IT Solutions ArchitectRenton, WA · Greater Seattle
Cloud and telecom infrastructure is my game: turning vague requirements into architectures that survive real-world load, scale without drama, and get quieter over time. AWS-certified, stubbornly self-taught, and most useful when the system is complicated, critical, and nobody else wants to open it.
MT ELLINOR, WA Olympic National Forest, 5,944 ft — where I go when the pager is quiet.
Selected work
Side projects, but production-shaped: each one is deployed, has a failure mode I had to think about, and is still running.
This site. Static front end in S3 behind CloudFront with TLS and a Route 53 custom domain; the visit counter in the footer is a Lambda function URL writing to DynamoDB. Stood up end to end rather than clicked through a tutorial.
A GPT-backed recipe app that collapses a dozen open tabs into one query — type what you want, get ingredients and steps back in seconds. Built on the recipes from my own food blog, with a plain two-pane UI so there is nothing to learn.
A Python utility that watches a target directory and files everything into place by type and age. Written to kill a five-minute daily chore; it has run unattended ever since, which is the only review that matters.
Stack
Roughly ordered by depth.
Record
Newest first. The AWS pair came while working full time.
2023
AWS Certified Solutions Architect — Associate
Amazon Web Services
2023
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
Amazon Web Services
2018
Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technician
Cisco
2015
Microsoft Technology Associate — Database Fundamentals
Microsoft
2014
Bing Ads Accredited Professional
Microsoft
Feb 2021 — Aug 2022
MAGNA CUM LAUDEUniversity of Phoenix
Networking, security, database systems, systems analysis and IT governance — earned while working full time. Capstone: designed the cloud network for an internet banking platform, from topology through failover and access control.
Mar 2012 — Jun 2013
University of Phoenix
Foundations: programming languages, data structures, algorithms, software development, database administration and networking fundamentals.
Off the clock
I came into IT the long way around, which is why I trust what I have built and tested over what a vendor slide claims. What I bring to a team is a combination that is rarer than it should be: someone who can design the architecture, explain it to the people paying for it, and then lead the work to ship it.
Most of what I know about telecom and cloud networking I learned being responsible for something that could not go down. The certifications came after the scar tissue.
Outside of work I am usually outside — the photo up top is from the summit of Mt Ellinor. I also keep a cooking blog, which is where the Cooking Pro recipes came from. Family first: my wife, my daughter, and whatever trail we have decided to drag ourselves up that weekend.
Contact
Open to solutions architect and cloud or network engineering roles, contract or full time. Email is the fastest way to reach me.