Linux systems professional with 20+ years of hands-on production experience
spanning Linux, virtualization, networking, storage, web platforms, monitoring,
and automation. Enterprise background includes high-volume transactional email
infrastructure at Sendwell and globally distributed web infrastructure for
ESPN.com and ESPN3.com at The Walt Disney Company, covering VMware/Proxmox
virtualization, load balancing, configuration management, and multi-layer
production troubleshooting. Since 2022, has independently designed and operated
multi-site Linux infrastructure — Proxmox, ZFS, Docker, routing and firewall
policy, VPN, monitoring, and backup/recovery — documented as version-controlled
operational runbooks (see the homelab writeups).
Technical Skills
Linux & Systems: RHEL, CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu, systemd, Bash, performance troubleshooting, system hardening, service lifecycle management, FreeBSD, Windows Server
Design, build, operate, and document a multi-site Linux environment spanning
virtualization, storage, networking, monitoring, backup/recovery, and
containerized services. Architecture and operational procedures maintained
as version-controlled documentation at github.com/greenbeanorg.
Designed and operate a multi-host Proxmox environment running Linux services, network infrastructure, storage, home automation, and application workloads across physical and virtual hosts.
Migrated approximately 30TB of storage from mdadm RAID5 to TrueNAS SCALE with a ZFS RAIDZ1 pool using PCIe SATA passthrough under Proxmox; redesigned cross-host storage access around NFS.
Designed and operate a segmented multi-VLAN network using OPNsense for inter-VLAN routing and firewall policy, with MikroTik switching and controlled connectivity between infrastructure, storage, service, and client networks; engineered WAN traffic shaping with pipes and queues to control bufferbloat, holding an A+ grade at ~361/317 Mbps with +0/+2 ms added latency under load.
Designed and deployed a WireGuard hub-and-spoke VPN connecting two sites and roaming clients through a cloud-hosted hub; implemented subnet routing and asymmetric NAT policy, and diagnosed tunnel bring-up failures using packet capture.
Built automated restic backup pipelines across three Proxmox nodes, firewall infrastructure, and home automation, with 90-day retention, scheduled integrity verification, and off-site replication to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
Built declarative monitoring automation on Uptime Kuma, with monitor definitions maintained as inventory and reconciled through API-driven provisioning across virtualization, storage, networking, DNS, and application services.
Eliminated recurring ISP outages caused by a gateway firmware memory leak by replacing the vendor device with an XGS-PON ONT-on-a-stick SFP+ running community firmware as an early adopter; flashed the module, set OMCI identity via U-Boot variables, and validated PLOAM association and stable service.
Migrated an ARM single-board host from an orphaned vendor kernel to a maintained Armbian/Ubuntu stack after analyzing U-Boot boot-partition dependencies; deployed redundant Pi-hole DNS across independent failure domains, and standardized UPS monitoring on NUT in netserver/netclient architecture.
Provided intermittent, project-based infrastructure engineering and modernization for a high-volume email marketing platform, including production troubleshooting, upgrades, migrations, and infrastructure changes.
Senior Systems Engineer — Sendwell, Inc.
2013 – 2015 · Bloomfield Hills, MI / Hybrid (remote ~3 days/week)
Designed and operated high-volume transactional email infrastructure on Linux (Ubuntu/Debian/CentOS), VMware ESXi, and Proxmox, supporting thousands of concurrent transactions and sustained network throughput of approximately 5 Gbps.
Operated clustered mail infrastructure, 10GbE switching with static upstream routing, PostgreSQL services, and 40Gb InfiniBand-connected storage.
Migrated production virtual machines from VMware ESXi to Proxmox by exporting VMDK images and reconfiguring networking and service configuration on the new platform.
Built custom Nagios and Cacti monitoring covering more than 200 VMs across the physical host fleet, and automated backup workflows using rsync, shell scripting, and ghettoVCB against the ESXi CLI.
Implemented centralized ELK logging with Kibana dashboards for Apache/Nginx web infrastructure, enabling analysis of request traffic, source activity, and HTTP response patterns.
Managed core infrastructure services including OpenLDAP, DHCP, DNS/BIND, and office wireless infrastructure.
Maintained SaltStack configuration management and internal MediaWiki and RequestTracker infrastructure.
Troubleshot complex production incidents spanning operating system, network, storage, virtualization, and application layers.
Senior Systems Engineer (contract) — ND Industries, Inc.
2012 · Troy, MI
Led a mixed Linux/Windows Epicor ERP implementation and production rollout with emphasis on infrastructure readiness, monitoring, and operational documentation.
Implemented Nagios monitoring and authored comprehensive internal system procedures and documentation.
Senior Systems Engineer — The Walt Disney Company (ESPN)
2011 · Seattle, WA
Supported application, load-balancing, and web infrastructure for ESPN.com and ESPN3.com using F5 BIG-IP and Red Hat clusters.
Completed a live data center migration of ESPN.com, ESPN3.com, and subsidiary properties.
Troubleshot production services under peak national traffic, including high-visibility ESPN.com services during NFL Sundays.
Administered and clustered Sun GlassFish Java application servers and performed capacity planning using SolarWinds.
Automated system configuration and enforced fleet consistency using CFEngine3.
Senior Systems Administrator — Entertainment Publications
2009 – 2011 · Troy, MI
Maintained enterprise infrastructure across CentOS, SUSE Linux, and VMware ESXi supporting high-traffic web and application platforms.
Coordinated JBoss application-server optimization with senior software engineers and performed production deployments, configuration changes, and rollbacks.
Performed JMeter load testing of critical site workflows, including shopping-cart transactions, to identify performance bottlenecks and validate capacity.
Administered Apache web infrastructure including SSL/TLS configuration, and automated JBoss and Apache deployments with shell scripting alongside centralized monitoring.
Configured and supported Citrix NetScaler load balancing, including virtual servers, service groups, health monitoring, and traffic distribution.
Network Administrator — ND Industries, Inc.
2005 – 2009 · Troy, MI
Supported a carrier-managed AT&T MPLS WAN using OSPF across multiple satellite offices; troubleshot routing and connectivity on Cisco IOS in coordination with AT&T.
Built and maintained OpenVPN remote access authenticated against RADIUS and LDAP.
Operated core Linux infrastructure on Gentoo and Ubuntu, including qmail/Courier-IMAP mail, BIND DNS, Apache hosting, Samba file services, MySQL, and Linux RAID storage.
Implemented company-wide Nagios monitoring and documented systems and projects using MediaWiki.
Co-engineered a low-cost storage array using ATA-over-Ethernet blades managed with Linux mdadm.
Earlier career (1996–2005): Systems Administrator and Systems Analyst roles with
Cardina Internet Group, Ford Motor Company (NTT/Ciber contracts), Excite@Home, ClickAction (YesMail),
and Advanced Data Systems.