Jonathan

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

Highly accomplished Senior Platform Automation & Systems Architecture Engineer with 11+ years of deep technical experience engineering, securing, and optimizing high-throughput production infrastructure. A rare systems practitioner fluent in Python and Bash with low-level execution insights (mov, add, assembly branching logic), specializing in Infrastructure as Code (Terraform), distributed logging fabrics (Splunk Architecture), and hybrid/bare-metal environments. Exceptional track record of executing complex, self-directed initiatives directly from documentation—spanning the design of multi-tier AWS environments, serverless edge migrations, bare-metal KVM hypervisor deployments, and custom OpenWrt firmware compilations. A rigorous, self-reliant problem solver who bridges the gap between low-level kernel filesystems, cloud delivery pipelines, and automated security infrastructure.

TECHNICAL REPERTOIRE

• Systems & Core Kernel: Advanced Linux Internals (RHEL, Fedora, Ubuntu), Bare-Metal KVM Hypervisors, AWS Firecracker microVMs, Systemd Lifecycle Hooks, Kernel Tuning, Storage IOPS Allocation, Socket Analysis (ss, netstat), Low-level Assembly Branching Logic, C Integration.
• Storage & Filesystem Architecture: SquashFS, OverlayFS Mount Architectures, Clevis-TPM Hardware Encryption, Multi-Protocol NAS Management (iSCSI Target Provisioning, S3-Compatible Object Storage, NFS, SMB).
• Cloud & Edge Infrastructure: AWS Ecosystem (EC2, S3, CloudFront, Route53, SSM Parameter Store, SNS, Lambda), Terraform, Cloudflare Workers, Wrangler CLI, Cloudflare Pages/KV, Akamai WAF/CDN Edge Management.
• Network & Systems Appliance Engineering: Production Mail Systems (12-Year Monolithic Postfix/Dovecot Management, DNSBL Gateway Layers, MX/SPF/DKIM/DMARC routing), Custom OpenWrt Firmware Compilations.
• Observability & Security Automation: Distributed Splunk Architecture & Ingestion Pipelines, Splunk SOAR (Phantom), Palo Alto Cortex XSOAR, Palo Alto Firewall ACLs (EDL Architecture), HP ArcSight SIEM, ExtraHop NDR, Arkime (Moloch) Packet Capture, MISP Threat Intel, GitLab CI/CD, Chatbot ChatOps Development.
• Endpoint & Gateway Security: CrowdStrike Falcon, Carbon Black EDR, Proofpoint Email Security Gateways, McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO), Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP).

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Independent Infrastructure & Automation Consultant | 2022 – Present

• Maintained an active technical advisory practice and private home lab environment, focusing on modern infrastructure automation, low-overhead virtualization layers, and Python/Bash development.
• Engineered mock data injection pipelines to refine high-cardinality telemetry ingestion, keeping core Linux terminal reflexes, storage target configurations, and API integration capabilities production-ready.
• Designed and deployed a complete Django and Wagtail CMS application infrastructure on AWS EC2 via Terraform, orchestrating Route53, CloudFront, S3, and SSM Parameter Store for automated provisioning.
• Engineered a secure deployment pipeline utilizing user-data bootstrapping scripts to dynamically pull versioned application tarballs from S3 and configure local Nginx and Gunicorn sockets.
• Established enterprise-grade deployment resiliency by implementing AWS CodeArtifact to host custom and mirrored Python packages, guaranteeing full pipeline execution independence from public PyPI availability.
• Developed automated cloud cost-containment frameworks utilizing AWS SNS and Lambda to monitor budget thresholds and execute programmatic cost-spike mitigation scripts.
• Evaluated multi-tier production web application metrics to identify compute inefficiencies; refactored and migrated a heavy enterprise AWS stack to a lean, serverless footprint on Cloudflare Workers using Wrangler, optimizing performance and eliminating unnecessary compute overhead.
• Researched low-overhead virtualization and hardware optimization models, constructing overlay filesystem designs using SquashFS and Clevis-TPM hardware-tied encryption to maximize hardware utility and local cryptographic security.

Senior SecOps / Platform Security Automation Engineer | 18-Month Engagement

• Engineered and deployed a GitOps-driven firewall network defense solution using Splunk SOAR to automate dynamic Access Control Lists (ACLs) for Palo Alto Firewalls; integrated a GitLab list-tracking repository with a containerized Nginx distribution engine to enable secure, auditable external dynamic list (EDL) delivery.
• Designed and built a custom interactive ChatOps command chatbot integrated directly into the SOAR cluster to allow analysts to execute rapid infrastructure orchestration, host isolations, and blocklist actions from messaging environments.
• Orchestrated advanced security playbooks utilizing Splunk SOAR to ingest and programmatically remediate alerts across an enterprise ecosystem including CrowdStrike Falcon (EDL/API), Akamai, ExtraHop NDR, and Proofpoint security gateways.

Senior Systems Engineer – Detection & Security Infrastructure | 3.5-Year Engagement

• Co-led the end-to-end architectural migration of a distributed enterprise Splunk clustering environment from an on-prem data center to AWS EC2, ensuring continuous log ingestion throughout the cutover.
• Engineered custom Linux CLI data manipulation scripts (find, touch, stat) to repair and validate altered filesystem and directory timestamps across massive data stores, preserving Splunk indexer bucket mapping logic.
• Engineered and published a custom Splunk application utilizing Python and the pika library, creating custom SPL search commands to stream live search results to a distributed RabbitMQ message bus.
• Designed a Node.js automation microservice leveraging puppeteer to automate URI routing and state traversal for a legacy third-party platform lacking native APIs, enabling a SOAR engine to dynamically update email blocklists and prevent phishing delivery vectors.
• Administered enterprise data enrichment and threat enforcement platforms including Proofpoint email infrastructure and Carbon Black EDR host monitoring across thousands of endpoints.
• Authored low-level performance code in C to interface with core binaries, collaborating with software development tracks to safely integrate low-level code into production binaries.
• Administered the enterprise Arkime (Moloch) full-packet capture platform and served as the primary technical engineering liaison for external MSP packet capture infrastructure and data retention.
• Managed the health, database backend performance tuning, and indicator synchronization for the enterprise open-source MISP threat intelligence platform.

Security Analyst – Corporate & Public Safety Networks | 3.5-Year Engagement

• Monitored high-consequence corporate and municipal public safety communication networks, managing real-time threat detection and incident verification pipelines.
• Leveraged Splunk Enterprise and HP ArcSight SIEM platforms to aggregate log streams, parse raw security telemetry, investigate anomalous network behavior, and minimize mean-time-to-detection (MTTD).
• Administered enterprise endpoint protection infrastructure utilizing McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO) and Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP), deploying signature updates, auditing compliance policies, and isolating compromised systems.

Datacenter Technician - Tier III | 2.5-Year Engagement

• Structured cabling, Rack & Power management
• Operating Systems installations, manual and automated.
• Datacenter Asset tracking.
• Physical Network Infrastructure management: patch panels, punchdowns, crimping, fiber splicing.

Prior technical experience includes an additional 7+ consecutive years of deep Linux Systems Administration, Infrastructure Engineering, Network Security, and production Mail Server (Postfix/Dovecot/DNSBL) management.

EDUCATION & CERTIFICATIONS

• Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA) – In Progress / Refresh Target
• Extensive continuous professional development in Advanced Systems Engineering, Practical Cryptography, and Cloud-Native Architecture.
• Associate of Science, Computer & Network Technician
• GCIH
• GCIA
• GCUX
• SEC599 Coin Holder