I was thrilled to have kicked off 2022 by joining Elastic as an Elastician! In my role, I supported some of the largest companies in the world with their Cloud and self-hosted Elasticsearch and Kibana installations, and tackled various other exciting challenges. As an Elastician, I was dedicated to providing top-notch support and solutions to help our clients achieve their business goals. It was an incredible experience that allowed me to enhance my skills and grow both personally and professionally.

In my previous role, I served as a seasoned Subject Matter Expert specializing in the IBM Cloud Databases/Compose domains. My primary responsibility was to efficiently resolve customer database issues while continuously enhancing the quality of service. I engaged with a wide array of cutting-edge technologies, with a focus on Kubernetes, Terraform, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Elasticsearch, Redis, and etcd.

Within this capacity, I participated in on-call rotations via PagerDuty to ensure uninterrupted support. My daily routine involved rapid triage of platform issues based on customer feedback and diagnostic tools. I skillfully executed host maintenance, automated provisioning, and upgrades for optimal performance. I streamlined the provisioning process for new production clusters using Terraform.

Additionally, I contributed to internal training materials and documentation to facilitate knowledge sharing. I was responsible for developing and managing internal tools designed to segment and notify customers of significant events, enhancing communication and transparency. Meticulous Root Cause Analysis (RCA) for premium customers was a key part of my role, helping to identify and resolve complex issues swiftly.

Throughout my tenure, I collaborated closely with other SRE and development teams to drive continuous improvements in platform reliability.

• Compose is a Y-Combinator (S11) backed DBaaS startup which was acquired by IBM in 2015.
• I was originally hired as a Support Engineer, my role was to help customers with all of their database needs. I have consistently gone beyond my role (with the blessing of the founders and other team members) and contributed to the larger platform over the last 2 years and because of that, I have organically moved into an operations/infrastructure/SRE heavy role.
• The current scope of my role (among many other duties) includes servicing PagerDuty alerts and triaging platform issues, host maintenance, provisioning new clusters, assisting customers, fixing bugs, fixing many (many) broken databases and figuring out why they broke.

As a Senior Multimedia Designer at Standard Bank Group, I had the privilege of working closely with the EXCO and MANCO teams within the Private Clients division of the organization. My primary focus was on maintaining the consistent "look and feel" of the brand across all activities.

One of my notable contributions during this role was the development of a custom internal software application. This application was designed to empower Banking Relationship Managers by enabling them to efficiently generate information documents for their clients. This innovation not only streamlined the process but also enhanced the client experience, showcasing our commitment to excellence in design and functionality.

In this capacity, I played a key role in ensuring the visual integrity of the brand and delivering practical solutions that improved internal workflows and client interactions.