Christopher is available for hire

Christopher J. Stobie

Verified Expert in Engineering

DevOps Engineer and Software Developer

Laguna Beach, CA, United States

Toptal member since August 2, 2018

Bio

Chris is a seasoned principal DevOps engineer with several years of experience building and managing applications. Formerly the director of DevOps/SRE at an AI company, Veritone, in Costa Mesa, CA, and a solutions architect at AWS. Chris has led numerous large-scale cloud architecture designs and implementations, including building a real-time serverless AI platform on AWS.

Portfolio

Calm.com

Elasticsearch, Security, Amazon Linux, Jenkins, DevOps...

Veritone

Security, Amazon Linux, Jenkins, DevOps, Bash, Linux, Redis, Elasticsearch...

Amazon Web Services

Security, Amazon Linux, Docker, DevOps, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Linux...

Experience

Linux - 13 years Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 8 years Continuous Integration (CI) - 6 years Jenkins - 5 years Docker - 5 years Python - 4 years Kubernetes - 4 years Packer - 3 years

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Kubernetes, Amazon Linux, CentOS, Ubuntu, RHEL, Git

The most amazing...

...thing I've designed was a serverless, immediately scalable real-time AI engine processing platform.

Work Experience

Principal DevOps Engineer

2018 - 2022

Calm.com

Built and scaled a mobile application to support thousands of requests per second.
Built a greenfield AWS environment using 100% IaC with Terraform leveraging EKS as our primary orchestration layer.
Wrote numerous Kubernetes template frameworks leveraging Terraform and Codefresh for full canary deploys.
Built a fully-managed networking layer using Terraform.
Built a multi-account, multi-region AWS structure.
Helped solve architectural issues and bring the latency to reasonable levels.
Screened potential DevOps candidates for the company and assisted in building a DevOps culture and team.

Technologies: Elasticsearch, Security, Amazon Linux, Jenkins, DevOps, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Linux, Bash, Codefresh, CircleCI, Amazon EKS, Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, Go, CI/CD Pipelines, Node.js, AWS Lambda, AWS IAM, Amazon Cognito, AWS Systems Manager, YAML, JSON, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Amazon DynamoDB, AWS CloudFormation, Amazon API Gateway, Architecture, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Networking, VPN, Jump Servers, Web Security, IT Security, Healthcare IT, Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS, GitHub, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), AWS Cloud Architecture, Datadog, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Network Administration, Web Application Firewall (WAF), Amazon CloudWatch, DNS, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), DevSecOps, Web Servers, ELK (Elastic Stack), Serverless Architecture, Monitoring

Director, Site Reliability Engineering

2017 - 2019

Veritone

Designed and implemented an architecture for processing streams of media with AI in real time.
Designed and implemented a unique autoscaling architecture leveraging Fargate and ECS/EC2.
Led the efforts resulting in achieving a high FedRAMP compliance status.
Built an SRE team from nothing to having a global presence in six time zones.
Led the efforts resulting in a savings of over $800,000 from AWS annually.

Technologies: Security, Amazon Linux, Jenkins, DevOps, Bash, Linux, Redis, Elasticsearch, PostgreSQL, ECS, AWS Lambda, Go, Python, AWS Fargate, Docker, Ansible, Terraform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), CI/CD Pipelines, Node.js, AWS IAM, Amazon Cognito, AWS Systems Manager, YAML, JSON, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Amazon DynamoDB, AWS CloudFormation, Amazon API Gateway, Architecture, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Networking, VPN, Jump Servers, Web Security, IT Security, IT Audits, Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS, GitHub, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), AWS Cloud Architecture, Datadog, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Network Administration, Web Application Firewall (WAF), Amazon CloudWatch, DNS, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), DevSecOps, Apache, Amazon EKS, Web Servers, ELK (Elastic Stack), Serverless Architecture, Monitoring

Technical Account Manager (TAM)

2017 - 2017

Amazon Web Services

Managed multiple $100+ million accounts at AWS.
Led architecture design efforts and reviewed all the accounts.
Led multiple in-depth how-to workshops on automating the infrastructure with Terraform, Ansible, and Packer.
Built a new internal toolset resulting in immediately an increased resiliency for hundreds of AWS accounts.
Contributed heavily to the internal software development for multiple tools.

