Senior Software Developer & DevOps Engineer

20+ years in software engineering, DevOps, and infrastructure automation.

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Professional Summary

Senior Software Developer and DevOps Engineer with 20+ years building and securing enterprise software and Linux infrastructure for NIH, DOE, and NNSA. Hands-on expertise in Python, PHP, Ruby, Puppet, Terraform/OpenTofu, GitLab CI/CD, HashiCorp Vault, VMware vSphere, and REST API development.

Builds full-stack applications, repeatable infrastructure automation, secrets-management systems, and security tooling in FISMA-regulated and FIPS environments. Brings 14+ years of fully remote delivery across federal and commercial teams.

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Core Competencies

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Professional Experience

Lead developer and infrastructure automation and site reliability engineer for NIH's Information Security and Assurance Office. Designs and delivers production software systems, GitOps CI/CD frameworks, secrets management infrastructure, and enterprise security tooling across a large-scale, multi-OS hybrid-cloud server fleet.

• Secrets Management Infrastructure: Engineered an automated HashiCorp Vault lifecycle pipeline using custom Puppet modules and Bash orchestration for server initialization, dynamic multi-key unsealing, and AppRole client enrollment; eliminated manual initialization and unsealing steps while securing key-shares with strict access controls and environment variable fallbacks.
• Zero-Trust Identity & Access Management: Designed and deployed a Zero-Trust IAM module to automate enterprise PAM login policies and multi-OS sudo sanitization; integrated HashiCorp Vault APIs to orchestrate authentication, Vault-signed SSH Certificate Authorities, and dynamic public key distribution, removing reliance on static user passwords across managed hosts.
• Enterprise Infrastructure Automation: Authored and maintained 20+ custom Puppet modules managing the security-agent and configuration lifecycle across hundreds of multi-OS servers (RHEL, Ubuntu, Windows) - covering Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, Tenable Nessus, FireEye, IBM BigFix, Opsview, and GitLab CI/CD runners through consistent, code-managed configuration.
• VM Image Automation: Engineered a unified suite of FIPS-compliant virtual machine base image templates (RHEL 9, Ubuntu 24.04, RHEL 10) using HashiCorp Packer and VMware vSphere; integrated live Vault API lookups for credential-less builds and implemented noexec bypass provisioning, standardizing automated OS image delivery across enterprise environments.
• Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) Provisioning: Built a multi-phase VMware VM provisioning framework using Terraform and custom Bash orchestrators; automated VM cloning, dynamic block storage partitioning, RHSM subscription licensing, Puppet agent bootstrap, and Vault SSH CA enrollment, removing static deployment credentials from the provisioning workflow.
• GitOps CI/CD Framework & Documentation-as-Code: Architected an enterprise GitLab CI/CD component library and Documentation-as-Code (DaC) pipeline; automated Terraform module packaging and developed a programmatic Markdown-to-wikitext conversion engine (pandoc + JSON) to publish structured project documentation directly to the NIH Knowledge Base, reducing manual documentation publishing.
• Cryptographic Certificate Automation: Engineered a cross-platform Certificate Authority (CA) deployment module and automated TLS certificate synchronization engine; added runtime cryptographic fingerprint auditing (openssl SHA1) before system trust-store enrollment to protect RHEL, Debian/Ubuntu, and Windows Server environments from certificate injection.
• Splunk Application Development: Engineered custom Splunk applications in Python for threat intelligence ingestion, automated network threat blocking, dynamic CIDR-to-organization lookup tables, and environmental monitoring log ingestion - each with full GitLab CI/CD pipelines, unit tests, Bandit security scanning, and Splunk AppInspect validation.
• Infrastructure Inventory & Asset Management: Maintained comprehensive infrastructure asset documentation and datacenter rack inventory using Netbox and Racktables to support capacity planning, change management, and audit readiness across the hybrid-cloud server fleet.

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Engineered multiple secure web-based tracking portals and custom processing systems to support NIH security, compliance, and counterintelligence operations.

• FISMA Compliance Portal Suite: Developed and maintained multiple custom PHP portals for the Counterintelligence, Security Officer, and SA&A teams - tracking FISMA system hierarchies, hardware sanitization workflows, Active Directory exemptions, and removable media custody chains with executive-level reporting dashboards.
• Secure File Processing Libraries: Authored custom CakePHP libraries to extract, sanitize, and process complex structured data from raw Excel, PDF, and RTF source formats - enabling automated data ingestion from multi-source agency reporting tools.
• Multi-Portal Architecture: Designed shared plugin and library architecture allowing management and updates of multiple independent portals at a macro level, reducing code duplication and accelerating feature delivery across the portal suite.
• Executive Reporting: Architected real-time reporting dashboards providing agency leadership with continuous visibility into security posture, asset custody, and compliance status.

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Built custom security analytics platforms and network threat correlation systems for DOE's Cyber Security Team - entirely via telework.

• Threat Analytics Platform: Developed web applications enabling analysts to dynamically search, analyze, and correlate large volumes of enterprise network traffic against known and emerging threat vectors - improving threat detection speed and analyst efficiency.
• Parallel Processing Network: Engineered a budget-conscious parallel processing cluster to handle high-throughput network traffic analysis across an enterprise-scale network - dramatically increasing processing capacity without significant capital investment.
• Secure API Integration: Authored secure REST APIs to enable authenticated, standardized data sharing between isolated security platforms - establishing a common integration layer across the DOE security toolchain.

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• Managed and updated the primary NNSA external-facing public portal under direction of the Director of Public Relations.
• Initiated a comprehensive portal modernization effort to bring design and usability in line with current web standards.

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• Monitored intrusion detection and prevention systems; blocked malicious hosts and reported suspicious activity.
• Analyzed existing security workflows and engineered custom web applications to automate manual monitoring steps - transitioning the role from reactive incident response to proactive threat hunting operations.

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• Designed, developed, and secured LAMP-based web applications and MySQL databases for 50+ commercial clients.
• Administered high-availability Linux production servers hosting critical web, email, and application services.

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• Co-developed a custom enterprise e-commerce platform using PHP, Perl, MySQL, and Apache (LAMP); designed and maintained multiple client websites and office systems.

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Education