Goal

Design innovative solutions to fulfill unique business needs.

Skills

Engineer

Detailed understanding of Linux/UNIX operating systems, Internet services, automation and security best-practices.

Instructor

Proven ability to communicate complex new ideas in easy to understand and applicable ways.

Author

Experience with publishing documentation, creating training material, writing instructional blogs and technical books.

Projects

Award-Winning Architect & co-creator of HubbleStack.
Creator of Bastille: Secure Container Automation.

Technical

  • Linux
  • FreeBSD
  • Python
  • Security
  • Compliance
  • Automation
  • Cloud
  • Containers
  • Networking

Experience

TrueMark: 2022 ‐ current

Senior DevOps Engineer

Maintain CI/CD pipeline health for 200+ Bitbucket pipelines.
Consolidate thousands of DNS records from disparate providers into AWS Route53.
Migrate hundreds of pipelines from JFrog Artifactory to AWS CodeArtifact.
Program automation scripts and tools in Python and Bash.

ThriveDX: 2021 ‐ 2022

Lead Instructor - Cyber Security (UNLV & SDSU)

Teach Cyber Security introductory course for University bootcamps.
Teach Cloud Security fundamentals course (primarily AWS).
Teach Linux Security fundamentals course.
Teach Python Programming fundamentals.

BastilleBSD: 2019 ‐ current

Open Source Developer

Creator and maintainer of BastilleBSD, the open-source system for automating deployment and management of containerized applications on FreeBSD.
Write documentation, guides, tutorials and give presentations about the technology.
Manage community interactions, review code contributions, address bugs & issues.

Adobe Systems: 2014 ‐ 2019

Computer Scientist, Software Development - Adobe Experience Cloud (TechOps)

Unofficial Adobe "Salt Master"
Architect & co-creator of HubbleStack.
Designed low-latency, global time (NTP) service supporting 150,000+ devices.
Support global anycast DNS solution serving 12B+ queries monthly.
Maintain email relays delivering 750,000+ customer emails per hour.
Maintain internal global CDN for artifact and source code distribution.
Adobe TechOps "Technology Advisory Group (TAG)" contributor.
Adobe TechOps "TechTalk" vetran presenter.

Adobe Systems: 2012 ‐ 2014

SRE, Adobe Analytics - Adobe Experience Cloud (TechOps)

Support Adobe's Reporting and Analytics infrastructure of ~30,000 Linux systems.
Maintainer of custom-built Linux kernel tuned for performance and stability.

Beyond Oblivion: 2011 ‐ 2012

Cloud Infrastructure Engineer

Support Infrastructure for Beyond Oblivion streaming music service.
Design load balancing and SSL termination solutions.
Work closely with QA to validate and improve service performance.
Maintain 600TB distributed filesystem.
Migrate remote execution and state management solution from Puppet to SaltStack.

University of Utah: 2010 ‐ 2013

Instructor - Technology Education / School of Computing

Teach Enterprise Linux Network Services, Security and Troubleshooting.
Teach fundamentals of web-programming with PHP Level 1 and Level 2.
Teach fundamentals of database use and design with MySQL Level 1 and Level 2.
Teach fundamentals of database driven websites combined technologies crash-course.
Teach fundamentals of jQuery, Level 1.
(Authored or contributed to all class course material.)

The GNOME Foundation: 2010 ‐ 2011

System Administrator

Maintain infrastructure for GNOME Desktop Environment and related projects.
Act as point of contact between Sysadmin team and development projects.
Manage project timelines, goals and requirements with volunteers Sysadmins.
Write and maintain puppet modules for configuration management.
Additional responsibilities include accounts management, mailing lists, web, email, DNS, etc.

Partnet, Inc.: 2008 ‐ 2011

System Administrator

Deploy, secure, and maintain Red Hat, CentOS and FreeBSD servers in support of the Department of Defense EMALL application.
Design and maintain internal infrastructure supporting application development.
Research new technologies to improve internal efficiency and standardization.
Maintain IT Level-1 Department of Defense Clearance (top-secret).

Guru Labs: 2007 ‐ 2008

Linux Instructor

Teach Linux Fundamentals, Administration, Network Services and Security.
Write and test course content including lecture, technology demonstrations and hands-on labs.
Deliver certification exams for Red Hat Certified System Administrators (RHCSA)
Deliver certification exams for Red Hat Certified Engineers (RHCE).

