Kai Janson
Chattanooga,TN
Summary
Award-winning Senior DevOps Engineer focused on sustainable design. Highly effective at working with teams of designers and builders to accomplish projects on-time and according to cost constraints. Detail-oriented team player with strong organizational skills. Ability to handle multiple projects simultaneously with a high degree of accuracy, utilizing interpersonal skills, excellent time management and problem-solving skills.
Overview
19
19
years of professional experience
Work History
Principal Engineer
Taos Mountain, LLC an IBM Company
Remote
01.2021 - 12.2022
- Oversaw two teams (“Pods”) with 8 DevOps Engineers ranking from DevOps 1 to DevOps 3 and Tech Lead
- Escalation point for technical issues for anyone in said Pods
- Lead standups for Pod members and customers
- Coached pod members on skills required or desired by customers
- Held meetings including kick-offs with new clients
- Managed and directed pod to customer projects
- Conducted one on one’s with pod members
- Oversaw client facing standups with teams to identify client needs and potential enhancements
- Tutored and mentored pod members
- Acted as escalation point for all pod members
- Point of contact for clients
- Defined procedures for on- and offboarding pod members
- Reviewed resumes and conducted interviews for new talent
- Maintained documentation in Confluence
- Oversaw timecards for Pod members against client budgets
Senior DevOps Engineer/Developer
BridgeConnector, LLC
Remote
08.2019 - 12.2020
- Designed and maintained secure LINUX servers
- Set up ELK stack
- Responsibilities shifted towards Software Development
- Designed and developed application to integrate external databases into company’s workflow engine in Elixir
- Company shifted gears towards AWS Lambda based application development, created JSON models of vendor API’s and common data model for workflow engine
- Peer programming
DevOps Engineer
SRE of Terminus Software, Inc
Buckhead, GA
03.2018 - 08.2019
- Worked as Senior SRE with focus on Amazon AWS, Terraform, DataDog and convox
- Integration of acquired company’s repositories and services, updates to convox racks, creating monitors in DataDog
- Internal customer support person
- Created and developed scripts for repeatable tasks, building custom AWS AMI’s using Packer
- Docker environments for development and production
- Maintained drone server for CI/CD purposes on site., with focus on efficiency of automated code deployment for development, test and production
Senior CloudOps Engineer
Kaplan Test
Remote
10.2016 - 11.2017
- CloudOps Engineer with focus on Amazon AWS CloudFormation to create and maintain QA, Staging and Production environments by code (IaaS)
- Enhanced and maintained in-house developed IaaS tools written in Ruby
- Bugfixes, enhancements and new features were developed and rolled out in two-weeks sprints
- Used GitHub to maintain repositories
Senior DevOps Engineer
ThinkingFunctional, LLC
Chattanooga, TN
02.2015 - 10.2016
- Worked as a DevOps Engineer with focus on efficiency of automated code deployment for development, test and production.
- Worked extensively with Amazon AWS (EC2 + S3) to create and maintain development, staging and training environments for developers and trainees in the medical field.
- Worked with XenServer to create a production environment for medical studies.
- Used GitFlow to incorporate changes and setup and maintained Jenkins projects for automated build and rollout of code.
Software Developer II
Rackspace Managed Hosting
San Antonio, TX
04.2011 - 02.2015
- Designed and developed software for large-scale cloud-based services
- Fanatical about quality and efficiency
- Implemented proof of concept, prototypes and production-grade software
- Created unit and acceptance tests
- Automated deployment
- Implemented bug fixes
Systems Developer II
Rackspace Managed Hosting
San Antonio, TX
02.2010 - 04.2011
- Developed and maintained business intelligence framework
- Built operational and ad-hoc reports
- Built executive dashboards
- Worked with customers to define their requirements and created successful delivery solutions
- Developed POPS using Groovy, Grails, Ruby and Erlang, to monitor and track health, usage, uptime, and stack traces of servers in production environment
- Developed dashboard using Ruby on Rails, to monitor server health and server load, along with functional interface that simplified access to server logs
Software Developer III
Rackspace Managed Hosting
San Antonio, TX
11.2008 - 02.2010
- Wrote new applications and performed various programming assignments using prescribed specifications
- Coded, modified, tested and debugged applications using Agile Methodologies
- Used source debuggers and visual development environments to maintain and modify applications
- Consulted with peers to create, implement and/or resolve applications and associated changes
- Documented complications and resolutions of applications
- Designed and developed "Peer Eval" using Ruby on Rails for Managed, Intensive and Overseas Rackers
