Benjamin Sodenkamp
Verified Expert in Project Management
Project Manager
Denver, CO, United States
Toptal member since May 7, 2021
Benjamin is a technical project manager with 20+ years of experience in various IT roles, including systems and network engineering and others that were 100% coding. In 2011, he shifted his focus to project and program management and process improvement roles. Benjamin ensures the best possible results by driving alignment and engagement among business sponsors and teams so that everyone understands how they are contributing to business goals and the organization works in a coordinated way.
Project Highlights
Expertise
- Agile Program Management
- Docker
- Network Administration
- Process Design
- Program Management
- Project Management
- ServiceNow
- Vendor Management
Work Experience
Application Architect
Tungsten Security Technology
- Analyzed the functionality and design of a legacy Perl application.
- Recommended reimplementation in Go based on technical requirements.
- Implemented a RESTful API-driven Go back end and documented it with Swagger.
- Designed a delivery pipeline, targeting a virtual appliance build.
Technical Program Manager
F5 Network
- Defined the product owner role and developed the work prioritization workflow for the new internal tools team.
- Created the business case for the successful hire of a dedicated purchaser, thereby increasing ROI by driving savings for F5 Networks.
- Designed and maintained a mission-critical private cloud to be highly available and robust to partial system failure.
- Advanced through positions of increasing scope and responsibility, from senior engineer to program manager, and received recognition for providing excellent customer service.
- Designed and led a change advisory board to coordinate key stakeholders' input and determine the best times to implement necessary service maintenance outages without jeopardizing the most critical deliverables across the company.
Network Project Manager
Denali
- Orchestrated 50+ network deployments to data centers across the globe.
- Created detailed network maintenance plans for large-scale, mission-critical enterprise network implementations.
- Coordinated technical aspects of network deployments from procurement to go live.
Technical Lead
Metric Media
- Served as the main point of client contact to ensure application delivery.
- Managed and mentored offshore development resources.
- Developed responsive web applications in a variety of languages for Metric Media customers.
- Performed systems and network administration, both internally and in the course of customer engagements.
- Presented weekly business operational reporting to the president of the company.
Owner/Operator
Robotic Cat Communications
- Launched a web development consultancy focused on implementing all systems/network resources used in the hosting and development of websites.
- Managed operations and the accounting function for the business.
- Led web development projects that were delivered to clients and managed contract resources.
Services Developer
Aventail Corporation
- Determined and set up the fault tolerance and designed the network for a specialized LAN that was built out in customer networks (the CPE).
- Supported the initial launch of a new secure-access managed service as the first service developer hired.
- Mentored and coached new team members as they joined the team.
Product Developer
Rex Data
- Developed a Linux-based small office server that provided file storage, email services, and internet router functions.
- Created a manufacturing process for the small office server.
- Performed on-site client installs of the small office server.
Project History
Defined Product Owner Role and Work Prioritization Workflow
Created the work prioritization process for a new internal tools team.
I collaborated with internal customers, management, and developers to create an agile work prioritization process to deliver high-value services to internal development and testing teams. This required me to navigate the challenge of a highly diverse set of internal customers with highly diverse needs being serviced by a single organization.
Key Activities
• Drafted process documentation.
• Got buy-in from all stakeholders (sponsors, internal customers, developers, and IT managers.
• Published SLAs and service engagement guidelines to the broad development and testing organization.
• Facilitated backlog grooming.
• Managed, reported, and optimized success metrics for operational service delivery.
Established Change Advisory Board
Established and led a change advisory board consisting of director-level stakeholders representing the organizations potentially impacted by maintenance outages.
Key Activities
• Identified communication problems leading to unanticipated business impact from service outages.
• Identified director-level stakeholders across the development and testing organization and got buy-in for the change advisory board solution.
• Implemented and facilitated the board, which eliminated unanticipated business impact during system maintenance.
Private Cloud Migration
Coordinated the migration of mission-critical multi-VM network topologies from VMware Lab Manager to VMware vCloud Director.
The goal of this project was to overhaul F5 Networks’ private cloud system, which provided mission-critical network prototyping capabilities for the developers and testers developing a network appliance product.
Key Activities
• Designed the vCloud Director architecture.
• Coordinated implementation.
• Trained users.
• Tracked and managed all issues related to migrations of mission-critical, private, cloud-hosted systems.
• Retired the legacy system.
Education
Undergraduate Coursework in Business Administration
North Seattle College - Seattle, WA, USA
Certifications
Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA)
Cisco Systems
Certified Scrum Master
Scrum Alliance | via Solutions IQ
Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)
Project Management Institute (PMI)
Skills
Tools
VMware, VMware vSphere, Slack, Docker Compose, Git, PostgreSQL, Zoom, Jira, Confluence
Platforms
Docker, Linux, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Unix, FreeBSD
Paradigms
Agile Software Development
Other
Web Application Architecture, Web Development, Program Management, Network Administration, Project Management, Agile Program Management, Vendor Management, Process Design, IT Project Management, PHP, Unix Shell Scripting, Perl, MySQL, Data Centers, Python, ServiceNow, Go, Swagger, Business Administration, Technical Training, IT Management, Entrepreneurship, Apache2, Network Design, High Availability Disaster Recovery (HADR), Product Development, AWK, Cisco, C#, Java, Private Clouds, BI Reporting, SQLite, Microsoft SQL Server, JavaScript
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