Tech Tadashii-Ching

Brought on board to develop a modernization strategy for the Commonwealth of Virginia IT agency (VITA). I frequently meet with stakeholders to document and understand requirements as well as demonstrate capabilities.

Senior consultant supporting Costco Wholesale to build out an automated service catalog platform for their Software Engineering division. Using Azure DevOps pipelines as our core automation engine, I developed numerous YAML build and deploy pipelines that would execute the automation associated with each service in our service catalog. A few examples are new ADO landing zones that automate the onboarding of new development projects. In addition to ADO landing zones, I developed various starter kit pipelines that would kickstart app teams development into Cloud/Cloud Native development. Part of the starter kit pipelines consisted of Terraform I built and would build out the necessary Azure infrastructure pertaining to the type of starter kit.

I was brought on board to lead the strategy development of modernizing two industry-leading transportation management system (TMS) SaaS platforms hosted in AWS. The strategy I developed consisted of two initiatives 1) Addressing fundamental problems in the software architecture by performing multiple types of analysis on the architecture, cost, and the ability to meet various business objectives. These examinations led me to meet with senior leadership across many functional departments to understand their pain points and develop a long-term three-year vision and a one-year strategy. 2) Introduce and implement software engineering practices to our AWS infrastructure and operations teams. I created a roadmap for adopting Terraform as our Infrastructure as Code tool to solve several problems around how we deploy and manage the life cycle of our AWS infrastructure. In addition, I implemented Kanban and a Kanban board using Jira for project management to organize and ensure project completion. I also moved these teams into Azure DevOps. In addition, I trained and mentored team members on the principles of Git, GitOps, IaC, CI/CD, Automation, and general Software Engineering practices. Finally, I reduced our monthly AWS bill by $28k by identifying and implementing life cycle policies on our S3 buckets.

I was an Infrastructure Engineer practicing Scrum, working on a product team developing a DevSecOps platform for SAIC’s corporate IT and Software Engineering organization. I developed following GitOps principles and was responsible for developing reusable Terraform modules. In addition, I led our custom Configuration management as Code strategy using PowerShell and Desired State Configuration (DSC). I also developed general-purpose CI/CD pipelines for the platform. I used Azure DevOps to facilitate all my development and deployed to VMware and Azure GCC High clouds.

I was a System Engineer working on an Agile Scrum team where I designed networks for Classified projects. I worked on architecture deliverables defined in the System Engineering Life Cycle (SE-LC) and was successful in introducing and implementing Infrastructure as Code (IaC) into two Classified networks using Terraform to deploy Packer images. I was the key technical resource in a large Classified data center migration moving from one physical location to another. Using GitLab and the principles of GitOps, I developed pipelines to automate and mock test infrastructure deployments into VMware vSphere Clouds. I developed Configuration Management as Code to manage common Windows Server roles using PowerShell/DSC.

I was a System Engineer working on an Agile Kanaban team for the Defense Health Agencies Enterprise Blood Management System contract. I designed virtual infrastructure using VMware vSphere for a web server farm hosting a blood transfusion Electronic Healthcare Record (EHR) system that provided services to over 60 military medical centers in 8 different countries. I helped develop a Continuity of Operations plan (COOP), provisioned and deployed VMs, developed configuration management as code using PowerShell/DSC, and travelled around the US visiting remote customer sites. I successfully developed a custom server health monitoring tool using PowerShell and SQL. I also developed an extensive library of automated DISA STIG remediation scripts using PowerShell to harden Windows VMs. Automated account management processes resulting in a 93% labor reduction freeing up time for our administration team.

I was given the opportunity to represent the EBMS project as the senior System Engineer at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) in 2018 and the Defense Health Information Technology Symposium (DHITS) in 2019

I was the Lead SharePoint developer and interim Farm Administrator for a team of three SharePoint/.NET developers. I managed the development backlog, routinely meet with customers to discuss deliverables and capture requirements, as well as deliver on development tasks. Meet with core executive leadership to develop strategies to drive SharePoint user adoption in addition to developing a functional governance plan. I was successful in upgrading our legacy SharePoint 2010 development farm to 2013 with Project server 2013. In partnership with the Public Affairs Office (PAO) I completed a custom master page design that would align with the theme of the hospital, developed many custom LOB applications using managed code solutions (C#).

In addition to my development work, I was an automation advocate for my organization helping to inspire IT teams to understand how to automate various responsibilities and adopt a Software Engineering approach to IT problems.

I was contracted to lead the SharePoint development for Regional Health Command Atlantic HQ working to unify 27 Army hospitals across the east coast with 2700 concurrent users under one regional SharePoint administration. I regularly meet with key stakeholders such as the Chief of Operations and Chief of the office of Public Affairs to develop a vision and strategy for a regional SharePoint portal. I spent much of my time refactoring code of previous teams. I completed a project to remove all JavaScript dependencies that were using jQuery. Worked as a liaison with our cyber team to perform penetration testing of our public facing sites as well as resolving/mitigating findings.

The organization under SAIC I had been working for broke off into Leidos, a new company. I continued my duties from my previous role at SAIC as a System Analyst as well as taking on many more development tasks and expanding my software development experience.

Developed, deployed, and managed a SCCM package deployment tool using C#, WPF, and SQL. This tool would utilize SCCM's SQL database to enable users to deploy individual software packages to remote servers/workstations.

Developed custom dynamic SCCM OSD task sequences.

Developed a printer mapping tool using C#, WPF, and Windows Print Server that would be deployed to all user desktops through the organization that would assist users in finding networked printers they could map to.

Developed a WCF API using C#, ASP.NET, and IIS to capture user workstation health statuses and telemetry provided by routine PowerShell scripts ran locally on the workstation. The data was collected in a SQL database which I used to build analytic reports in SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) to help in measuring rate of growth for local storage utilization, legacy application usage, etc.

Developed a BMC Remedy API wrapper in .NET/C#. This wrapper was used in various other apps to automate the creation of incident tickets and build external reports.

Developed a web application in C#, ASP.NET, JavaScript, HTML, CSS to validate incoming hardware that would be organized in the Defense Medical Logistics Standard Support (DMLSS) systems database.

I was a contracted Systems Analyst providing operational support at Tripler Army Medical Center under the Medical Health System (MHS) contract supporting CHCS/AHLTA electronic health care systems. I performed server administration duties such as patching, software upgrades, and backups as well as tier three workstation support. I was also a technical resource for the local IT helpdesk. In my spare time, I learned to code using PowerShell that proved to be beneficial in supporting a major (4400) end user device refresh and OS upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7. I developed PowerShell scripts to persist user data, profile configurations, and manage Active Directory to assist in the migration and upgrade efforts.

I also taught myself C#, SQL, as well as IIS/SQL Administration during this time where I developed a hardware tracking system that would go on to be utilized by the onsite Help Desk team as well as individual hand receipt holders to quickly identify the physical location of monitors, USB printers, and other computer peripherals that are not typically connected directly to the network. With this application, I was able to develop an additional analytics tool to map the history of where devices have been throughout its lifecycle as well as reduce the total numbers of devices lost annually.