentoring and training of Junior Administrators, maintenance of Microsoft and Citrix Terminal Servers, scripting, code revision, updating automated task processes, researching and troubleshooting advanced Windows or WEB server related issues and documenting processes. Administered applications using Microsoft SQL, MySQL, PHP, JAVA, Ultraseek Server, ODBC and ASP installation and troubleshooting experience.

 

Integralis, Inc.Feb 1997 – July 1997

Systems EngineerKirkland, WA

Managed Tech Support department for entire US customer base supporting a cutting-edge SMTP and HTTP Virus scanning software. Duties include working with customers on site and over the phone to provide high-level customer service, insure successful installations of product, assist sales department with technical information and specifying hardware requirements for particular applications. In addition, working with engineers in Europe and US for latest revisions and bug fixes, creating support documentation, maintaining company web site, administration of internal NT network, backups and MS Exchange mail system.  Knowledge of heterogeneous networks and mail systems such as Lotus cc: Mail, Sendmail, POP3, MS Exchange and MS Mail were required to support customers.

 

IT ContractorJan 1995 – Feb 1997

WeyerhaeuserFederal Way, WA

Tech support for 2,500 users and over 100 NT servers across USA and Canada.  Responsibilities included server installations, tape backups, hardware repair, internal application training, remote administration and network troubleshooting. Windows NT 3.5x-4.0, Windows 95, Windows 3.1x and DOS. Experienced with Dell, Compaq, Toshiba, WRQ Reflections, TCP/IP, NetBEUI, DHCP, WINS, DNS, TN3270 connectivity, Lotus Notes and MS Mail servers.

 

EDUCATION

 

Highline Community CollegeFederal Way, WA

Novell 3.12 Certified Novell Engineer Certification Training (CNE)

 

Certifications and Other

Microsoft Certified Professional – SCOM

SANS - Hacker Techniques, Exploits & Incident Handling

 

Expertise with Microsoft Enterprise Server technologies and components.

 

References available upon request.