official résumé

Austin Ford

DevSecOps Engineer IaC Cloud Security

About Me
About

modern solutions in an ever changing landscape

Profile Picture

Today's IT market continues to change at a pace where the most crucial skillset is the adaptability to change with the times. I specialize in a number of technologies used to facilitate efficiency and scalability in a market that will most likely have different needs every few years.

Profile

I've worn a number of different hats throughout my career from Systems Administrator to Cloud Engineer - maintaining all kinds of IT resources from barebone systems, virtual machines, to containerized workloads in the Cloud, to today's highly in-demand orchestration systems such as Kubernetes.

  • Fullname: James 'Austin' Ford
  • Birth Date: 18 July 1987
  • Most Recent Role: Senior DevSecOps Engineer
  • Clearance Held: Top Secret ( TS )
  • Email: j.austin.ford@gmail.com

Skillset

While being proficient in a number of areas, these skills represent the most used and affluent in way of automating, monitoring, and providing reliable solutions.

  • 90%
    ansible
  • 90%
    gitlab
  • 95%
    docker
  • 95%
    terraform
  • 85%
    kubernetes
  • 80%
    python
  • 85%
    aws
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résumé

employment history

over ten years of proven industry excellence working in high-stress environments where hard deadlines and continuous integration are the norm.

Work Experience

Senior DevSecOps Engineer

September 2026 - present

Polaris I/O

Worked on automated security compliancy platforms, heavily integrated into industry-standard CICD and DevOps best practices. Collaborated in an initiative to onboard existing platforms into the AWS Gov cloud meeting the strict security rquirements needed by our customers.

DevSecOps Consultant

May 2024 - September 2026

Federal Reserve Bank via Apex Systems

Automated security compliancy for existing cloud-based systems as well as develop infrastructure for supporting the MITRE framework, utilizing flagship products like Vulcan, Heimdall, and SAF CLI. Helped to design, implement, and maintain tools for a broad customer base, supporting all 12 districts of the Federal Reserve System.

Senior DevSecOps Engineer

March 2023 - May 2024

Lockheed Martin (Space)

Developed a number of GitLab-driven tools used in CI and CD automation in AWS gov cloud as well as integrated our team's various projects into existing DevSecOps toolsets ( 1LMX ) within LM. Worked in an exceptionally secure environment, enforcing government-mandated standards for security compliancy; both in AWS Gov and the company intranet.

Senior DevOps Engineer

June 2020 - January 2023

Charter Communications

Same as the previous role, just promoted into full-time and with a senior title. I also helped with the onboarding of new people as the team began to grow exponentially as well as serving as more of a team lead for organizing large projects and assigning tasks among team members.

DevOps Engineer

October 2019 - June 2020

Charter Communications via Apex Systems

Worked in an ever-expanding team ( Product Development Enablement ) providing CI/CD and IaC resources in the Cloud via GitLab and AWS. Also supported a platform of web applications, hosted on Rancher and Kubernetes.

Systems Engineer

March 2017 - October 2019

Comcast Business via TEK Systems

Used Ansible and Puppet to manage virtual machines on OpenStack for Comcast's Video ingestion services. Also provided general support for everything from on-site datacenter administration to maintaining their Cassandra NoSQL clusters.

Infrastructure Engineer

January 2016 - December 2016

Comcast Business via TEK Systems

Maintained Comcasts video packaging and processing infrastructure. Worked on a team of systems engineers automating OpenStack and VMware infrastructure through ansible.

Technical Support Engineer

September 2013 - October 2015

VMware

Returned to the same position I was in 2012 as I had moved back to the area from Centennial. Essentially the same job, just under a different manager and around the release of vSphere 5.5. Also provided more of a scripting role to help other TSE’s and customers with the same issues.

Junior Systems Engineer

May 2013 - July 2013

NagraStar

Managed a security solution that delivered encrypted set-top boxes to various factory locations around North America. These systems were built in-house in custom server closets that could then be shipped to the various sites and secured to the point that other engineers could retrieve data without exposing the backend network.

Technical Support Engineer

August 2012 - December 2012

VMware

Worked in a callcenter environment that was the frontline in troubleshooting vSphere ESXi and vCenter-related issues. Also provided support for various infrastructure-related issues: iSCSI and networking.

Service Technician I

March 2012 - May 2012

Micro Center

Carried out services such as data migration, data backup, password removal, virus removal, and OS restore, hardware and software diagnostics in a face past environment. Also handled custom PC builds and network consultation for a number of small business needs as well as having experience in dealing with various manufacturers for parts and warranty.

Technical Sales Associate

June 2010 - March 2012

Micro Center

Responsible for Build Your Own department sales which included consulting both personal PC and small business client needs and staying on top of the markets latest hardware. Had to identify customer needs and align those needs with the correct hardware, given clients sometimes with little to no computer experience.

Education

College

August 2007 - May 2010

Metropolitan State University of Denver

Took computer and CS-related classes which were designed around CompTIA A+ certification course materials. Also studied Journalism and Political Science. No degree.

High School Degree

August 2001 - May 2005

Roaring Fork High School

Attended computer classes and managed school IT resources performing generic tasks such as upgrading systems, replacing failed hard drives, and installing new school software.

The Pendragon Lab

Critical Experience without an NDA


I firmly believe that all anyone needs to develop professional skills in any open source technology is an internet connection and a passion to learn.

I taught myself most everything I know by building my own home lab over the years using local retail parts and combining it with industry-wide open source standards to create a truly enterprise-level DevSecOps lab environment. This resume site is hosted within this infrastructure, deployed with a full stack of locally-hosted CI/CD and tooling.


Check It Out
Contact

Get in touch with me

If you have any questions or are interested in discussing more, please feel free to contact me. Will respond to serious inquiries.

Available In-Office At

Greater Denver Metro

Email Me At

j.austin.ford@gmail.com

Call Me At

Mobile Number : (970) 379-1563