Mike Newswanger

Tech enthusiast and accomplished software developer, systems engineer, and database administrator that is passionate about learning and helping others

Skills

Software Development

Skilled software developer with proficiencies in the following:

  • Programming in both object-oriented and functional programming techniques
  • Architecting and developing multi-threaded and concurrency-safe applications
  • Building regular expressions
  • Tuning code for performance and memory utilization
  • Managing code with version control
  • Working in an agile environment

Database Development & Administration

Skilled in both database administration and database development in both SQL and NoSQL datastores with proficiencies in the following:

  • Querying, modifying structures, and programming using native SQL
  • Installing, maintaining, and administering Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, and Postgres SQL
  • Administering headless servers
  • Implementing key-value pair storage, hash maps, and queueing in NoSQL stores
  • Profiling servers to find issues and confirm solutions

Infrastructure Deployment & Maintenance

Skilled in creating and deploying infrastructure as code with proficiencies in the following:

  • Designing containers
  • Managing containers using Kubernetes, Docker Swarm, and Docker Compose
  • Managing servers using Ansible
  • Deploying servers on bare metal or via hypervisors (VMware, Hyper-V)

Operating Systems

Skilled in deploying, configuring, and maintaining Linux, Unix, and Windows operting systems with proficiencies in the following:

  • Managing headless Linux and Unix servers
  • Managing Windows servers at scale using PowerShell
  • Configuring and deploying core operating system services
  • Keeping deployments consistent using desired-state configuration management

Security

Skilled in implementing security best practices and risk mitigation with proficiencies in the following:

  • Interpreting network vulnerability scan data
  • Mitigiating common web vulnerabilities in code and application servers

Networking

Skilled in network design and implementation with proficiencies in the following:

  • Designing and implementing networks at scale
  • Effectively using subnetting, routing, and VLANs
  • Configuring and deploying DNS
  • Deploying and maintaining firewalls and VPNs

Projects

Dynamic SaaS Stateful Egress Firewall (2020)

Lead the architecture, development implementation, and deployment of a dynamic stateful egress firewall on a multi-provider SaaS platform. Impact assessment and tooling to automate large-scale tests was created using Terraform and Go, and the firewall management processes were implemented in Scala.

Lead impelemtnation

Scala - Golang - Docker - IPTables

On-Premises Kubernetes Deployment (2018)

Created Ansible playbooks and go tooling to manage on-premises Kubernetes clusters. Clusters are deployed with full encryption and authentication--TLS server identification, TLS client authentication, and Kubernetes RBAC permissions. Minimal configuration is needed to alter an existing cluster or add another to any environment. Haproxy Kubefigurator tool is used to configure load balancers to expose services outside the cluster.

Ansible - Golang - Bare Metal

Guetzli Image Optimization (2017)

Designed a distributed system to bulk-process over nine million images on our web properties. Utilized Google Container Engine to distribute processing across 3,600 containers across three regions, and maintained an average of over 99% CPU utilization, allowing it to complete nearly two years’ processor time in under 3 days. Wrote a high-performance queueing system, download queue, worker processes, and downloaders and distributed via containers both on-premise and in cloud infrastructure. This reduced our image sizes by about 80% on average.

Golang - Kubernetes - Google Cloud

Docker Development Environment (2016)

Designed and developed a local, synchronous orchestration system for containers allowing developers to quickly build and scale local development environments. It provides faster, more consistent deployments, lower resource overhead, and greater consistency between developers than previously used solutions. It was designed with scalability in mind and is easy to extend to handle additional projects and increases in project scope. Its artifacts are human readable and can be modified by the developers to fit their needs.

Golang - Docker

Container Factory (2016)

Developed a tool to hierarchically build Docker images. It allows for the use of inheritance, reduces code duplication, and maps build dependencies while providing a consistent build experience for all users.

Golang - Docker

SQL Server High-Availability Cluster (2012)

Utilized SQL Server 2012 RC releases to test and configure a Failover Cluster supporting AlwaysOn technology, which was put into production at General Availability release. It solved read / write contention issues by splitting workloads based on intent and purpose, significantly increasing performance.

SQL Server - Windows Server

Technologies

Programming

Languages
Ordered by proficiency
  • Go
  • PHP
  • JavaScript
  • C#
  • Python
  • Java
  • C
  • C++
Scripting
  • Bash
  • PowerShell

Infrastructure

Operating Systems
  • Linux - CentOS, Ubuntu, CoreOS
  • Unix - FreeBSD, MacOS
  • Windows
Configuration Management
  • Ansible
Containers / Orchestration
  • Docker + Compose & Swarm
  • Kubernetes
Virtualization
  • Microsoft Hyper-V
  • VMware vSphere

Database

Platforms
Ordered by proficiency
  • Microsoft SQL Server
  • Redis
  • MySQL / MariaDB
  • Postgres
  • Memcache
  • Elasticsearch
  • MongoDB

Work History

Elastic - May 2018 - Present
Cloud Engineer - May 2018 - Present

Develop products to support Elastic SAAS offerings on multiple cloud platforms with a focus on networking components. Key contributor to a L4 and L7 proxy implemented in Go that reduced CPU usage by 80%, improved visibility and reliabilty, and decreased memory requirements over the previous solution. Create various tooling to allow for faster, more confident service deployments.

Stack Overflow - August 2017 - May 2018
Site Reliability Engineer - August 2017 - May 2018

Ensure that all supporting services for Stack Overflow properties are online, performant, and secure. Develop and implmement tooling and processes to manage large sets of infrastructure effectively with a small team. Drive the Kubernetes and containerization initiatives.

WebstaurantStore - July 2011 - August 2017
Site Reliability Engineering Technical Lead - November 2016 - August 2017

Lead the Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) team of eight supporting over 100 developers. Guided SREs in orchestration and deployment strategies, developed supporting tools, and trained employees on issue resolution.

Director of Web Operations - October 2012 - November 2016

Built up the Web Operations team from scratch to eight Site Reliability Engineers, eight Database Administrators, and four Systems Engineers and implemented framework for continued growth. Developed high-availability and infrastructure strategies that reduced hardware budgets by over 50% while providing greater performance.

Database Administrator - October 2011 - October 2012

Lead an architecture revamp to solve availability and performance issues. Designed and implemented a highly replication strategy to meet both redundancy and performance goals. Reduced SQL transaction times by over 80% on average.

Web Developer - July 2011 - October 2011

Led a development team for a high-traffic e-commerce site. Trained new hires to get them up to speed.

YDOP Internet Marketing - May 2010 - July 2011
Lead Developer - May 2010 - July 2011

Created project specifications and implementation plans for client work. Developed modular, reusable components for client delivery. Increased developer productivity and reduced learning curve for new developers.

Sharp Innovations - March 2008 - August 2010
Web Developer - March 2008 - August 2010

Develop software based on client needs. Manage servers, access, security, and databases.

Certifications

  • Querying SQL Server 2012 Microsoft 70-461

    Creating database objects; working with and manipulating data within SQL Server; troubleshooting and optimizing queries.

  • Administering SQL Server 2012 Databases Microsoft 70-462

    Installing, configuring, maintaining, securing, and troubleshooting SQL Server instances.

  • Developing Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Databases Microsoft 70-464

    Implementation of database and programming objects; optimization and troubleshooting of database applications.

Education

Bachelor of Science: Computer Science

Millersville University of Pennsylvania, Millersville, PA
September 2006 - December 2008
Graduated Magna cum Laude