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Credentials

With 18+ years steering enterprise technology initiatives, I've evolved from building monolithic applications to architecting AI-powered platforms that actually ship to production (yes, really!). My journey has taken me from the oil fields of the North Sea to the cloud-native frontiers of modern AI.

Current Focus

As Principal Cloud & AI Platform Architect at Mode3 Cloud (January 2023 - Present), I'm helping enterprises harness the power of AI through practical, production-ready platforms.

Technical Credentials

The Cloud Native Era:

  • Azure Solutions Architect Expert - Because someone needs to know why your VMs keep disappearing, or how you can possibly spend >$500/month on a jumpbox!

  • Azure DevOps Engineer Expert - CI/CD pipelines that actually work (most of the time)

  • Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) - Yes, I can explain what a pod is

  • Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS) - And keep them secure too

  • Microsoft Certified Trainer - Teaching others the ways of the cloud

The AI Revolution:

  • LLM Orchestration with LangChain and Semantic Kernel (making chatbots actually useful)

  • RAG architectures that find needles in document haystacks

  • Vector databases (Pinecone, Chroma, pgvector) - because semantic search is the future

  • Multi-agent systems that play nicely together (usually)

Leadership Philosophy

Having managed teams from 1 to 15 direct reports (and coordinated 20+ through senior leads), I've learned that the best code is written by happy developers. My management style focuses on:

  • Building inclusive teams where everyone's weird is welcome

  • Mentoring engineers to grow beyond just writing code

  • Creating psychological safety (yes, you can admit you don't understand Kubernetes)

  • Balancing "ship it now" with "this won't haunt us later"

Consulting & Real-World Impact

From urgent Azure migrations at Petrofac (nothing like a security incident while you're onsite with a client in Vienna) to architecting government platforms for 3000+ federal agents, I've seen it all. My consulting work spans retail, federal government, energy, and telecommunications - helping enterprises navigate cloud transformations and AI adoption at scale.

The Journey Continues

Still passionate about emerging tech, still learning new frameworks (looking at you, Rust), and still trying to explain to my mother what I actually do for a living. These days, you'll find me building AI platforms, writing about cloud architecture, and occasionally creating Udemy courses on OAuth 2.0 (because someone has to).

Want the full story? Check out my LinkedIn profile

"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. The third best time is after you've containerized it." - Ancient DevOps Proverb (that I just made up)