Gary L. Brandt III
Staunton, VA

Work Experience

DevOps Engineer for a FinTech company with over $1T AUM in an AWS environment.

Lead PoC for infrastructure migration from Cloudformation to Terraform and Terragrunt.
Enhanced existing SFTP serverless infrastructure (Lambdas/StepFunctions) to handle larger workloads dynamically.
Directly integrated with the development team and attended standups to provide guidance on cloud and infrastructure to ensure best practice and proper implementation.
Increased observability and monitoring of application and critical processes via use of Cloudwatch, SNS, Datadog. Created a Lambda that queried logs and notified the team if a batch process hadn't run that day.
Hardened cloud security posture by remediating Wiz Critical and High vulnerabilities. Enforced MFA on all users with access to AWS Console.
Improved CI/CD pipeline by automating the clearing of an SQS queue, and purging CloudFront.
Increased insights into daily batch jobs, by creating a lambda that queried CloudWatch logs for completion of batch jobs, and would send out an automated email using SES with any jobs that failed to run.

DevOps Engineer for an iPaaS company in the B2B market managing our AWS environment.

Helped manage code deployments to endpoints via Jenkins.
Maintained and audited regular backups of EC2 and RDS instances and established RTO in the event of failure.
Setup and networked an AWS Client VPN using cross account peering to gain access to all resources needed for the application development team, and configured access to it via JumpCloud SSO.
Increased observability and monitoring of application and critical processes via use of Cloudwatch, SNS, Datadog. Created a Lambda that queried logs and notified the team if a batch process hadn't run that day.
Configured Amazon inspector on a weekly scan cycle and remedied High and Critical alerts to ensure systems were properly hardened. Lead effort to encrypt EBS volumes for all EC2 instances.
Established a routine maintenance cycle to apply all monthly patches to EC2 and developed a python script to assist in patching.
Worked with the Development team to implement new infrastructure as needed.
Recommended new solutions when possible to help infrastructure and implement cost saving improvements such as reserving and right-sizing EC2 instances.
Managed ElasticCloud and New Relic to ensure proper logging and monitoring were in place and maintained.

Remote Solo System Administrator for a small software company supporting all I.T. requests.

Assisted in obtaining and maintaining ISO 27001 Certification.
Wrote and maintained S.O.Ps to assist users in day to day tasks such as submitting tickets, how to use softwares, or create accounts.
Established automation to assist in daily tasks such as setting up computers, creating accounts, installing software using Bash, ZShell, DOS, and Powershell.
Managed users computers using JumpCloud and Desktop central.
Built and managed all end users computers using an established baseline to determine user hardware requirements.
Worked directly with H.R. to onboarded and offboarded all users, including equipment ordering and shipping, account creation, and setting expectations for the first day.
Managed security training with KnowBe4 and ensured all users kept up with compliance. periodically tested users with Phishing tests.
Managed and Audited Webroot antivirus to ensure computers were secured.
Help to establish I.T. process and procedures including but not limited to training, software and hardware procurement, and establishing a ticketing process.

Systems Administrator supporting and maintaining assets in a secure Windows and Linux

Built and maintained user computers to their required specifications.
Secured and scanned assets to ensure that they met DISA standards and STIG requirements using various scanning software such as ACAS (Assured Compliance Assessment Solutions), Nessus Vulnerability Scanner, SCAP (Security Content Automation Protocol) Checker, and STIG Viewer to ensure compliance and assist with accreditation packages.
Assisted users in the movement and security of data including the creation of media, or moving it from one share to another in both Linux and Windows environments.
Maintained Windows Active Directory assisting with creation of accounts and assets within multiple Organizational Units (OUs) utilizing various Group Policy Objects (GPOs).
Developed and maintained Standard Operating Procedures for day to day and special project tasking.
Assist customers via phone, RDP, and desk-side with software, peripheral, and hardware issues.
Helped create and maintain shares using permissions and security groups.
Built automation to assist with updating software in a closed network.

CompTIA Security+ CE certified - September 2017 - expired
CompTIA Network+ CE certified - December 2019 - expired
Microsoft 365 Certified: Modern Desktop Administrator Associate – January 2020 - expired
MCSA Windows Server 2016 - February 2020
AWS Cloud Practitioner - May 2021
AWS Solutions Architect - Associate - August 2022

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