Education

Western Governors University | 2023

Bachelor of Science, CyberSecurity & Information Assurance

ISC2 SSCP (Systems Security Certified Practitioner)

CompTIA Pentest+ (Penetration Testing)

CompTIA CySA+ (CyberSecurity Analyst)

CompTIA Project+ (Project Management)

CompTIA Network+ (Network Security)

CompTIA CSAP (Security Analytics Professional)

CompTIA CSIS (Secure Infrastructure Specialist)

CompTIA CNVP (Network Vulnerability Professional)

Open-Source Community Contributions

Maintainer of BastilleBSD.

2018 — current

Architect & co-creator of HubbleStack.

2015 — 2019

Open-source contributor to SaltStack.

2011 — current

FreeBSD port maintainer

2010 — current

Ubuntu Utah Community Team Founder / Team Lead

2005 — 2011

Ubuntu US Community Teams Mentor

2006 — 2008

Ubuntu Developer Summit - Ubuntu 8.04

2007 Community Representative

Conference Presentations

devopsdays Boise 2018

Open-Source Security with HubbleStack


SCaLE 16x (Southern California Linux Expo) — 2018

Security & Compliance Monitoring w/ HubbleStack

SaltConf17 — 2017

Linux Security & Compliance Auditing with HubbleStack

SAINTCON — 2017

Linux Security & Compliance Auditing with HubbleStack

OpenWest 2017

Linux Security & Compliance Auditing with HubbleStack

SCaLE 15x (Southern California Linux Expo) — 2017

Linux Security & Compliance Auditing with HubbleStack

SCaLE 14x (Southern California Linux Expo) — 2016

Ops tools for hardening your infrastructure

SaltConf16 — 2016

SaltStack for Ops Security, Compliance and Infrastructure Hardening

Integrating a CMDB with SaltStack for More Dynamic System Control

SaltConf14 — 2014

SaltStack for LAMP stack deployment lab

SCaLE 11x (Southern California Linux Expo) — 2013

Automated Cloud Provisioning with Salt Cloud

SCaLE 10x (Southern California Linux Expo) — 2012

Salt: Remote Execution and Configuration Management

SCaLE 9x (Southern California Linux Expo) — 2011

OS Level Virtualization : FreeBSD Jails

Utah Open Source Conference — 2010

OS Level Virtualization : FreeBSD Jails

Utah Open Source Conference — 2009

10 Required Sysadmin Tools

Unleashing GNOME Config: Scripted UI Customization

O'Reilly's OSCON — 2008

Ubuntu LTS : Using Ubuntu in the Enterprise

Utah Open Source Conference — 2008

Ubuntu LTS : Using Ubuntu in the Enterprise

Ubuntu Live / OSCON — 2007

The Ubuntu Community

Utah Open Source Conference — 2007

The Ubuntu Community


Recommendations



Computer Scientist - Adobe

Christer is one of the most capable guys I know. He's made massive contributions to Open Source, and the IT communities, and to Adobe in general. This company will be less great without him. Everyone who knows him here will agree. I'm glad we crossed paths, and look forward to hearing about what he does next!

- Don Knowlton, Site Reliability Engineer, Adobe


Computer Scientist - Adobe

Christer is one of those one in a million guys that enjoys what he does so much I often wonder if he considers where he disappears 8 hours a day 'work'. A guy that is not afraid to tackle complex problems out of his wheelhouse and come back for seconds. A guy who makes the right technical decision that will benefit the company's infrastructure for years to come despite corporate politics that stand in his way. This is the guy you want on your team. We made a global decision at Adobe to embrace SaltStack at Adobe and he showed up to the salt mine (no pun intended) with a shovel and a hat ready to work becoming Adobe's resident salt expert in the process. I have highly enjoyed my time having Christer as a peer and look forward to an endeavor in which we can work together again.

- Brandon Peskin, Senior Site Reliability Engineer, Adobe


Linux Instructor - Guru Labs

Christer is a dedicated, hard-working and loyal colleague. I value his opinion when I ask. He provides timely and useful answers with research and results to back up his claims. Christer provides a very good vibe around the office and with our other colleagues. He's always positive and interested in helping those around him succeed, no matter what the subject. He dedicates much of his personal time to making sure those who are interested have the knowledge he knows he can provide. Christer is an excellent instructor in my experience.

- Clint Savage, Instructor / Guru, Guru Labs, L.C.