Riaz Akhtar
Geneva,USA
Summary
Highly accomplished, Results-oriented with notable success, leading a broad range of corporate IT Initiatives while managing day to day support for corporate network and various clients.
AWS cloud professional with proven track record in designing and implementing scalable cloud solutions. Known for thorough attention to detail and ability to drive complex projects from inception to completion. Highly collaborative team player with focus on meeting organizational goals and adapting to evolving project requirements.
Overview
8
8
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Senior AWS Cloud Engineer (Architect) / (Full Time)
Lexis Nexis Risk Solution
04.2022 - 07.2025
- Provide state of the art hosting solution to our state and federal clients on migrating on prem infrastructure to AWS GOV Cloud including designing, Architect and Deployment and security
- Work as a Subject Matter Expert for AWS Cloud and Everything Else
- DevOps / work on complex AWS projects
- Setup Datadog from scratch. Setup Datadog alerts and dashboard for monitoring cloud infrastructure. Setup RUM, Synthetic monitoring and other services in prod including AWS integration in DataDog
- In DataDog Infrastructure monitoring, Application performance monitoring, Log Mgmt, Real User Monitoring and Security Monitoring.
- Expertise in administration of Datadog both on-prem and in AWS
- Setup Elastic search and open search service Domain for the customers
- Write python scripts such as to backup RDS Instance and put the back in S3 Bucket in AWS
- Write Python script to alert us when the SSL Cert expires 45 days before the expiration date
- Lead Projects and other Initiatives including Day-To-Day Operations
- Deploy Docker Image to ECS Container using EC2 or Fargate serverless Infrastructure.
- Troubleshoot Docker container by reviewing logs to find a root cause issue and fix the issue.
- Use Terraform heavily to deploy Infrastructure for our Customers such as Virginia State Police, Michigan State Police, State of South Carolina, State of New York, State of Wyoming and deploy resources in AWS GOV Cloud such as EC2 Instances, VPC, Subnets, Route Table, Internet Gateway, Setup Elastic IP’s, Endpoint, Endpoint service, NAT Gateways, Network ACL’s, Security Groups, Public and private Routing, WAF Firewall, Setup Site to Site VPN, Direct Connect Gateway, Transit Gateway setup, EC2 Instances Setup and taking AMI Images for Backup, Load Balancer, Target Group, Auto Scaling Groups, RDS Database Setup, Docker Images, ECS, ECR, Task definition, Cloud Watch, IAM Roles, S3 Bucket setup and applied policies for security, SSRS and Web Service setup in Linux and Windows
- Write Terraform scripts from scratch to automate infrastructure deployment in AWS to save time.
- User Terraform daily for anything needed in AWS Infrastructure GOV/Commercial account.
- Manage 90 plus ECS Microservices Containers and 400 plus EC2 Hosts
- Data Dog to Manage Monitoring for AWS Commercial and GOV Cloud
- Services use such as EC2, Auto Scaling, Application and Network load balance, VPC, Subnets, Security Groups, Route 53, S3
- AWS Private Link Setup, VPC, Transit VPC, VPC Peering, Regions and Availability Zone, CIDR Blocks, Target groups, Routing and Networking, AWS Budget, RDS, AMI’s, Directory Services, VPN, Site to Site VPN, Cloud Trail, Baston Hosts, IAM, Security, SaaS, IaaS, PaaS, IaC, Terraform, Automation. ECS, Dockers, Containers. AWS Certificate Manager. Endpoints and Endpoints Service. Cloud Watch. SNS, SQS, Cloud Watch, AWS Regions and Availability Zones, AWS Document DB, AWS Kinesis Firehouse
- Solve All Technical issues and outages as soon as possible and provide RCA to the Management
- Migrate systems and infrastructure from on premise to the AWS Cloud
- Complete and Deliver all Tasks and Projects Assigned in a timely manner.
- Communicate with very high level of professional demeanor with respect and honesty
- Communicate with very high level of professional demeanor with respect and honesty.
- Provide very High-Level Technical Support to Customers and various other Departments.
- Provide After Hours 24/7 On Call Technical Support as a sole Expert for all issues and outages.
