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Nathan Cerny, System Architect and DevOps Developer in Overland Park, KS, United States
Nathan Cerny

System Architect and DevOps Developer in Overland Park, KS, United States

Member since April 29, 2021
Nathan is a customer-facing technical executive with expertise in DevOps. He has driven digital transformations at multiple Fortune 500 companies, used his leadership skills to dramatically improve team retention, and created rules for cloud-based reapers that resulted in a savings of over $10,000/month. Nathan bridges the gap between client's existing processes and the methodologies that will help them succeed. Nathan thrives on interactions between systems and holistic architecture.
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Portfolio

  • Self-employed
    JavaScript, React, Go, GraphQL, Node.js, Express.js, Next.js, Gatsby, Redux...
  • CHEF
    Chef, Inspec, Habitat, CI/CD Pipelines, Architecture, Tech Sales...
  • CHEF
    DevOps, DevSecOps, GitHub, Git, GitLab, CI/CD Pipelines, Agile, Agile DevOps...

Experience

Location

Overland Park, KS, United States

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

GitHub, GitLab, CI/CD Pipelines, Chef, Node.js, React, Bash, Windows PowerShell, Kubernetes, Docker, Shell

The most amazing...

...thing I've done is take a skill I knew nothing about, learn it, and use it to save over $10,000/month in cloud costs for the company.

Employment

  • Consultant

    2020 - PRESENT
    Self-employed
    • Designed and built web applications for a new venture startup.
    • Developed a novel configuration management software designed to move the coding impetus away from the consumer.
    • Learned React and various technologies to better support web development.
    • Learned SwiftUI to support iOS application development.
    Technologies: JavaScript, React, Go, GraphQL, Node.js, Express.js, Next.js, Gatsby, Redux, React Redux, Sagas, Consul, Terraform, Kubernetes, Swift, SwiftUI, Ansible, Serverless, Serverless Architecture, Serverless Framework, Cloud, Cloud Architecture, AWS Cloud Architecture, GitHub API, Scripting Languages, Python, Shell

  • Senior Manager, Technical Services and Customer Architecture

    2018 - 2020
    CHEF
    • Led a team of customer success architects, responsible for retention and expansion of over $40 million in annual revenue.
    • Developed customer success architect role and requirements and mentored customer success architects on practices to achieve over 90% retention rate, and over 110% expansion rate across all segments.
    • Ensured customers achieved real business outcomes. By mapping their business value to their technical roadmap, we were able to deliver a product where customers did not need to spend time on non-valuable tasks, not in service of an outcome.
    • Developed rules for cloud-based reapers to clean up unused cloud instances and manage cost. This resulted in a savings of over $10,000/month.
    • Served as an escalation point for any customer issue, and resolved escalations quickly, resulting in millions of dollars in saved revenue.
    • Coached customers on use of Inspec to drive CIS and DISA STIG security benchmarks across their infrastructure.
    Technologies: Chef, Inspec, Habitat, CI/CD Pipelines, Architecture, Tech Sales, Customer Success, DevOps, Azure DevOps, Ruby, P&L Management, Management, DevSecOps, Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), GitHub, GitLab, GitLab CI/CD, Bash, Bash Script, Windows PowerShell, Windows, Linux, Docker, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Cloud Architecture, Agile, Lean, VMware, Serverless, Security, IT Security, Cloud, AWS Cloud Architecture, Continuous Delivery (CD), Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Deployment, Agile DevOps, Terraform, Vault, HashiCorp, Elastic, Elasticsearch, ELK (Elastic Stack), AWS Lambda, IT Infrastructure, PostgreSQL, Go, Scripting Languages, Shell

  • Success Team Manager

    2016 - 2018
    CHEF
    • Scoped, staffed, and managed professional services engagements for customers, helping them drive DevSecOps goals utilizing Chef and Inspec.
    • Collaborate with the customer to correctly identify the scope of work and guide them on the most beneficial places to prioritize work to meet their outcomes.
    • Utilized frameworks to help customers assess and identify areas of growth and developed a plan to address them.
    Technologies: DevOps, DevSecOps, GitHub, Git, GitLab, CI/CD Pipelines, Agile, Agile DevOps, Architecture, Chef, Inspec, Bash, Bash Script, Windows PowerShell, Linux, Windows, Cloud Architecture, Tech Sales, Project Scoping, Ruby, Customer Success, VMware, Security, Cloud, Continuous Deployment, Continuous Delivery (CD), Continuous Integration (CI), Lean, Kanban, Elastic, Elasticsearch, Automation, IT Infrastructure, System Administration, Scripting Languages, Shell

