Paul Flowers
Forest Lake,MN
Summary
Director-level infrastructure and platform engineering leader with over a decade of experience across SRE, DevOps, systems engineering, and cloud architecture. Proven record designing and operating shared internal platforms—compute, data, observability, CI/CD, internal tools, and application frameworks—that enable fast-moving, distributed product teams. Adept at unifying cross-functional efforts into cohesive 3–12 month roadmaps, delivering developer productivity through opinionated yet low-friction frameworks, and communicating complex technical decisions with clarity to engineers, executives, and stakeholders in highly regulated and mission-critical environments.
Overview
11
11
years of professional experience
Work History
Program Lead, Cloud Engineering & Infrastructure
Dunwoody College of Technology
04.2024 - Current
- Designed, built, and now operate a production-grade data center and cloud-integrated lab platform from the ground up, providing reliable, scalable compute, storage, networking, and security as a shared internal platform for multiple academic programs.
- Own the technical roadmap for the Cloud Engineering environment, including infrastructure automation, environment standardization, access controls, monitoring, and self-service patterns aligned to modern internal developer platforms.
- Lead cross-functional initiatives across Cloud Engineering and Cybersecurity to align infrastructure, security controls, and tooling with stakeholder needs, transforming ambiguous requirements into cohesive systems and frameworks.
- Architect and deliver advanced courses in cloud infrastructure, automation, observability, and security—daily practice in high-bandwidth technical communication and developer empathy.
- Authoring a lab-first cloud and cybersecurity textbook to codify best practices in automation, observability, reliability, and secure-by-design infrastructure.
Site Reliability Engineer
United Health Group, Optum
05.2021 - 08.2023
- Lead SRE initiatives for HIPAA-regulated production systems on Azure, including Kubernetes workloads and CI/CD pipelines using Terraform and Azure DevOps.
- Implemented observability stacks (metrics, logs, dashboards) to improve incident detection, MTTR, and capacity planning; partnered with product teams to define SLIs/SLOs and operational runbooks.
- Built internal tooling and deployment frameworks that reduce developer friction, standardize releases, and support continuous delivery in a fast-paced environment.
- Collaborated with engineering, security, and compliance stakeholders to design opinionated but low-friction infrastructure patterns for internal developers.
Software Engineer
Veritas Technologies LLC
07.2020 - 05.2021
- Developed and maintained backup and recovery integrations and plugins for enterprise-scale customers, working close to core data and storage infrastructure.
- Drove modernization via containerization, Kubernetes-based deployments, and infrastructure-as-code to improve platform consistency and reliability.
- Helped refine integration frameworks and developer tooling for high-scale data protection platforms.
Senior DevOps Engineer
International Decision Systems
10.2018 - 05.2020
- Automated provisioning, configuration, and management for hundreds of servers across data centers and cloud using Terraform, Ansible, and CI/CD pipelines.
- Designed internal tools and deployment frameworks that increased release frequency and reliability for core financial software products.
- Led migration and upgrade projects with tight coordination across engineering and operations teams
IT Systems Administrator
Merrill Corporation
01.2015 - 10.2018
- Engineered and supported large-scale Windows and Linux infrastructure across global environments with strict availability targets.
- Implemented standardized builds, monitoring, backup/recovery, and virtualization strategies that improved resiliency and operational consistency.
- Partnered with development and security teams to align infrastructure with performance, compliance, and reliability requirements.
Education
Ph.D. - Applied Psychology
Grand Canyon University
Phoenix, AZ05-2028
Master of Science - Cybersecurity And Electronic Warfare
Grand Canyon University
Phoenix, AZ10-2025
Bachelor of Arts - History
Bethel University
Saint Paul, MN05-2013
Skills
- Cloud & Infrastructure: AWS, Azure, GCP, on-prem data centers, VPC/VNet design, load balancing, VPNs, firewalls
- Containers & Orchestration: Docker, Kubernetes, microservices deployments
- DevOps & Tooling: Terraform, Ansible, Puppet, Chef, Azure DevOps, Jenkins/Bamboo, Git-based workflows, CI/CD design
- Observability & Reliability: Metrics, logging, tracing, dashboards, SLI/SLO design, incident response, capacity planning
- Data & Storage: Relational & NoSQL, backup/restore, high availability, disaster recovery
- Security: Identity & access management, MFA, network segmentation, compliance-aware infrastructure
- Languages: Python, Java, C#, C, SQL, scripting for tooling & automation
- Soft Skills: Technical leadership, roadmap ownership, stakeholder alignment, mentoring, technical writing, curriculum & framework design
Accomplishments
- Owned strategy and execution for multi-tenant, production-like data center and cloud lab platforms functioning as internal developer platforms.
- Built and evolved CI/CD pipelines, standardized templates, and internal tools that reduced deployment friction and improved time-to-value for engineering teams.
- Deployed observability stacks and operational runbooks that support 24×7 services, data-driven decision-making, and rapid incident response.
- Unified requirements across engineering, security, compliance, and leadership to drive cohesive platform and infrastructure decisions.
- Extensive experience teaching and presenting complex technical concepts, enabling strong influence and alignment across large organizations.
Quote
I build resilient systems and resilient people—engineering infrastructure that never cheats reality, security that never slows progress, and learning environments that turn ambiguity into opportunity.
Paul Flowers
Affiliations
- ISACA
- ISSA
Timeline
Program Lead, Cloud Engineering & Infrastructure
Dunwoody College of Technology
04.2024 - Current
Site Reliability Engineer
United Health Group, Optum
05.2021 - 08.2023
Software Engineer
Veritas Technologies LLC
07.2020 - 05.2021
Senior DevOps Engineer
International Decision Systems
10.2018 - 05.2020
IT Systems Administrator
Merrill Corporation
01.2015 - 10.2018
Ph.D. - Applied Psychology
Grand Canyon University
Master of Science - Cybersecurity And Electronic Warfare
Grand Canyon University
Bachelor of Arts - History
Bethel University