Systems Engineer / Cloud Operations (Contract)
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
05.2021 - 07.2022
- I am DOD Secret ANACI Security Clearance holder for the Fed
- As a Systems Engineer I am responsible for providing support for various on prem and applications hosted in AWS Gov Cloud running on Linux and Windows platform
- Use Terraform heavily to deploy Infrastructure in AWS for our Customers
- Setup Elastic search and open search service Domain for the customers
- Provide support for various third-party SaaS and in house applications
- Migrate on prem applications to AWS Gov Cloud IaaS
- Migrate various on pre applications to Cloud base SaaS applications
- Lead various projects while providing day to day technical support and expertise
- Analyze third party applications to make sure they are Fed compliance
- Perform applications upgrade as suggested by the vendor or internal development team to keep them UpToDate
- Troubleshoot (Review, Analyze) and resolve critical production issues and write RCA report
- Manage hundreds of Linux and Windows servers hosted in AWS Gov cloud EC2
- Monitor Cloud infrastructure using AWS Cloud Watch and Data Dog
- Monitor Cloud security using AWS Cloud front and Cloud Flair
- Monitor and provide support to production stream including servers, applications and security
- Document test plan after application gets moved to the Cloud either AWS or SaaS
- Follow strict Fed policies and procedure to stay compliance
- Use Splunk for centralize log aggregation
- Attend weekly CAB Meetings
- Use Jira for ticketing and remedy for change management
- Provide 24/7 on call support alone as a subject matter expert for very highly technical and time sensitive applications and systems
- Document polices, procedure and runbook and create systems diagram using Visio
- Write scripts as needed to automate boring tasks
Senior Trading Applications Support Engineer
StoneX Group
09.2020 - 05.2021
- As a Senior Engineer I was responsible for providing support for 70+ trading applications, with primary focus on Murex, Two Four, and FIX protocol leveraging platforms. Applications hosted at on prem data center and AWS private cloud. IaaS, PaaS, SaaS
- Comfortably and confidently take on the support of any application or process within the scope
- Onboarding of new supported applications. either on SaaS or in AWS
- Mentors all subsequent Analyst levels in support, escalation, incident management, project management procedures.
- Provide development in departmental process and procedures.
- Use Jira for ticketing and Service now for Change Management
- Take ownership of a technical project, meet deadlines and requirements of said project, while still conduct daily duties and production and non-production support.
- Follows best practices for support of applications, including meeting SLAs, ensuring documentation is up to date, provide multi-channel availability, increase first contact resolution, set and meet expectations
- Identifies and resolves technical issues with assigned technical infrastructure hardware, software and work processes
- Communicate effectively in non-technical terms with staff to troubleshoot applications or systems issues, diagnose root causes, and bring to resolution
- Complete service requests in the agreed SLA timeframe
- Final internal escalation to the team.
- Collaborate with other supporting teams as needed
- Contribute to customer “how to” documentation, knowledge base articles, and internal troubleshooting guides
- Conduct and configure system-based monitoring as needed
- Serve as the subject matter expert for the technical aspects of the assigned systems.
- Assist in user acceptance testing
- Provide on call 24/7 support for very highly technical and critical trading applications and infrastructure
Release Engineer / Cloud Operations
American Express (Contractor)
04.2020 - 09.2020
- Use American Express inhouse tool (XLR) to deploy applications in to Dev, QA, UAT and Prod
- Use Jenkins to create package for various deployment
- Troubleshoot Docker pods after application deployment failed
- Troubleshoot failed deployment issue and work with the development team to find a solution
- Use Kibana for centralize log aggregation and search
- Deploy applications and services to very large enterprise environment using the XLR Tools
- Manage over 1000 plus Linux servers hosted in the private cloud
- Deploy applications to multiple Data centers in the American Express private cloud
- Use Jira for ticketing, Use Service now to create a change management
- Use Rally to create a defect
- Use confluence to post procedures and runbooks for the entire team
- Use Bit Bucket for version control
- Create processes and documentation for the various run books
- Perform after hour support
Release Engineer
Fay Servicing (Contractor)
09.2019 - 12.2019
- Use Team city and octopus to deploy applications in to Dev, QA, UAT and Prod
- Support, Troubleshoot .NET custom build applications running on windows 2008, 2012 servers
- Provide support for applications such as SonarQube and Sono type Nexus
- Run Vulnerability scan with Vera Scan code on custom build .NET applications
- Troubleshoot issues with Team City and Octopus build and resolved them
- Upgrade Team City, Octopus, SonarQube and nexus to latest version in Dev and Production
- Setup and build Windows 2008 and 2012 servers in VMWare and Amazon EC2
- Provide support for VMWare and servers hosted in Amazon EC2
- Update SSL Certificates on Windows 2008 and 2012 servers
- Provide support for custom build .NET applications running on Windows 2008,2012 servers
- Provide Systems administration for Windows 2008 and 2012 servers and perform patching of them
- Use Jira for Ticketing and change management
- Use Bitbucket for version control
- Create documentation for processes and procedure
Senior Operations Support Engineer
SG Digital
09.2018 - 09.2019
- Configured and setup Prometheus monitoring servers
- Setup and build custom graph using Grafana and connect to Prometheus servers
- Manage servers in Amazon EC2 and deploy application to servers in Amazon
- Manage AMAZON S3 for storage
- Use GIT for version control
- Setup and build new windows and Linux servers in VMWare and amazon EC2
- User monitoring tools like Zabbix, Nagios and Grafana
- Use Ansible for applications deployment to Dev, UAT and production systems
- Manage Linux and windows servers in VMWare
- Provide support for the systems running on Linux CentOS 7 servers
- Support troubleshoot C++ .NET and JAVA base custom gaming Applications
- Use JIRA for ticketing system
- Use Confluence for WIKI and create custom documents and procedure and publish them for the entire team
Dev Ops Engineer / Operations Support
Bank of America (Contractor/Consultant)
09.2017 - 08.2018
- As part of the Global Information Security and working on a Dev Ops team, I am responsible for providing full stack support for various core Bank of America applications and Infrastructure which runs on Linux and Windows platform
- Provide 2nd level support for various core bank application which are builds on .NET, C++, JAVA and other applications builds and runs on Windows 2008, 2012, 2014 Servers as well as Red Hat Linux version 6 and 7
- As a Dev Ops Engineer I wear various HATS throughout the day and responsible for deploying applications in DEV/UAT and PROD environment.
