Chad User
@chadlester
Senior Cloud Site Reliability Engineer specializing in automation, compliance, and resilience.
What I'm looking for
I am a Senior Cloud Site Reliability Engineer with 25 years in IT and over five years focused on cloud infrastructure, DevSecOps, and automation. I build automated, secure cloud environments that scale and recover quickly.
I've implemented Infrastructure-as-Code and CI/CD solutions using Terraform, Ansible, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI and Jenkins, cutting deployment times from hours to minutes and reducing manual workloads substantially.
I deliver compliant cloud platforms, having supported FedRAMP, NIST, and PCI audits with zero findings, and I design self-healing systems using AWS Lambda, Grafana, Prometheus and PagerDuty to reduce MTTR.
I document and standardize operational practices, create automation scripts in Python, Bash and PowerShell, and lead migrations and cloud transformations that improve uptime, lower costs, and strengthen security.
Experience
Work history, roles, and key accomplishments
Cloud SRE
Broadcom
Jun 2024 - Jul 2025 (1 year 1 month)
Revamped cloud infrastructure and CI/CD using Terraform, Ansible, and GitHub Actions, reducing deployment time from 3 hours to under 15 minutes and manual workload by 40%. Built self-healing systems and monitoring that cut MTTR by 32% and maintained continuous FedRAMP/NIST/PCI compliance with clean audit results.
Cloud Systems Administrator
VMware
Apr 2023 - Jun 2024 (1 year 2 months)
Established IaC standards and maintained CI/CD pipelines (GitLab CI, Jenkins), eliminating configuration drift and reducing production deployment errors by over 50% while achieving zero rollback incidents over six months.
Senior Systems Administrator
Imagine Learning
Jun 2021 - Mar 2023 (1 year 9 months)
Led enterprise data center migration to Azure with zero downtime and secured 2,000 devices via Microsoft Endpoint Manager, preventing multiple security incidents and reducing security alerts by 60% in the first quarter.
Senior Systems Administrator
Forever Living International
Jul 2017 - Jun 2021 (3 years 11 months)
Directed migration of on-premises infrastructure to Azure and Office 365, cutting licensing costs by $150K/year and improving system uptime while implementing CyberArk PAS to reduce privileged risk and pass annual PCI audits without findings.
Network Engineer II
Choice Hotels International
Mar 2017 - Jun 2017 (3 months)
Optimized enterprise network configurations and automated firmware upgrades, increasing application delivery efficiency by 30% and improving compliance adherence by 40% within three months.
Network Engineer IV
Industrial Commission of Arizona
Jun 2013 - Dec 2016 (3 years 6 months)
Orchestrated migration of 20+ critical application components to cloud infrastructure ahead of schedule, achieving zero downtime and a 25% improvement in system performance.
Education
Degrees, certifications, and relevant coursework
Arizona State University
Bachelor of Arts, History
Completed over 120 credit hours toward a Bachelor of Arts in History with a focus on critical analysis of historical events and trends.
University of Phoenix
MCSE (certification), Information Technology
Completed Information Technology coursework and obtained MCSE-related certification preparation.
Tech stack
Software and tools used professionally
Google Cloud Platform
GitHub
GitLab
SonarQube
Kubernetes
Cloudflare
Jenkins
CircleCI
GitHub Actions
Azure Pipelines
GitLab CI
Node.js
Okta
Terraform
Jira
HTML5
PowerShell
PagerDuty
Grafana
Prometheus
Ubuntu
CentOS
Linux
macOS
Windows
Windows Server
Mimecast
Qualys
Azure Security Center
Ansible
AWS Lambda
Serverless
Docker
containerd
VMware ESXi
ServiceNow
Availability
Location
Authorized to work in
Website
chadlester.comPortfolio
github.com/chadalanlester/showcaseSalary expectations
Social media
Job categories
Skills
Interested in hiring Chad?
You can contact Chad and 90k+ other talented remote workers on Himalayas.
Message ChadFind your dream job
Sign up now and join over 100,000 remote workers who receive personalized job alerts, curated job matches, and more for free!
