Open to opportunities

Zachary Montague

@zacharymontague

AI platform security architect and founder, designing secure cloud environments and automated infrastructure for compliant AI execution.

United States

Message

What I'm looking for

I’m looking for a role where I can secure AI and cloud infrastructure end-to-end—sandboxed execution, zero-trust controls, and compliance—while automating deployment and incident response to keep production safe and resilient.

I’m an AI platform security architect and founder with 18 years of technical experience. I design secure cloud environments, automate infrastructure, and enforce system security—especially for AI workloads that require sandboxing, access control, and regulatory alignment.

In my current role as an AI Operations Engineer at Moneta Group, I’m building internal “Second Brain” infrastructure for secure memory across Microsoft 365.

I also lead security architecture for SEC Rule 204-2 compliance by creating an append-only store for business communications before AI triage, and I integrate secure Model Context Protocol (MCP) workflows using Microsoft Entra ID controls. I’ve set up AI FinOps cost controls using asynchronous batch processing and prompt caching to reduce API token costs.

Previously, I founded and led Nomad Cybersecurity Group, conducting zero-trust architecture reviews for decentralized applications and performing smart contract audits to identify logic defects and reentrancy errors. I’ve also hardened production Kubernetes with RBAC and network policies (reducing deployment errors by 40 percent) using GitOps with ArgoCD, and automated incident response with PagerDuty and Python scripts—grounding my work in practical resilience, clear governance, and fast containment.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

AI Operations Engineer

Current

Moneta Group

Jul 2026 - Present (0 months)

Designed an internal secure “Second Brain” infrastructure for AI workflows across Microsoft 365 and built associated CI/CD and deployment control pipelines. Implemented sandboxing (Kata Containers, Firecracker microVMs), SEC Rule 204-2 compliance architecture, MCP integration with Microsoft Entra ID controls, and AI FinOps cost controls.

CI CD Kata Containers Firecracker MicroVMs N8n SEC Rule 204 2 Model Context Protocol (MCP)Microsoft Entra ID FinOps Prompt Caching

Founder & Lead Security Auditor

Nomad Cybersecurity Group

Nov 2023 - Jun 2026 (2 years 7 months)

Founded an independent Web3 security company and performed zero-trust architecture reviews for decentralized applications. Evaluated smart contracts and blockchain protocols, identifying logic defects and reentrancy errors, while managing operations and security assessments.

Zero Trust Architecture Web3 Security Smart Contract Auditing Blockchain Security Client Relationships Technical Delivery

Site Reliability Engineer

Gen™

May 2022 - Nov 2023 (1 year 6 months)

Hardened production Kubernetes clusters and improved deployment reliability using RBAC and network policies. Built observability and automated incident response workflows using Datadog, ArgoCD, PagerDuty, and Python scripts.

Kubernetes RBAC Network Policy Datadog SLOs GitOps ArgoCD PagerDuty Incident Response Python

Cloud Engineer

Saint Louis University School of Medicine

Feb 2020 - May 2022 (2 years 3 months)

Designed secure AWS cloud environments for medical research data and enforced HIPAA compliance using AWS KMS encryption and TLS. Standardized deployments with Terraform and Ansible, hardened Linux servers using CIS benchmarks, and built disaster recovery procedures with defined RTOs.

AWS HIPAA compliance AWS KMS TLS Terraform Ansible CIS Benchmarks CentOS High Performance Computing (HPC)Disaster Recovery

Cloud Engineer

Saint Louis University

Jul 2019 - Feb 2020 (7 months)

Managed scalable multi-cloud infrastructure on AWS and Azure and improved deployment speed using CI/CD pipelines. Configured auto-scaling groups and load balancers to maintain availability for university applications.

AWS Azure Jenkins Gitlab CI CI CD Pipelines Load Balancers High Availability

Senior System Administrator

RnS Distribution

Nov 2017 - Jun 2019 (1 year 7 months)

Established monitoring, security rules, and alert protocols to protect infrastructure. Designed secure AWS network architectures using NAT gateways, bastion hosts, and multiple VPCs, and managed core AWS services including EC2, VPC, IAM, and CloudTrail.

System Monitoring Alerting Bastion VPC EC2 IAM CloudTrail Network Security

System Administrator - Game Scripter

Stoopid Chikin

Apr 2015 - Oct 2017 (2 years 6 months)

Wrote Python game logic scripts to improve game features and user experience, and managed Linux servers for performance and uptime. Led infrastructure migration from Windows Server to AWS Linux instances and automated server setup.

Python Game Logic Linux Server Automation Windows Server Infrastructure Migration