Joey Brown

Advance platform engineering operating model through strategic direction and execution, with emphasis on internal developer platform (IDP) growth and evolution. Improve site reliability engineering maturity through SLOs, Datadog observability, and BigQuery and LLM insights that strengthen reliability and engineering efficiency. Enable cloud-native adoption across Google Cloud, AWS, and Azure, aligning architecture, development, security, and operations around platform product management, continuous improvement, automation, security, and DevSecOps.

Responsibilities:

• Drove strategic roadmap execution across platform engineering, improving platform component reliability and scalability aligned to business objectives.
• Facilitated DevSecOps transformation through initiative leadership that strengthened technical architecture, aligned collaboration, advanced automation, and accelerated SRE/product-mindset adoption across platform engineering.
• Led internal developer platform implementation by defining an IDP vision in Backstage, supporting developer self-service and automated workflows for resilient deployments.
• Established SRE practices, incorporating SLOs, SLAs, and Datadog observability, supporting proactive incident prevention and engineering efficiencies through data exploration using BigQuery and LLMs.
• Evangelized technology initiatives and cloud expertise by championing cloud-native microservices and serverless across GCP, AWS, and Azure for best-practice adoption
• Coordinate cross-functional integration efforts with architecture, development, security, operations teams to support software modeling and system integrations with transparency and accountability for critical services.
• Led platform feature development through stakeholder engagement and internal developer feedback.

Led Cloud Platform team to develop and continuously improve Enterprise Data Office GCP usage. Drove the realization of the cloud strategy, focusing on enabling business support, innovation, and new data-driven business models. Key efforts involved partnering with business and IT to refine cloud strategy, governance, and patterns, ultimately achieving optimal efficiencies and strategic objectives through cloud adoption.

Responsibilities:

• Drove enterprise cloud strategy and governance definition in collaboration with business stakeholders and IT functions to unlock optimal efficiencies.
• Partnered across functions to champion cloud adoption as a strategic enabler, delivering previously unattainable operational efficiencies.
• Developed innovative GCP patterns and guidelines to standardize platform selection, development, and usage, accelerating business outcomes.
• Cultivated strategic partnerships to identify and implement novel cloud technologies, fostering cross-functional collaboration and business innovation.
• Led engineering teams in designing secure, scalable, and supportable cloud solutions aligned with strategic business objectives.

Operational Excellence (2020 - Present)
Reliability Engineering (2019 - 2020)

Led globally distributed teams of reliability and operations engineers, ensuring the high availability and scalability of critical Point-of-Sale (POS) business services supporting 2200+ stores and 60,000+ devices. Drove operational excellence through measurement, automation, data science, creating consistent and scalable practices. Championed innovative solutions, including a custom service request portal (React, PCF, ServiceNow) and a full-stack observability solution (Wavefront, PagerDuty), to improve incident detection and resolution. Successfully scaled infrastructure to support 3x peak transaction volumes during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Responsibilities:

• Operational Excellence & Strategy: Defined and executed SRE operating models, set team strategy, and managed 24x7 production monitoring, incident/problem management, and peak season readiness.
• Application Reliability & Inventory: Ensured reliability of core POS services, cataloging 35+ Store system services and 250+ automation scripts.
• Data-Driven Efficiency: Captured support metrics and TCO for legacy services, leveraging data visualization (Tableau, Python) to reduce MTTD/MTTA.
• Service Request & Observability Solutions: Launched a front-end portal for service requests and implemented a comprehensive observability solution for POS backend services.
• Scalability & Performance: Scaled infrastructure and services to meet significant increases in transaction volume.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration & Product Integration: Partnered with Product, UX, and Engineering teams to embed reliability from design through launch (One-pagers, Game Days).
• Team Leadership & Development: Managed, coached, and developed globally distributed engineering teams, fostering creative problem-solving and technical skill growth.

Led globally distributed teams of engineering leaders and professionals responsible for the reliability, scalability, and performance of critical digital platforms, including eCommerce (Drupal CMS, WordPress, Symphony PHP, Node.js, ASP) and Customer Rewards experiences. Defined and executed the strategy and roadmap for cloud infrastructure, performance engineering, and quality assurance, ensuring 24x7 operations and achievement of SLAs. Managed a budget of over $13M, encompassing 35+ engineering professionals and 20+ vendors, including strategic partners like AWS, Acquia, and Fastly.

Responsibilities:

• Platform Strategy & Execution: Directed strategy and roadmap for web and infrastructure services supporting customer-facing experiences, including CMS, custom APIs, and eCommerce systems.
• Operational Excellence & Stability: Ensured 24x7 operations, managed incident resolution and executive communications, and owned stability and SLA achievement.
• Team & Vendor Management: Managed, coached, and developed engineering teams, fostering technical skills and setting performance goals. Oversaw relationships with 30+ critical 3rd party partners and vendors.
• Technology Evaluation & Adoption: Evaluated, tested, and deployed new digital technologies, including CMS upgrades, web performance/security solutions (CDN, WAF), API management (Apigee), and platform automation (AWS CloudFormation, Chef).
• DevOps & Agile Transformation: Drove DevOps culture enablement (blameless post-mortems, game days) and managed Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) transformation.
• Cross-Functional Partnership: Collaborated with Marketing, Digital, and Enterprise IT teams to drive service improvements and product launches (e.g., Amazon Prime Membership Savings).

Built and led a team of release managers, configuration managers, engineers, and analysts to drive automated software delivery for the Falcon Physician SaaS Web platform.

Responsibilities:

• Championed and implemented DevOps patterns across Development, QA, and Operations, enhancing delivery, stability, and maturity for the Falcon Physician platform.
• Integrated IaaS, PaaS, and managed services into Enterprise IT strategy to enable business units and customers.
• Achieved a 78% reduction in feature delivery time (from 9 weeks to 2 weeks) via advanced branching, coding standards, and build/deploy automation.
• Automated the end-to-end delivery pipeline for new Mobile iOS and Android products.

Directed technical support operations, ensuring seamless delivery of services across Help Desk, Desktop Engineering, Infrastructure, and Telecom.

Responsibilities:

• Lead Project Manager and Architect for new Line of Business expansion to add 160+ mobile user workforce using Tablets and Windows 8 Operating System.
• Lead Architect and Engineer for off-site data center migration for Cisco Network Infrastructure, IBM Flex Systems, and v7000 Storage infrastructure.
• Budgeted, procured, and managed vendor relations and services for all IT related resources.
• Core team member on development of policies and procedures for implementation of company HIPAA Security Manual.
• Designed and implemented new corporate IT Service Desk strategy around ITIL best practices.

Consulted on business intelligence strategy and system integration, driving data-driven insights and solution architecture.

Responsibilities:

• Designed and Developed Reporting Applications using Web Focus Application stack for 20+ regional sales engagements.
• Built and Deployed meta-data for various databases such as Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, etc.
• Developed dashboards using XML, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS for over 30+ potential clients.

Led a global team of Tier II and Tier III technical support members, encompassing: Production Support, User Services, Intel Systems Engineering, Enterprise Messaging Services, and Datacenter Operations.

Responsibilities:

• Core team member on Global Virtualization Initiative to design and implement Cisco UCS infrastructure and VMware vSphere Cloud and VDI.
• Core team member for design and implementation of ITIL v3 Service Management strategy.
• Lead Architect for Global Standardization of systems infrastructure policy and procedures.