status: available, remote preferred

Ed Engelking II

Chief Architect · AI/LLM Platforms · DevSecOps · Platform Engineering

30 years building and operating production systems: cloud architecture, DevSecOps, and AI-native platforms, from commercial SaaS to classified government environments.

30
Years in infrastructure & engineering
99.99%
Uptime SLA across US, EU, APAC, Asia
$2.8M
Largest annual budget managed
94-96%
STIG/DISA compliance audit success
3-10x
Developer throughput from AI workflows
25+
Engineers led across global teams
1B+
Records indexed, sub-200ms queries
25-73%
Infrastructure cost reductions delivered
450+
Technical articles published
200+
Personnel trained across 50-60 engagements

Three consulting firms. Three months. No solution.

career — uptime log

30 years, 12 roles, one pattern

DevSecOps security startup — global scope spanning US commercial, international, and classified government environments across AWS, Azure, on-prem, and air-gapped deployments

Built and led the engineering team, holding full architectural authority across all engineering. Reported directly to the CTO and co-defined product roadmap priorities.

KubernetesMulti-Agent LLMDevSecOpsGitOpsNIST/STIG

Gig-economy SaaS workforce platform, US-only

Built the technology operations team from scratch, managing two SRE engineers and one Helpdesk lead. Promoted to Head of Technology for successfully scaling infrastructure, improving operational processes, and driving strategic initiatives that enhanced platform reliability. Reported to the CTO and collaborated with the CFO on business alignment.

KubernetesAWSSOC2CI/CDDevSecOps

B2B electronic components sourcing and distribution platform, serving clients across North America, EMEA, and APAC

Built the DevOps/SRE function from zero, growing a dedicated team to three engineers within a broader engineering organization of 20+. Managed a $1M annual infrastructure budget. Reported to Chief Architect/CTO.

AWSKubernetesElasticsearchTerraformCost Optimization

High-traffic B2B/B2C fashion e-commerce platform

Led an inherited team of five engineers (four developers, one sysadmin) in a complete platform transformation. Reported to the CTO with direct weekly communication to the CEO.

AWSDocker SwarmMariaDB/GaleraPCI-DSSPerformance Optimization

High-growth CDN startup that later went public on the NYSE

Joined as employee #70 and Fastly's first dedicated IT hire, representing a deliberate early-stage bet on the company. Arrived to zero IT infrastructure; the engineering team had been absorbing all IT burden as a side function while the company scaled. Brought in to define, build, and staff the corporate IT function from scratch, with a clear path to Director of IT as the team grew, a trajectory validated when my successor was hired directly into the Director of IT role.

Okta SSOCorporate Network DesignAV InfrastructureAutomationDocumentation

B2B SaaS leads-management platform serving 300+ enterprise customers

Hired to stabilize an underperforming IT department. Inherited an environment with no documentation, no monitoring, aging infrastructure, unreliable email systems, and an immovable data center migration deadline with no rollback option. Rebuilt the team, the infrastructure, and the operational foundation in 14 months, and prevented a business-ending platform failure along the way.

Data Center OperationsHP 3PAR SANDisaster RecoveryNetworkingBudget Ownership ($2.8M)

Parent company spanning print fulfillment, e-commerce, IT services, and software subsidiaries — five locations across two continents

Recruited by the CEO and relocated to California to lead a 25-person global IT organization that had operated without effective management.

Global IT LeadershipPCI-DSSVendor NegotiationAutomationMulti-Site Operations

Regional broadcast television station

Recruited back by the Director of Engineering after a successor allowed the department to deteriorate: deferred maintenance, lapsed vendor relationships, failing hardware originally deployed in 2002, and low morale. Returned with a clear mandate: stabilize operations, execute overdue infrastructure upgrades, and transition to a qualified successor. Completed all objectives in 10 months. My hand-picked replacement stayed for 16 years.

Dell SANActive Directory MigrationBroadcast ITDisaster RecoveryNetworking

100,000 sq ft, 24/7 print production facility, a subsidiary of Farheap Solutions

Led a greenfield IT infrastructure build, going from empty building to fully operational in approximately six months working with an initial 3-person engineering team. Promoted from sysadmin to IT Manager within the first six months; received multiple merit raises throughout a four-year tenure. Maintained 99.99% uptime with zero production outages attributable to IT across the entire engagement.