Technologies: Security, Amazon Linux, Docker, DevOps, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Linux, Secure Automated Lending Technology (SALT), Puppet, Ansible, Terraform, Bash, Go, JavaScript, Python, AWS Lambda, AWS IAM, YAML, JSON, Amazon DynamoDB, AWS CloudFormation, Amazon API Gateway, Architecture, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Networking, VPN, Jump Servers, Web Security, IT Security, IT Audits, Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS, GitHub, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), AWS Cloud Architecture, Datadog, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Network Administration, Web Application Firewall (WAF), Amazon CloudWatch, DNS, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), DevSecOps, Apache, Amazon EKS, Web Servers, ELK (Elastic Stack), Serverless Architecture, Monitoring

Lead DevOps Engineer

2016 - 2017

Clear Capital

Built a DevOps team from nothing to a global presence supporting multiple time zones.
Led the architectural efforts around a Cassandra/SOLR design and code implementation which resulted in a query performance optimization (going from 10+ seconds to a sub-second query response time).
Architected the design and implementation of ClearQC/ClearCollateral with customers like Wells Fargo, Freddie Mac, and Goldman Sachs running over $3 trillion through the systems monthly.
Led a team in the automation of all infrastructure and configuration management which resulted in a highly scalable, self-healing system with tools like SALT, Terraform, Packer, Ansible, Kubernetes, and Docker.
Automated our CI/CD processes which resulted in reducing the average build/test time from 30 minutes down to 5 minutes.
Led the efforts to achieve SOC 2 compliance.

Technologies: Elasticsearch, Security, Amazon Linux, Jenkins, DevOps, Linux, Bash, Spark, Solr, Elassandra, Docker, Kubernetes, Packer, Redshift, Cassandra, Puppet, Secure Automated Lending Technology (SALT), Ansible, Terraform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), CI/CD Pipelines, Node.js, AWS Lambda, AWS IAM, YAML, JSON, Amazon DynamoDB, AWS CloudFormation, Amazon API Gateway, Architecture, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Networking, VPN, Jump Servers, Web Security, IT Security, IT Audits, Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS, GitHub, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), AWS Cloud Architecture, Datadog, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Network Administration, Web Application Firewall (WAF), Amazon CloudWatch, DNS, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), DevSecOps, Apache, Amazon EKS, Web Servers, ELK (Elastic Stack), Serverless Architecture, Monitoring

Lead DevOps Engineer

2016 - 2016

Estech Systems, Inc.

Architected the support for the PBX/SIP servers running on millions of phones worldwide.
Led the migration efforts from a self-hosted on-premise implementation to a fully managed AWS deployment.
Wrote numerous Ansible playbooks to optimize automation builds.
Developed numerous Terraform modules to improve infrastructure automation builds.
Led the systems team in troubleshooting SIP/PBX service issues for clients around the globe.

Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Elasticsearch, Security, Jenkins, Docker, DevOps, Python, Bash, Linux, Terraform, Secure Automated Lending Technology (SALT), Ansible, CI/CD Pipelines, AWS Lambda, AWS IAM, YAML, JSON, Architecture, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Networking, VPN, Jump Servers, Web Security, IT Security, IT Audits, Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS, GitHub, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), AWS Cloud Architecture, Datadog, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Network Administration, Web Application Firewall (WAF), Amazon CloudWatch, DNS, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), DevSecOps, Apache, Monitoring

Linux Support Engineer

2015 - 2015

Armor Cloud Hosting

Worked on numerous high-profile customer accounts, troubleshooting issues and increasing performance of customers applications.
Wrote automation scripts for various customers concerning the deployment/installation of application stacks.
Worked on numerous security response teams for real-time hacker prevention of high profile clients.

Technologies: Security, NGINX, MySQL, Apache, Linux, Python, Bash, Ansible, YAML, JSON, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Architecture, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Networking, VPN, Jump Servers, Web Security, Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS, GitHub, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), AWS Cloud Architecture, Datadog, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Network Administration, Web Application Firewall (WAF), Amazon CloudWatch, DNS, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), DevSecOps, Monitoring

Cloud Consultant

2015 - 2015

Credera

Wrote Ansible playbooks for Gold's Gym to automate their entire website application stack.
Redesigned Gold's Gym's website which resulted in load time response increase from five seconds to under a sub-second.
Wrote Ansible playbooks in order to automate LDAP deployment with Kerberos.

