Expertise
Eight years designing, operating, and improving production infrastructure.
Hands-on experience with Kubernetes platforms, observability modernization, and Infrastructure as Code powering reliable, scalable production environments.
AWS at Scale
- EC2, EKS, S3, RDS, VPC, IAM, Auto Scaling, AMIs
- Networking, security groups, and cost-aware design
- Linux and Windows workloads
Platform Engineering & CI/CD
- Bamboo and GitHub Actions pipelines
- Terraform and Packer for repeatable infrastructure
- Artifactory, Chef, and legacy integration patterns
Secrets, Service Discovery, and Observability
- HashiCorp Vault and Consul in production
- Datadog, Prometheus, and Grafana for real-time signal
- Migration experience (e.g. metrics pipelines to Prometheus)
What I can do
- AWS at scale — EC2, EKS, S3, RDS, VPC, IAM, and cost-aware design
- CI/CD — Bamboo, GitHub Actions, and repeatable release pipelines
- Infrastructure as Code — Terraform and Packer workflows teams can own
- Managed Kubernetes platform lifecycle, upgrades, and operational troubleshooting in production environments.
- Security & secrets — VPCs, IAM, Secrets Manager, Vault, and Consul
- Observability — Datadog, Prometheus, and Grafana with signal over noise
Recent focus
- AWS production workloads: EC2, EKS, S3, RDS, VPC, Auto Scaling
- CI/CD from the ground up — build, deploy, repeat
- HashiCorp Vault and Consul in production
- Containerized services with Docker and Kubernetes
Tools & platforms
Platform
How this site is deployed on AWS
CI/CD pipeline
GitHub
GitHub Actions
Amazon ECR
SSM Run Command
Docker Compose
Infrastructure
Route 53
ALB + ACM
EC2 (ASG)
nginx → app
Deploy steps
- 01
- 02
Build & push (OIDC)
GitHub Actions assumes `portfolio-github-deploy` (OIDC) and pushes the Docker image to ECR `alxphelps/portfolio`
- 03
SSM deploy
The workflow runs `AWS-RunShellScript` against EC2 instances tagged `Project=portfolio`: ECR login, refresh `/portfolio-compose.yml`, `docker compose pull` and `up -d`.
- 04
Live traffic
Route 53 (`portfolio.alxphelps.com`) → public ALB (ACM TLS) → nginx on the instance (:443) → Next.js container (:3000).
Provisioned in terraform-infra
VPC + public subnets (2 AZs)
vpc.tfApplication Load Balancer (HTTP→HTTPS redirect)
alb.tfACM certificate + Route 53 alias records
acm.tf + route53.tfAuto Scaling Group + launch template
asg.tfIAM: GitHub OIDC deploy role, app instance profile, Packer role
iam.tfSecurity groups: ALB ↔ app on HTTPS :443
security_groups.tf
Experience
Production infrastructure built for scale and reliability.
Enterprise fintech
EKS platform for regulated production workloads
Designed and scaled Kubernetes on AWS for services with strict uptime and security expectations—node lifecycle, add-ons, and operational playbooks the whole org could follow.
Secrets & identity
Vault and Consul
Deployed and operated HashiCorp stacks for secrets and service discovery—patterns that balanced developer speed with audit and rotation requirements.
Delivery & migration
Cloud migration and CI/CD standardization
Led large-scale infrastructure moves into AWS and standardized Terraform and Packer workflows so teams could ship with fewer surprises and clearer ownership.
Get in touch
Open to discussions around Platform Engineering, DevOps, AWS, and infrastructure automation. Usually respond within one business day.