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Steve Watson

Hello! I'm Steve, and I am an accomplished IT professional with over 12 years of experience.
I love bringing automation , cloud architecture , web development , programming , and systems engineering together to create efficient solutions.

Throughout my career, I have held various roles including Technical Support, IT Systems Administrator, Senior DevOps Engineer, Senior Infrastructure Engineer, Site Reliability Engineer, and Staff DevOps Engineer

My self-motivation and ambition have helped me excel in the field, and I approach every project with a collaborative, proactive, results-driven mindset.
I invite you to explore my profile further to learn more about my diverse range of skills and experiences.
Thank you for taking the time to read my summary
- Steve

Tools and Technologies I Use

These are some of the tools and technologies that I know very well, and have used on a daily basis

Cloud Providers

Amazon Web Services Google Cloud Platform

CI/CD

Jenkins Bamboo Gitlab Octopus Deploy

Infrastructure as Code / Configuration as Code (IaC, CaC)

Terraform Terragrunt Puppet Ansible

Source-Code Repositories

GitHub Bitbucket

Programming Languages

Python Golang

Web Services

Nginx Apache

Observability and Alerting

DataDog New Relic Grafana Splunk Pagerduty

Containerisation and Orchestration

Kubernetes Docker

Frameworks

Django Locust

Web Security Products

CloudFlare Akamai

Databases

PostgreSQL MySQL Microsoft SQL Server

Communication, Documentation and Task Management

Slack Teams Notion Confluence Jira

IDEs

Visual Studio Code PyCharm

My Experiences

Please find below summaries of what companies and projects i've been part of

  • Led the migration of applications hosted on EC2, Lambda, and ECS to EKS, unifying runtimes and streamlining operational processes.
  • Managed and guided a team of platform engineers with diverse skill sets, ensuring projects were delivered within set timeframes.
  • Planned, designed, and successfully executed key initiatives, including achieving over $10,000 in monthly AWS cost savings, migrating from CloudFormation to Terraform, and expanding OAuth2 application coverage.
  • Assisted in migrating third-party hosted applications into AWS, such as Render.
  • Re-engineered a critical stocklist ingestion system, completing the rewrite within just four months.
  • Developed a comprehensive testing suite using Locust to address API scalability concerns and ensure robust performance under load.
  • Spearheaded the Observability Guild, facilitating fortnightly discussions to improve company-wide practices around monitoring, alerting, and logging.

  • Leading initiatives in Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) to enhance deployment efficiency.
  • Designing and implementing scalable infrastructure solutions using AWS, ECS and autoscaling policies.
  • Collaborating with cross-functional teams to streamline DevOps practices and optimize workflows.
  • Automating infrastructure provisioning and management to improve operational efficiency using CloudFormation.
  • Monitoring system performance and reliability using DataDog, addressing issues proactively to maintain uptime.
  • Developing documentation in Notion and best practices to foster knowledge sharing and team development.

  • Ensured system reliability and performance through proactive monitoring and incident management.
  • Collaborated with cross-functional teams to design and implement scalable infrastructure solutions.
  • Automated deployment processes and operational workflows to enhance efficiency and reduce downtime.
  • Participated in incident response and root cause analysis to improve overall system stability.
  • Developed documentation and runbooks to streamline operations and improve knowledge sharing.
  • Diagnosing issues with wallet, tracking missing funds, and with staking on blockchains, such as Ethereum and Solana.

  • Implemented monitoring and alerting systems to ensure high availability and performance of applications.
  • Collaborated with development teams to improve system reliability and deploy scalable infrastructure.
  • Automated operational tasks using scripting and configuration management tools such as Ansible, Gitlabs and Jenkins to enhance efficiency.
  • Participated in on-call rotations to respond to production incidents and ensure rapid recovery.
  • Conducted performance tuning and capacity planning to optimize resource utilization.
  • Documented processes and created runbooks to facilitate knowledge sharing across teams.

  • Assisted in forming a new Infrastructure team and demonstrated mentorship skills in using the AWS management console.
  • Led the team to enhance their skills while managing day-to-day workloads in the absence of the infrastructure manager.
  • Planned, developed, and implemented new solutions, improving existing ones using AWS diagrams for documentation.
  • Reviewed and contributed to the implementation of missing policies, including disaster prevention and recovery plans.
  • Identified unnecessary costs within AWS to lower expenditures and reduce waste.
  • Standardized software installation requirements using AWS AMIs and documented all processes.
  • Introduced the Atlassian suite to replace insecure in-house file storage for document management.
  • Learned Oracle processes, including creating network links and managing database imports/exports, and documented these for team use.
  • Implemented and configured a monitoring solution (Grafana) for an in-house Java application to provide error alerting and support teams outside of regular hours.

  • Enhanced infrastructure by implementing infrastructure as code using AWS features like auto-scaling and automated backups.
  • Reduced deployment time and increased stability within the existing infrastructure.
  • Developed scripts in Python, Bash, and Groovy, and implemented deployment pipelines using Jenkins.
  • Utilized AWS to create Fargate clusters and Lambdas for running smaller microservices with a focus on a “server-less” architecture.
  • Collaborated effectively within small and larger teams to develop and deliver new projects on time.
  • Designed and implemented an API gateway to cache API requests, improving recovery limits on the client side.

  • Maintained a high website uptime by working independently and as part of the Systems Operations team.
  • Reduced costs and time spent by assisting other departments, particularly in the IT service desk.
  • Prevented site downtime by utilizing New Relic and other monitoring software during peak sales times.
  • Boosted productivity by creating documentation for new and existing processes where it didn’t previously exist.
  • Assisted in migrating from a physical server hosting provider to AWS, including planning and implementing backup processes.
  • Increased awareness and confidence by submitting reports with statistics, such as website uptime.
  • Communicated with third parties and suppliers to complete specific tasks, including server hosting migration and DNS changes.

  • Installed, configured, and maintained a new website deployment system to facilitate quick updates of IIS sites.
  • Set up a client-to-site VPN system for secure connectivity with limited access to internal office systems.
  • Gained SQL development experience to maintain databases and analyze errors across development, production, and staging sites.
  • Managed backups for Domain Controllers, MSSQL, and PostgreSQL, ensuring off-site backups and continuity plans were in place.
  • Oversaw budgeting, purchasing, and implementation of new hardware and software to support platform growth and internal development.
  • Installed, configured, and maintained SOLR systems hosted on Linux platforms.
  • Monitored, patched, and updated firewall configurations to maintain high security and prevent unauthorized access.
  • Wrote automation scripts for creating new IIS sites on-the-fly using database configuration scripts and PowerShell.
  • Utilized PHP and MySQL scripting knowledge to assist with importing new customer data for software migration.

  • Provided technical support for a SaaS platform, collaborating with customers and internal teams to resolve issues.
  • Published and updated websites using Visual Studio (ASP.NET) and managed associated databases with MSSQL.
  • Enhanced processes to reduce website update times and improve operational efficiency.
  • Created and maintained virtual machines for hosting new and migrated websites, implementing load balancing for high availability.
  • Developed PowerShell scripts for efficient backup management, leading to reduced storage space and easier restoration.
  • Documented processes and solutions to streamline knowledge sharing within the team.

  • Provided technical support for broadband, colocation, and web hosting products via phone, email, and on-site assistance.
  • Trained new staff members to quickly enhance team productivity and support capabilities.
  • Communicated effectively with customers and internal teams, ensuring clear information exchange.
  • Assisted in building parts of the new data center, taking a hands-on approach when necessary.
  • Utilized strong problem-solving skills to address customer concerns and maintain satisfaction.