Technologies: Security, Bash, Linux, Chef, Secure Automated Lending Technology (SALT), Puppet, Packer, Ansible, Terraform, AWS IAM, YAML, JSON, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Architecture, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Networking, VPN, Jump Servers, Web Security, Amazon RDS, GitHub, AWS Cloud Architecture, Datadog, Network Administration, Web Application Firewall (WAF), Amazon CloudWatch, DNS, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), DevSecOps, Monitoring

Patriot/THAAD Fire Control

2010 - 2012

US Army

Worked on and maintained THAAD missile systems.
Worked on and maintained Patriot missile systems.
Deployed Patriot/THAAD radar systems.
Worked on numerous live fire simulations and real world exercises.

Technologies: Aerospace & Defense

Experience

Toptal AWS Case Study

https://www.toptal.com/client-reviews/calm-and-aws

A case study around how I helped Calm to achieve scalability and reliability on AWS running Kubernetes on EKS at scale.

Podcast | Screaming in the Cloud

https://www.screaminginthecloud.com/episodes/episode-26-i-m-not-a-data-scientist-but-i-work-for-an-ai-ml-startup-building-on-serverless-containers

This is a podcast I talk about artificial intelligence (AI), the future of AI, and a serverless Fargate-based architecture that I've designed/implemented.

AWS Architecture Blog

https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/architecture/building-real-time-ai-with-aws-fargate/

I recently was given the opportunity to write a blog for AWS' architecture blog series on a system design I built.

Terragit

https://github.com/lanmalkieri/terragit

Automatically tag your Terraform modules using Lambda, AWS, or GitHub.

Jenkins Pipeline

These are Jenkins Groovy pipelines for building a Docker container, running tests, pushing to ECR, and finally deployment using Terraform.

Create-IAM-PW

https://github.com/lanmalkieri/create-iam-pw

A simple Bash script that was designed to send a console password in a secure way to a new IAM user.

Education

2015 - 2017

Bachelor of Science Degree in Cyber Security

Colorado State University - Fort Collins, CO, USA

2012 - 2013

Associate of Science Degree in Cyber Security/Digital Forensics

Richland College - Dallas, TX, USA

Certifications

JANUARY 2018 - JANUARY 2020

AWS Solutions Architect Professional

Amazon Web Services, Inc.

JANUARY 2018 - JANUARY 2020

AWS DevOps Professional

Amazon Web Services, Inc.

NOVEMBER 2017 - NOVEMBER 2019

AWS SysOps Associate

Amazon Web Services, Inc.

OCTOBER 2017 - OCTOBER 2019

AWS Solutions Architect Associate

Amazon Web Services, Inc.

Skills

Libraries/APIs

Node.js

Tools

Amazon EKS, Helm, AWS Fargate, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), AWS CLI, Packer, Jenkins, Terraform, AWS IAM, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), VPN, HashiCorp, GitHub, Amazon CloudWatch, Apache, GitLab CI/CD, AWS Systems Manager, Jira, Trello, ELK (Elastic Stack), Git, Ansible, NGINX, CircleCI, Puppet, Chef, Solr, Amazon Cognito, AWS CloudFormation

Languages

Bash, Python, YAML, Go, Groovy, JavaScript, Java

Paradigms

Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Deployment, Continuous Delivery (CD), DevOps, Continuous Development (CD), Management, DevSecOps, Serverless Architecture

Platforms

AWS Lambda, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, Linux, Ubuntu, Amazon Linux, Kubernetes, Amazon EC2, Codefresh, Debian, CentOS

Storage

Cassandra, JSON, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Datadog, Elasticsearch, Amazon DynamoDB, Redis, Redshift, MySQL, PostgreSQL

Frameworks

Spark

Other

Cloud Architecture, Site Reliability, Quality Assurance (QA), Software Configuration Management (SCM), SDET, Full-stack, SCM Engineer, QA Testing, Containerization, Infrastructure, CI/CD Pipelines, Architecture, Networking, Jump Servers, Web Security, Cloud Security, Amazon RDS, Team Leadership, Agile DevOps, AWS DevOps, IT Project Management, Cloud, IT Security, IT Audits, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), AWS Cloud Architecture, Web Application Firewall (WAF), DNS, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Web Servers, Monitoring, Secure Automated Lending Technology (SALT), Security, Healthcare IT, Network Administration, ECS, Elassandra, Aerospace & Defense, Federal IT Space, RHEL, Amazon API Gateway

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