HRL Laboratories

Year 3: Running

With a fully featured Windows setup, ELK configured, and several additional people joining the team, I was finally able to make the next step and write a proposal to create and configure an OpenShift cluster.

Year 2: Building

I started to be more comfortable with my skills my second year. I started using Jfrog Artifactory regularly, assisted with Gitlab repo setup, provisioned, and configured new runner hosts, and learned PowerShell Core. I assisted in implementing the Elastic, LogStash, Kibana (ELK) stack, and started a line of Mac CI runners. Several new people joined the team, which shifted me from putting out fires, to making our infrastructure more reliable.

Year 1: Beginnings

I was hired as the very junior second member of a newly created DevOps team. My boss supported my growth and I became proficient in Python 3.x, learned about Gitlab CI, began to understand the pain points of Windows containers, and gained an appreciation for the Lisp and Emacs community. My main achievement this year was turning the pile of disjointed documents given to me during onboarding to explain the current state of infrastructure, into an easy-to-read flowchart that became a mainstay in upper management's presentations

Onboarding

The last time I had to do this much training was at a hospital. On the bright side, I know about Export Controls, and how to lift a box properly. Riveting stuff.

The Coding Exercise

Write a git-ops server from the ground up. Did it work? No, did I panic write a README that included my lofty idea of what I wanted it to be? Yes.

The Application

In a world where re-typing your resume into the company's CRM of choice is the norm, filling out basic information and attaching my resume pdf felt like a breath of fresh air. Am I forgetting something? Na...

Key facts