Samuel Lock
Verified Expert in Engineering
AWS DevOps Developer
London, United Kingdom
Toptal member since August 29, 2022
Samuel is an AWS-certified senior engineer specializing in serverless development and DevOps/platform engineering on AWS. He has experience delivering serverless REST APIs and data-ingestion pipelines, all powered by AWS Lambda. He has also worked in a DevOps role and considers himself an AWS CloudFormation, CI/CD, and automation expert. Samuel has a background in two early-stage startups, one of which handled medical data.
Portfolio
Experience
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 5 years
- Python - 5 years
- AWS CloudFormation - 5 years
- Startups - 3 years
- Solution Architecture - 3 years
- AWS Lambda - 3 years
- CircleCI - 3 years
- AWS Step Functions - 1 year
Work Experience
Serverless Developer
ServerlessGuru
- Delivered a set of APIs for an enterprise client as per their specifications. The APIs use an API Gateway, Lambda, and RDS tech stack. The Lambdas were written in Node.js and deployed via Serverless Framework.
- Architected and delivered a data-ingestion pipeline. The pipeline leveraged S3 (trigger), SQS (decoupling), and AWS Lambda (processing). The pipeline was built with full observability and retry logic for failed events.
- Publish content once a month on behalf of ServerlessGuru. This included a technical blog post with working code examples, partnering this with a YouTube video for their channel, and an internal webinar with other engineers.
Technical Lead for AWS Certification Accelerators
Toptal
- Created two eight-week accelerator courses to help engineers prepare and pass the AWS Solution Architect (Professional) and DevOps (Professional) certification exams. I delivered both of these accelerators in rotation.
- Leveraged Toptal's agreements with Udemy and AWS Skills Builder to provide the bulk of the content. I then created 12 hours of in-person content to better prepare the engineers where those resources fell short.
- Accomplished the 1st delivery of the AWS Solution Architect Professional accelerator that had a confirmed 15% pass rate (within a month of the accelerator finishing) from all those that enrolled.
Senior DevOps Engineer
uMed
- Defined, built, and deployed all the necessary AWS infrastructure singlehandedly to release the pre-seed company's flagship product and get to market successfully.
- Designed and built a business-critical medical-data-ingestion pipeline. It leveraged S3 (trigger), SQS (decoupling), and AWS Lambda (processing). It was responsible for decrypting, processing, and storing sensitive medical data.
- Built each app's CI/CD pipeline using CircleCI. The pipeline would run tests, create Docker images, and deploy to ECS or Amazon EC2.
- Introduced the company to various AWS services such as AWS Lambda, Step Functions, and least-privilege IAM policies via demos and workshops.
- Handled cost control within AWS, providing budget reports and recommendations on where money could be saved.
- Contributed to the application code (Django) when time allowed.
Founder
CleatSheet
- Built a company website using React, and it is still live.
- Designed and built a set of back-end microservices powered by AWS Lambda, API gateway, and RDS/DynamoDB tech stack. APIs were all RESTful.
- Started and produced the business, but COVID-19 forced it to halt its operations.
Software Engineer I and II
Citrix
- Inherited a manual performance testing process, fully automated it, and added it to a Jenkins CI/CD pipeline.
- Mocked all 3rd-party services during performance testing to ensure any changes in results were purely down to code changes within this application.
- Created a favorite feature for the company's flagship product, backed by Azure Cosmos DB.
Project History
Servlerless APIs for Enterprise Client
Event Driven Health Data Ingestion Pipeline
https://umed.io/Data Ingestion Pipeline for Enterprise Client
Containerized Medtech Django Apps
https://umed.io/Open-source PyPI Package/CLI
https://github.com/ServerlessSam/data-file-mergeEducation
Master's Degree in Experimental Physics
University of York - York, UK
Certifications
AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
AWS Certified DevOps Professional
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
AWS Certified Developer - Associate
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
AWS Certfied Solutions Architect Professional
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Skills
Libraries/APIs
Node.js, React
Tools
AWS CloudFormation, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), AWS Copilot, CircleCI, GitHub, AWS Step Functions, Terraform, PyPI, PyInstaller, Amazon CloudFront, GitLab, Jenkins, Amazon CloudFront CDN, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Amazon EKS, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), AWS CodeDeploy, AWS CodeBuild, AWS CodeCommit, Amazon ElastiCache, AWS Key Management Service (KMS), Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon Cognito
Languages
Python, YAML, C#
Frameworks
AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM), Serverless Framework, Django, React Native
Paradigms
Microservices, DevOps, Event-driven Architecture, HIPAA Compliance
Platforms
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, AWS Lambda, Unix, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Azure, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Amazon EC2
Storage
Amazon S3 (AWS S3), JSON, PostgreSQL, Amazon DynamoDB
Other
Serverless, Startups, Software, Coding, AWS Certified Solution Architect, Amazon API Gateway, Identity & Access Management (IAM), Containers, Performance Testing, Software Architecture, Solution Architecture, Amazon RDS, SFTP, API Gateways, Open Source, Architecture, Technical Writing, AWS Control Tower, Consulting, Mentorship, AWS CodePipeline, Amazon Kinesis, Amazon Route 53, Cloud, AWS Certified DevOps Engineer, Education, APIs, Amazon EventBridge, SDKs, Solution Design
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