- Developed "Escalation Tool" using Ruby on Rails for NetSec functional leads and Escalations Specialists
- Inherited and enhanced "Fail App" using Ruby on Rails
Test Engineer
Crossroads Systems
Austin, TX
04.2007 - 10.2008
- Executed test cases and revisions of test suites
- Defined test plans of product installation, feature verification, usability, performance and release integrity
- Identified bugs of unit under test, worked with Development and Test Team to troubleshoot issues
- Created test cell for reliable, dependable testing
- Formulated testing framework for multi product testing
- Designed tools to automate testing process
- Developed and executed both automated and manual tests
- Created test suite for GUI testing using Selenium
- Designed Automated Cartridge System Library Software (ACSLS) emulator, using Ruby to win $2M contract
Application Administrator
Hire.com
Austin, TX
08.2005 - 11.2006
- Upgraded customer sites on demand, modified data for customers in their databases
- Coordinated, installed application patches and releases on test, quality assurance, and production systems
- Ensured reporting of downtime on production environment
- Monitored incoming alerts and analyzed log files for errors
- Maintained existing applications
- Analyzed performance trends to optimize application
- Served as a key person in troubleshooting system problems
- Participated in disaster recovery planning, including assisting with fault tolerance and disaster recovery plans
- Maintained personal Wiki of daily work and knowledge base
- Created batch updating program using Ruby, SOAP and ClearQuest Web API
- Designed Update Tracker, a 50-item checklist, using MySQL and PHP
- Introduction and implementation of MediaWiki for internal documentation
Mac OS X System Administrator Lead
Apple, Inc
Cupertino, CA
04.2005 - 07.2005
- Built and improved new systems using MacOS X Server, NetBoot and Apple Remote Desktop
- Developed and deployed new tools
- Provided 24x7 support and served as technical resource for Data Center
- Maintained 220 XServe and XServe RAID running MacOS X Server
- Resolved technical issues and provided documentation
- Regularly contributed creative ideas to improve existing systems
AppleCare Support Representative
Apple, Inc
Austin, TX
04.2004 - 04.2005
- Provided professional phone support of Apple server products for Enterprise and Education clients
- Provided deployment, integration and recovery support for mixed-platform, mission-critical environments
- Worked with Development to resolve complex issues
- Appointed Management responsibilities of server lab
- Performed Tier 3 backfill duties
- Performed leadership practices as walk-up agent
- Mentored new recruits
- Prepared flow charts and walk-through documentations
- Created "ACESbase", knowledge base using LAMP
- Recipient of 2005 Austin Site Award for Outstanding Performance and Positive Impact at Austin Site.
AppleCare Support Representative
Adecco, Inc
Austin, TX
10.2003 - 04.2004
- Performed duties as AppleCare Tier 1
- Provided skillful phone support for Apple portable and wireless products
- De- bugged call-in issued and guided clients to resolution through coaching
- Prepared procedural documentations
- Exceeded call center metrics, including average handle time, schedule adherence and accuracy
- Demonstrated leadership skills as walk-up agent.
Education
High School Diploma -
Carl-Bantzer Gesamtschule
Ziegenhain, Germany08.1984
Skills
- Elixir, Ruby, C, Erlang
- Awk, bash, sed, fish
- PostgreSQL, MongoDB, MySQL, SQLite
- SOAP, REST
- Ansible, Terraform
- DataDog, PagerDuty
- AWS, Azure, GCP
- Phoenixframework, Ruby on Rails
- UN*X, LINUX, macOS, Windows
- DNS, DHCP, NFS, SMB
- Networking, Backup, and Storage
- MS Office
Accomplishments
- Out of the Box Thinker
- Passionate about solving problems
- ChaDev member and mentor of the Elixir Group in Chattanooga, TN
- Industry experience in systems administration since 1989 and software development since 2005
- Demonstrated resourcefulness and guidance skill as a technical lead, with a think outside the box attitude
- "Train the Trainer Program" as Apple Certified System Administrator Trainer - Apple, Inc (December 2004)
Timeline
Principal Engineer
Taos Mountain, LLC an IBM Company
01.2021 - 12.2022
Senior DevOps Engineer/Developer
BridgeConnector, LLC
08.2019 - 12.2020
DevOps Engineer
SRE of Terminus Software, Inc
03.2018 - 08.2019
Senior CloudOps Engineer
Kaplan Test
10.2016 - 11.2017
Senior DevOps Engineer
ThinkingFunctional, LLC
02.2015 - 10.2016
Software Developer II
Rackspace Managed Hosting
04.2011 - 02.2015
Systems Developer II
Rackspace Managed Hosting
02.2010 - 04.2011
Software Developer III
Rackspace Managed Hosting
11.2008 - 02.2010
Test Engineer
Crossroads Systems
04.2007 - 10.2008
Application Administrator
Hire.com
08.2005 - 11.2006
Mac OS X System Administrator Lead
Apple, Inc
04.2005 - 07.2005
AppleCare Support Representative
Apple, Inc
04.2004 - 04.2005
AppleCare Support Representative
Adecco, Inc
10.2003 - 04.2004
High School Diploma -
Carl-Bantzer Gesamtschule