Kubernetes
Ryan Richards
Sr Kubernetes Engineer
Oklahoma City,OK
Summary
Over twenty years of direct involvement in innovative projects from financial, engineering, and start-up industries. This experience was gained from both application development and infrastructure roles. My experience with linux servers, databases, and software development has enabled a deep understanding of the application landscape and the development lifecycle. It provides a foundation for the challenges of cloud-native scalability, performance, and security. My mature and flexible attitude combined with a passion for best practices, clean architecture, and clean code makes me an effective professional in any environment. References are available upon request.
Overview
22
22
years of professional experience
Work History
Contract DevOps Engineer
IntelSat
05.2024 - Current
- Initial work was assisting in configuration of self-installed Kubernetes RKE2 cluster
- Created various Azure Devops pipelines to assist in their network engineering efforts
- Setup and configured NSO by Cisco
- Created multiple Azure Devops Pipelines of which one used Docker containers and a self-installed container registry
- Documentation and testing was required for all work.
Contract Kubernetes/DevOps Engineer
Freedomsoft
08.2023 - 07.2024
- Containerized a ruby-on-rails application for a high scale real-estate website
- Setup EKS cluster and tested deployments for the application
- Also setup Aurora Blue/Green environments for production database environment
- Assisted in migration using AWS DMS.
Contract Kubernetes Engineer
Chickfila Restaraunts
03.2023 - 08.2023
- Collaborated within a sizable, distributed team of seasoned Kubernetes engineers operating within a predominantly GitOps-driven environment leveraging ArgoCD
- Initially tasked with ensuring the timely creation, deployment, and troubleshooting of all Kyverno policies, I successfully met the specified deadline with minimal Kyverno knowledge to begin with
- Subsequently, I expanded my responsibilities to encompass various tasks involving the administration of Kubernetes, ArgoCD, Kyverno, Datadog, and Amazon Web Services including EKS
- These tasks included alert management (creation and modification) as they were sent to the team
- Additionally, I participated in an on-call schedule, where I actively monitored the support channel on Slack, engaging with customers and employing strong communication skills for effective troubleshooting.
Contract Senior Devops
Guardtime Federal
12.2020 - 01.2023
- Secure project using Azure EKS, GovCloud (AWS), and self-hosted hardware
- Built and managed Kubernetes clusters on CentOS 8 using Rancher RKE2 distribution as well as building/automating and configuring Azure AKS private clusters and Istio service mesh for secure communications
- CI/CD was implemented with Gitlab pipelines for automation and essential functions (e.g
- Snyk security scans on containers)
- This required working closely with developers in order to understand the needs of the business and solving any issues
- Led efforts on training staff with respect to docker, Kubernetes and containerizing their applications as well as deploying their applications with Helm
- Infrastructure automation was achieved with Ansible (for configuration management) and Terraform (for cloud provisioning)
- Configured and maintained Gitlab CE environment during development phases
- Hashicorp Vault 1.12.4 and Kyverno 1.8.5 were used for secrets and security policies
- Platforms used included CentOS 7, 8, and Ubuntu 22.04
- Lead project efforts for integrating Azure AD with AWS SSO
- I was the primary point of contact for all Kubernetes and cloud issues
- I encountered many issues I had not experienced before but was able to follow a pragmatic approach and solved them all
- Jenkins was used for devops before moving to Azure Devops.
Senior J2EE Developer
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP
03.2003 - 06.2007
- Lead and Senior Developer roles for large-scale web applications serving 30,000 employees
- Applications functionally supported ethics and compliance for accounting purposes in regards to accounting, IRS and security regulations
- All applications used design patterns and were implemented with performance considerations on clustered weblogic domains
- Application architecture utilized J2EE, stateless EJB, Spring, and Hibernate on a Sun Solaris platform with Oracle as the persistence mechanism
- JUnit, Cruise Control and Perforce were used together for SCM and automated testing of code from both US and offshore-based development teams
- Managed onshore and offshore team of developers
- Worked heavily in architecture for project
- Lead code review meetings for all development
- Designed and implemented code for various parts of projects including MVC-based web.
Education
Bachelors Information Computer Science -
University of Central Oklahoma
Skills
Linux Operating System
Kubernetes and related tools
Scripting Languages
System Administration
Infrastructure Automation
Containerization Technologies
Configuration Management
Monitoring and Logging
Windows Operating System
Effective Communication
Task Prioritization
IT Operations
Network Fundamentals
Maintenance and troubleshooting
Security best practices
IT solution development
Microservices Architecture
Virtualization Technologies
Project Planning
Performance Optimization
API Development
Developer collaboration
Meeting participation
Software Development
Amazon Web Services
Continuous Integration Systems
Problem-solving abilities
Agile development methodologies
Programming Languages: Java, C#, Net, Python
Certification
Currently preparing for the (CKA) Certified Kubernetes Administrator exam.
Affiliations
Member IEEE Computer Society (#90818032)
Dockerhub
https://hub.docker.com/u/rrichardsr3
Interests
FinOps
Timeline
Contract DevOps Engineer
IntelSat
05.2024 - Current
Contract Kubernetes/DevOps Engineer
Freedomsoft
08.2023 - 07.2024
Contract Kubernetes Engineer
Chickfila Restaraunts
03.2023 - 08.2023
Contract Senior Devops
Guardtime Federal
12.2020 - 01.2023
Senior J2EE Developer
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP
03.2003 - 06.2007
Bachelors Information Computer Science -
University of Central Oklahoma