Infrastructure Build-OutVMware ESXi24/7 OperationsAutomationPlatform Architecture

National satellite internet service, built on owned infrastructure rather than resold capacity

Sole IT professional responsible for designing and building the service from the ground up, one of the first consumer satellite ISPs to operate this way. Managed three teleport facilities (Atlanta, Toronto, Midwest hub) and thousands of deployed subscriber modems across the US.

Satellite Network ArchitectureRHELISP OperationsPlatform ArchitectureSecurity Architecture

Regional broadcast television station

Joined as Helpdesk Technician; promoted to acting IT Manager after three months when the previous manager departed, then formally promoted to IT Manager based on results delivered during the transition. Managed a ~$500K annual IT budget, a team of 2 direct reports, and ~300 supported devices across desktops, servers, Mac workstations, broadcast equipment, and remote locations.

Active DirectoryBroadcast ITVoIPIncident Management24/7 Operations

Top-5 IT media site by readership

Started as a freelance contractor pitching article ideas independently; converted to full-time staff, publicly described by the editor-in-chief at a company all-hands as a rare occurrence. Authored approximately 450 articles over three years across the Support Republic and NetAdmin Republic sections, covering Windows Server, Active Directory, networking, Linux, security, and help desk processes for an IT professional audience.

Technical WritingIT EditorialDocumentationTechnical PresentationsStrategic Thinking

projects

Things I've built on the side

AI-Powered Career Documentation System

A multi-agent Claude Code system that transforms how professionals manage employment history and generate targeted resumes. Eight specialized agents handle document creation, deep forensic role review, batch gap analysis, job-posting alignment, resume generation and validation, job search keyword strategy, and LinkedIn profile optimization.

Claude Code Agent SDKPrompt EngineeringMulti-Agent Architecture

bkn — Lightweight Command Runner

A Go-based CLI tool ("Bacon") that serves as a simplified Make alternative using YAML configuration files. Supports recursive includes for modular command libraries, variable substitution, and ANSI color-coded output.

GoCLIYAML
View on GitHub →

CPU Monitor

A terminal-based CPU monitoring tool written in Go, with real-time per-core usage visualization, a 60-second history graph, and memory tracking, tuned to run at 1-2% CPU overhead.

GoTUIClaude Code
View on GitHub →

localscore

A self-hosted tool that turns a raw CVSS base score into the score that actually applies to a specific system. A short plain-English interview about reachability, auth, data sensitivity, and blast radius per "location" reshapes any pasted CVSS vector or CVE lookup into a context-aware environmental score.

TypeScriptHonoReactSQLiteDocker
View on GitHub →

LookSharp

An iPad app for managing sheet music. Tilt your head to turn the page instead of taking your hands off the instrument, hence the name.

SwiftiPadOSXcodeClaude Code

Multi-Cloud Kubernetes VM Operator

A Kubernetes operator (~11,300 lines of Go) enabling declarative management of cloud virtual machines across AWS, Azure, Hetzner, and DigitalOcean through Custom Resource Definitions. Implements the controller pattern with reconciliation loops, provider-agnostic CRDs, TTL-based cleanup, and full GitOps compatibility.

GoKubernetes OperatorsCRDsHelmPrometheus

NixOS Configuration

A fully fleshed-out, flake-based NixOS configuration with Home Manager integration, built to be modular and STIG/CIS-hardened, with mixed stable/unstable channels for faster security patching and an optimized, vulnerability-scanned container build workflow.

NixOSNix FlakesHome Manager
View on GitHub →

Orrery

An early-stage hardened HCI platform built on bootc, designed to be easy to upgrade and scale.

bootcImmutable OSHCI

Pathfinder

An iOS app for building custom walking, biking, and hiking routes. Set paths dynamically or manually, track distance in real time, and save routes to revisit later.

SwiftiOSXcodeClaude Code

Web-Based Terminal Proxy

A browser-accessible SSH terminal proxy that integrates natively with Kubernetes, automatically retrieving SSH credentials from K8s Secrets. Session persistence via deterministic tmux naming, a real-time connection checklist, and sub-1-second server startup via lazy-loaded dependencies.

Node.jsTypeScriptKubernetestmuxxterm.js

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