- Strong trouble shooting skills with a proven track record of implementing fresh ideas in solving the new and existing problem
- Work on Deploying new Agile and emergency release for various core bank applications.
- Provide our 2nd level Technical support for core bank applications
- During a production outage provide 2nd level technical support and provide a root cause analysis until the resolution has been find
- Work closely with Software Engineer, Developers, Application owner and product stack holder on providing application and system support for the applications
- Provide systems and applications supports
- Provide support for VMWARE, Cloudera Proxy and SOLR
- Support for SQL server 2008, 2012 and run SQL queries to pull data from the SQL servers
- Provide infrastructure support for hardware and Physical and Virtual servers within the environment
- Provide technical support to over 5000 end users on various bank applications on various issues and find a root cause
- Follow strict change control process using Remedy as a tool for CM
- Work with QA and Development team on various issues and find a root cause of the issue
- Monitor applications and systems using SCOM, NAGIOS, Check MK, HP open view
- Create documentation for the processes and procedures and posted on SharePoint
- Created VISIO diagrams
Education
Bachelor of Science - Economics
University of Karachi
01.1993
Skills
- Terraform (IAC)
- Red Hat 6 and 7, Cent OS, Ubuntu SUSE, Solaris, IBM AIX, HP UX, Debian, Fedora
- AWS GOV Cloud, AWS Commercial Cloud
- Advance AWS Infrastructure setup and support for our customers using Terraform
- Migrate several of our Local State and Counties on prem legacy Applications to AWS GOV Cloud in a timely manner
- Jenkins, Ansible, Team City, Octopus
- Jira, Confluence, Remedy, Service Now
- Applications support
- Data Dog, Zabbix, Prometheus, Grafana
- 3rd Level Advance AWS support
- Create AWS Diagram for the infrastructure
- Systems Engineering, Systems Administration
- Linux Windows 11, Server 2025 / 2022
- Amazon Web Services EC2, AZURE DEV Ops Pipeline for code deployment to DEV, QA/UAT and Prod in AWS GOV and commercial account for CI/CD
- Docker Container Microservices
- Hardware and Software Support
- Linux and Windows Server Administration
- Knowledge of Python and Shell Scripting
- Kibana and Grafana
Certification
- Novel Certified Systems Administrator – SUSE Linux Enterprise 10
- AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (2019)
- Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA), 2002
Section name
- Riaz Akhtar
- DOD Security Clearance Holder
- Hashi Corp Terraform Certified (in progress)
- 39W392 West Curtis Square
- Geneva, Illinois 60134
- Home (630) 818-7794
- Riaz@riaz.biz
Timeline
Senior AWS Cloud Engineer (Architect) / (Full Time)
Lexis Nexis Risk Solution
04.2022 - 07.2025
Systems Engineer / Cloud Operations (Contract)
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
05.2021 - 07.2022
Senior Trading Applications Support Engineer
StoneX Group
09.2020 - 05.2021
Release Engineer / Cloud Operations
American Express (Contractor)
04.2020 - 09.2020
Release Engineer
Fay Servicing (Contractor)
09.2019 - 12.2019
Senior Operations Support Engineer
SG Digital
09.2018 - 09.2019
Dev Ops Engineer / Operations Support
Bank of America (Contractor/Consultant)
09.2017 - 08.2018
Bachelor of Science - Economics
University of Karachi
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