Brandon is available for hire
Hire BrandonBrandon Williams
Verified Expert in Engineering
Software Developer
Spring Hill, TN, United States
Toptal member since February 24, 2020
Bio
Brandon is a senior DevOps engineer who's passionate about creating highly available, fault-tolerant, secure, and scalable systems. He brings software engineering principles and practices to infrastructure and operations. Brandon has experience in all three major cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP) with expert-level experience in AWS.
Portfolio
Provisions Group
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Amazon EKS, NGINX, Docker, Kubernetes...
Ramsey Solutions
Python, Docker, Amazon Web Services (AWS)...
Streamlit
Kubernetes, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Pulumi...
Experience
- Python - 10 years
- Linux - 10 years
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 7 years
- Docker - 7 years
- Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) - 5 years
- Terraform - 3 years
- Kubernetes - 3 years
- Pulumi - 2 years
Availability
Part-time
Preferred Environment
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, Linux, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Kubernetes, Pulumi, Terraform, AWS Cloud Architecture, Python, TypeScript
The most amazing...
...thing I've had the opportunity to work on was helping build out the Streamlit Cloud platform.
Work Experience
DevOps Architect | Consultant
2019 - PRESENT
Provisions Group
- Supported clients with setting up secure Kubernetes platforms for delivering PHP or .NET applications using Helm charts.
- Assisted customers with setting up centralized logging infrastructure in an AWS environment using Elasticsearch, Kinesis, Cloudwatch, and Lambda.
- Provisioned AWS and Azure resources in Terraform to provide infrastructure as code that is predictable and repeatable across environments.
- Provided solutions for customers through Lambdas for RDS backups and log aggregation.
- Configured Azure DevOps pipelines to provide continuous deployment of Kubernetes applications through Helm charts.
Technologies: Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Amazon EKS, NGINX, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)
Senior Cloud Engineer
2016 - PRESENT
Ramsey Solutions
- Migrated applications from running on VMs to AWS Elastic Container Service, saving us thousands of dollars per year.
- Migrated from an on-premises data center to AWS to improve the availability and scalability of systems.
- Implemented monitoring and alerting services to ensure the system's availability and to implement changes based on alerts that could be resolved in an automated fashion.
- Built reusable patterns for infrastructure with tools like AWS CloudFormation, AWS CDK, and Pulumi.
- Migrated the company from one AWS account to an AWS Organization with AWS accounts for each business unit.
Technologies: Python, Docker, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Pulumi, AWS Cloud Architecture, TypeScript, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)
DevOps Engineer
2020 - 2022
Streamlit
- Built out several different ways of hosting a Streamlit application across both AWS and Azure with well-documented README files so that users could use these examples for themselves.
- Created the CircleCI build and deploy process to automate the release of the platform components for the Streamlit for All platform. The Streamlit for All platform allows users to deploy/host a Streamlit application.
- Iterated on the build process to speed it up from the original implementation by parallelizing the building of the platform service Docker images.
- Moved the team from the Golang version of Pulumi to the TypeScript version of Pulumi. Additionally, I obtained several GCP resources that were created manually tracked by Pulumi (infrastructure as code).
Technologies: Kubernetes, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Pulumi, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)
Software Consultant
2014 - 2016
Red C Tech, LLC
- Wrote Java (Spring Boot) applications with JavaScript (Ember.js) UIs to build out a life safety platform for a major home security company.
- Implemented zero-downtime deploys and guaranteed once a request hit the outer edge of our network that the request would be processed.
- Wrote unit, functional, integration, and performance tests for the platform.
- Participated in planning meetings to limit the scope of what could be delivered every two weeks to business partners.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Apache ZooKeeper, Marathon, Mesos, Docker, JavaScript, Java, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)
Senior Programmer Analyst
2012 - 2014
IMT Insurance
- Executed pair programming on the API integration with LexisNexis to ensure that insureds were rated appropriately.
- Automated the process to keep customers' data segregated for compliance purposes.