  • Customer Success Engineer

    2015 - 2016
    CHEF
    • Developed frameworks to assess customer's DevOps adoption and drive conversations around digital and DevOps transformation.
    • Guided large enterprise customers in adoption of automation, testing, and pipelines to improve stability of their infrastructure.
    • Guided large enterprise customers in DevOps principles and methodologies. Helped customers to incrementally morph their culture into a DevOps culture of communication.
    Technologies: DevOps, Chef, GitHub, Git, GitLab, Agile, Lean, Agile DevOps, Kanban, CI/CD Pipelines, Continuous Deployment, Continuous Delivery (CD), Continuous Integration (CI), Linux, Windows, System Administration, Linux Administration, Windows System Administration, Architecture, Cloud, Cloud Architecture, Scripting Languages, Shell

  • Software Architect | System Architect | System Engineer

    2006 - 2015
    Cerner
    • Supported application teams with automations, monitoring, and reporting, reducing deployment time from 72 hours to four hours, and increasing the success rate to almost 100%.
    • Wrote Chef cookbooks and other automation to ensure repeatability and stability, delivering automated applications that could be tested.
    • Evangelized DevOps and Agile practices and methodologies within the enterprise, helping application teams and operations teams.
    • Provided guidance for hardening and maintaining robust deployment across HIPAA compliant environments.
    Technologies: Chef, Bash, Windows PowerShell, VMware, IBM WebSphere, Ruby, Jenkins, Zabbix, Splunk, Agile, Scrum, Lean, Kanban, Continuous Learning, Continuous Integration (CI), Git, GitHub, CI/CD Pipelines, OpenStack, Ceph, Docker, Linux, RHEL, Linux RHEL/CentOS, HPUX, OpenVMS, AIX, Java, WebSphere Application Server, WebSphere MQ, Oracle RDBMS, Oracle, PHP, JavaScript, Bash Script, Architecture, Jenkins Pipeline, HIPAA Compliance, IT Infrastructure, ITSM, IT Service Management (ITSM), Windows Server, MySQL, Security, IT Security

Experience

  • Ceph Cookbook
    https://github.com/ncerny/cephr

    A demo cookbook I wrote to help customers understand the library/custom resource model of Chef. It is a fully functional (albeit out of date) cookbook for deploying the Ceph storage platform. This cookbook is 100% my own work.

  • Chef Ingredient Cookbook

    The Chef ingredient cookbook is used for installing and configuring Chef software packages. I contributed to the Chef Infrastructure Resources portion providing an easy way for customers to deploy Chef software based on the role instead of the package.

  • Crown Clothing - Portfolio eCommerce Site
    https://github.com/ncerny/crwn-clothing

    Crown Clothing is a portfolio eCommerce site I wrote while taking a class on React. It is fully written in React, utilizing Sagas and React Hooks, with a back end in Google Firebase. It utilizes Stripe for payment processing and is a fully working eCommerce site.

Skills

  • Languages

    Bash, Bash Script, Ruby, Java, C++, JavaScript, PHP, Go, GraphQL, Swift, Python

  • Frameworks

    Windows PowerShell, Serverless Framework, Express.js, Redux, Next.js, SwiftUI

  • Tools

    GitHub, GitLab, Chef, Terraform, Shell, Jenkins, Ansible, GitLab CI/CD, Git, HashiCorp, GitHub Pages, VMware, Zabbix, Splunk, Vault, Grafana, Elastic, ELK (Elastic Stack), Amazon EKS, Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS)

  • Paradigms

    DevOps, Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Delivery (CD), DevSecOps, Azure DevOps, Management, Agile, Serverless Architecture, Continuous Deployment, Kanban, Automation, Scrum, HIPAA Compliance

  • Platforms

    Kubernetes, Docker, Linux, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Windows, Windows Server, AWS Lambda, IBM WebSphere, Firebase, Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), OpenStack, Linux RHEL/CentOS, AIX, WebSphere MQ, Oracle

  • Storage

    Inspec, MySQL, Ceph, Elasticsearch, PostgreSQL, Oracle RDBMS

  • Other

    CI/CD Pipelines, Habitat, Architecture, Agile DevOps, Consul, System Administration, Linux Administration, Scripting Languages, Computer Science, Tech Sales, Customer Success, Cloud Architecture, Cloud, AWS Cloud Architecture, Lean, IT Infrastructure, Windows System Administration, Electrical Engineering, Physics, P&L Management, Sagas, Serverless, Microsoft Azure, Prometheus, Project Scoping, Continuous Learning, RHEL, HPUX, OpenVMS, WebSphere Application Server, ITSM, IT Service Management (ITSM), Gatsby

  • Libraries/APIs

    Node.js, React, GitHub API, Stripe, React Redux, Jenkins Pipeline

  • Industry Expertise

    Security, IT Security

Education

  • Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering
    2001 - 2006
    Kansas State University - Manhattan, Kansas, USA

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