Aaron Martell

MAGIC LEAP - SUNNYVALE, CA (REMOTE)

• Technical lead for developer tools, Gitlab (infra, app config, runners), Vault, Harbor, Cloudflare; backup Engineer for remaining SRE services, Cloud onboarding (AWS, GCP), ArgoCD, and observability stack
• Leading initiative to convert all management config-as-code to Terragrunt from in-house Terraform wrapper. Created terraform modules, publishing pipelines, and pipeline templates to aid the full scale conversion. Vault service, Enterprise + OSS, work has been completed and is further expanding to include Cloudflare and Okta.
• Designing and implementing two-tiered Vault service with integration into Gitlab management platform, Okta, and connecting everything together with a newly designed PubSub architecture
• Created grant-based workflow for Vault secret access across Gitlab projects that allows for simplified self-serve privileges
• Wrote Terragrunt backed Gitlab management configuration, along with dynamic CI job creation and is fully self-serve. Custom tooling affected zero downtime conversion from terraform only code base. Reduced time to deployment by 95% with scaling driven almost exclusively by job concurrency.
• Manage sub-team initiatives, deliverables for tech stack, and two Senior Engineers
• Created program management scaffolding in use by current dedicated PM post sub-team split-off

MAGIC LEAP - SUNNYVALE, CA (REMOTE)

• Brought onboard to explicitly cut company cloud spend. Total savings amongst various endeavors resulted in over 1.5m (+12% total Cloud spend) in immediate savings and an annual Opex savings over 500k
• Converted AI/ML cloud fleet from hand-rolled deployments to DevOps backed methodologies with built in cost controls and monitoring.
• Took over project management of Github (self-hosted) decommissioning project in addition to implementation, resulting in a two-fold increase in user base and projects hosted in Gitlab. Rapidly scaling up service to accommodate increase in platform management configuration in the middle of the code base re-write.
• Expanded pipeline backed documentation service, enabling pushing doc source closer to code base, and increasing documentation publishing metrics

LAIKA - HILLSBORO, OR

• Poached from Weta to join a small Infrastructure team to lead a number of active and future projects and upskill, train, mentor team of Junior Engineers and SysAdmins.
• Main area of focus during brief tenure was another Office 365 Suite deployment. Initial rollout was focused on Email, Calendaring, and core security posture. Before leaving, expanded to include Intune and overhauled SaaS integrations with on-prem resources.
• Helped spearhead security and WINfrastructure organizational changes based on prior experience, as well as updated existing tooling to a current and supported codebase
• Laid down foundational pieces for transition to IAC framework and Devops workflows from click ops and one-off tooling.

WETA DIGITAL - WELLINGTON, NZ

• Initial member of cross departmental team driving and developing workflows in two cloud platforms, AWS and Azure. Dynamic team was a merging of both Infrastructure and Pipeline methodologies, pushing towards a single vision of future workloads both on premise and cloud native.
• Designed a multi-regional, scalable and secure network backbone for rendering in cloud project utilizing custom Terraform modules explicitly tailored for customized Terragrunt deployment
• Built out Infrastructure driven by GitOps workflows, leveraging Terraform as primary constructor during POC period in both platforms, before AWS chosen as final platform.
• Foundational platform built out following IAC principals, lead developer for all infrastructure code

WETA DIGITAL - WELLINGTON, NZ

• Responsible for WINfrastructure, VMware, O365, k8s clusters, logging, metrics, monitoring, and VDI.
• Wrote PS modules to drive O365, VMware, Windows, and Weta integrations and automation.
• Deployed O365 in a non-internet facing environment maintaining strict segregation and tenancy
• Consolidated and re-wrote interfaces for WINfrastructure to ingest end user data into Active Directory from Weta built data systems, tying closely into the O365 workflows.
• Authored RFP VMware hardware refresh, pending VDI refresh, and k8s cluster needs. Proposal included UCS hardware and a greenfield vCenter deployment with zero downtime migration plan.
• Lead design and implementation of moving to a WINfrastructure backed DNS/DHCP from bind.
• Implemented monitoring system overhaul, migrated from legacy Icinga/Nagios to Sensu

EPIC HOSTING - VERONA, WI

• Responsibilities included but not limited to managing all hardware deployments at core and DR sites - switches, UCS infrastructure, storage, dev environments, tailoring infrastructure based on load.
• Senior UCS Engineer for entire compute deployment, operations, upgrades, troubleshooting and architecture. Deployment became case study for scaling architecture in UCS market
• Proposed and implemented HVAC expansion which allowed for a reduction of critical floor space cooling by 50% and subsequently increased compute capacity by 50%. ROI was seen within two months.
• Project Manager for all DC Operations projects and lead implementation, installation for all sites
• Principal Design Engineer and Technology Coordinator for Secondary Site. Expanded critical floor footprint in 2.4MW brownfield co-location facility, and oversaw, designed renovation of site after purchase. Oversaw final installation of both tech and infrastructure. Designed and executed first expansion, a 200% increase in critical floor space capacity for compute, storage, and services. Reduced cost per cabinet by over 11% by analyzing deployment trends and better projecting future needs.
• Authored RFP requirements document, met with and selected International colocation spaces for expansion in the UK market
• Established and managed second DC Operations team - training personnel in Enterprise practices

EPIC - VERONA, WI

• Left as Lead Data Center Network Operations Engineer - was SME for Nexus platform and newly deployed FCoE
• Lead strategic planning for future operations at multiple data center facilities. Established policies, procedures, and practices still in use and duplicated across more than three sites in excess of 5MW of capacity.
• Established first formal DC Operations team - responsible for training and managing technicians.
• One of three technology personnel who collaborated in the physical design and layout of green-field 3MW facility with modular build out design and was decision maker for power scale.
• Aided in design and execution of expansion in pre-existing data center including prototyping cabinets, network switches, PDUs, and created an asymmetrical cable management system - all components were used in greenfield constructed secondary site.
• Managed deployment and hardware for servers and switches at two DC sites. Lead capacity planning in all aspects, power, cooling, and expansion coordination for both sites.

Chicago, Illinois

• Visual Effects & Motion Graphics

Minneapolis, Minnesota

• B.S. Physics + B.S. Astrophysics, aka Particle Smasher and Rocket Scientist