- Made data translation layers between the Python Django applications and the legacy Windows and COBOL applications to ensure a smooth transition for customers.
Technologies: JavaScript, Python
Programmer
2011 - 2012
Rain and Hail Insurance
- Developed a tool to visualize the crop insurance policies where the premium did not match the federal government premium calculation.
- Ran historical queries to provide data on policies and premiums to key stakeholders for future decisions.
- Introduced pair programming and test-driven development to the team to improve the speed and quality of software delivered.
Technologies: JavaScript, Java
Assistant Programmer Analyst
2010 - 2011
EMC Insurance
- Developed new integrations with third-party tools for the independent agents writing insurance policies with EMC.
- Tracked and fixed bugs via the custom error/bug tracking system.
- Helped others write and test JavaScript for the auto and motorcycle quote process.
Technologies: JavaScript
Business Systems Consultant
2009 - 2010
Wells Fargo
- Enhanced an in-house VBScript desktop application to improve the underwriter workflow.
- Ran reports for executives to determine the backlog and rate of closings on mortgage applications.
- Implemented a data analysis to find loan applications that needed to have a decision made prior to a fine being imposed.
Technologies: JavaScript, SQL
Experience
Hosting the Streamlit Application in AWS
https://github.com/williamsbdev/streamlit-aws-examplesWorking with Streamlit, I was trying to give users examples of how a Streamlit application might be deployed in AWS with the many different options available.
I put together an example with AWS Elastic Beanstalk, AWS EKS, and AWS ECS. It was requested that it all be done with the AWS CLI instead of some infrastructure-as-code tool (as I did with the first example in Terraform for AWS ECS).
I put together an example with AWS Elastic Beanstalk, AWS EKS, and AWS ECS. It was requested that it all be done with the AWS CLI instead of some infrastructure-as-code tool (as I did with the first example in Terraform for AWS ECS).
Financial Peace University
http://www.financialpeace.comI helped develop a platform to host the web applications for Financial Peace University which helps folks get out of debt, live on a budget, and discover financial freedom.
Role: Systems Engineer
I helped to design the infrastructure-as-code and deployment pipelines so that the developers could deliver the code predictably, repeatably, and reliably. This included all of the AWS resources for the site and underlying applications.
Role: Systems Engineer
I helped to design the infrastructure-as-code and deployment pipelines so that the developers could deliver the code predictably, repeatably, and reliably. This included all of the AWS resources for the site and underlying applications.
Hosting the Streamlit Application in Azure
https://github.com/williamsbdev/streamlit-azure-examplesWorking with Streamlit, I was trying to give users examples of how a Streamlit application might be deployed in Azure with the many different options available.
I put together an example with Azure AKS and Azure App Services. It was requested that it all be done with the Azure CLI instead of some infrastructure-as-code tool (such as Terraform or Pulumi). In other client work, I've built out and managed Azure environments from scratch in Terraform.
I put together an example with Azure AKS and Azure App Services. It was requested that it all be done with the Azure CLI instead of some infrastructure-as-code tool (such as Terraform or Pulumi). In other client work, I've built out and managed Azure environments from scratch in Terraform.
Education
2005 - 2009
Bachelor of Arts (BA) Degree in Management Information Systems
Central College - Pella, IA, USA
Certifications
AUGUST 2018 - AUGUST 2021
AWS Certified SysOps Administrator Associate
AWS
Skills
Tools
Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Terraform, AWS CloudFormation, Ansible, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), AWS IAM, Helm, Vim Text Editor, Tmux, Slack, NGINX, Azure App Service, Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Apache ZooKeeper, Mesos, Amazon EKS, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
Paradigms
DevOps, Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Deployment, Continuous Delivery (CD)
Platforms
Docker, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Linux, Amazon EC2, Kubernetes, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
Languages
Python, TypeScript, Java, SQL, JavaScript
Frameworks
Marathon
Storage
MySQL, PostgreSQL, Amazon S3 (AWS S3)
Other
Pulumi, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), AWS DevOps, Teams, AWS Cloud Architecture
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