Principal DevOps Engineer

Contact Info

📧 [email protected]	☎️ (857) 895-2304

Education

Northeastern University

Boston, MA

Bachelor of Science, Business Administration, Computer Science (Minor) (Aug 2018)

Skills

Cloud & Orchestration: AWS (EC2, S3, Redis, IAM), GCP, Kubernetes (EKS), Nomad
Infrastructure as Code: Self-Service Infrastructure Platform Design, HCP Terraform, Terraform, Sentinel (Policy as Code), Puppet, Packer, Consul
CI/CD & DevEx: AI-Assisted Infrastructure Development, Concourse CI/CD, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Artifactory, Buildkite, Octopus Deploy
Networking & Security: HAProxy (Canary LBs, Traffic Mirroring), Cyera (Data Discovery), Sentinel, SSL/TLS Management
Programming & Automation: Golang, Python, PowerShell, PHP, Ruby, SQL
Leadership & Strategy: Cloud Enablement, Agile/Scrum (Scrum Leader), RFC/ADR Authoring, Mentorship & Coaching, Cost Optimization, Vendor Management

Notable Open Source & Projects

peterdemirdjian.com - Full-stack website with automated CI/CD and visual testing.
Golang: Buildkite Agent PR - Enabled native PowerShell support.
HCL: Packer Custom Image - Custom image with built-in healthchecks.
Advent of Code - Algorithmic problem solving in Golang.

CarGurus, Inc

Principal DevOps Engineer - October 2024 - PRESENT

Architected a self-service infrastructure platform using HCP Terraform, AWS, and GitHub, governed by Sentinel Policy as Code to enable autonomous resource management.
Championed AI-driven workflows to assist developers in generating compliant AWS code, removing centralized bottlenecks while ensuring safety and speed.
Led the migration and adoption of HCP Terraform, delivering on strategic objectives and establishing the 2024 roadmap.
Architected and executed the complete decommissioning of RabbitMQ from the environment.
Spearheaded the Amazon Linux 2 (AL2) migration for Redis, identifying critical risks and executing seamless production maintenance.
Designed and implemented a scalable artifact expiration strategy for Artifactory, creating Architectural Decision Records (ADRs) and gaining cross-team buy-in.
Rapidly re-architected site-homepage redirects to resolve critical time-sensitive dependencies for Product Engineering.
Volunteered as Scrum Leader for the Kubernetes team to bootstrap agile processes, unblocking sprint goals and facilitating organizational success.
Stepped up as interim lead during team transitions, ensuring critical Q2 objectives were met despite resourcing challenges.
Acted as a technical mentor and "Coach" for the team, fostering a culture of knowledge sharing and elevating engineering standards.
Contributed to organizational growth by serving on interview panels for partner companies (e.g., CarOffer).
Recognized as a primary troubleshooter for complex, cross-domain outages, rapidly orienting in unfamiliar systems to drive root cause resolution.

Senior DevOps Engineer - January 2022 - October 2024

Stabilized and optimized Concourse CI/CD by architecting a graceful node retirement process and implementing autoscaling with spot instances, saving ~$30k/month.
Implemented S3 Lifecycle policies for Snowplow and Static assets, resulting in combined savings of over $28k/month.
Overhauled HAProxy stack by removing legacy Ruby templating, adding canary load balancers, and enabling traffic mirroring.
Migrated Jenkins from on-premise data centers to AWS, auditing and retiring legacy jobs.
Took initiative on the unplanned, high-priority Cyera data discovery project, leading the effort across teams and managing vendor relations to completion under tight timelines.
Championed a collaborative culture by actively onboarding and mentoring new hires, significantly accelerating their ramp-up time on complex systems.
Drove architectural consensus by authoring RFCs and documentation (e.g., Concourse improvement plan), ensuring knowledge transfer and democratizing decisions.

Wayfair LLC

Senior Cloud Engineer - October 2020 - January 2022

Consultation with developer teams to drive cloud adoption and migration from our on premise datacenter.
Develop Terraform modules to enable and accelerate features available in Open Source Terraform and Terraform Enterprise.
Extend features and flexibility in our Google Cloud Engine Image pipeline to allow engineers to update their running instances without downtime and greater confidence.
Integrate Terraform Enterprise modules with Backstage for self-service Infrastructure for Developers.
Created a team Golang utility to assist with troubleshooting, day to day operations, and oncall.
Deployed Datadog monitoring scripts for observability into our most critical cloud resources running the storefront.

Senior Site Reliability Engineer - August 2017 - October 2020

Created complete configuration management roles and profiles within Puppet for windows and linux based machines.
Build out Buildkite agent infrastructure, create Buildkite plugins, and contribute code into open source Buildkite Agent.
Enabled Application Teams to self-service puppet and terraform configurations after consultation and design meetings.
Reviewed and created Terraform configurations for virtual machines in a private data center.
Monitored for and responded to critical events for over 3000 machines.
Migrated over 3000 Windows machines from Microsoft's Desired State Configuration to Puppet.
Designed, deployed, and maintained Octopus Deploy infrastructure for all .Net deploys.
Designed and implemented self-service Windows Update solution to enable Developers to deploy updates on schedules that work for them via Octopus Deploy.
Optimize Windows License Placement to save $3Mil in Annual Spend.
Empowered teammates to learn latest technology (Puppet, Terraform) with careful reviews, constructive feedback, and peer-coding sessions.

IT Support Engineer - June 2016 - August 2017

Created self service Jenkins pipeline that allowed users to request software via System Center Configuration Manager that employed internal change control APIs to require manager approval to keep software licensing costs down and reduce ticket load for frontline IT members.
Developed, maintained, and improved internal inventory system in PHP for tracking equipment in multiple locations.
Managed users and computers through Active Directory, Group Policy, and System Center Configuration Manager with 7000+ users.
Configured Linux virtual machines on various data center and office hypervisors to run the Casper Application to support Mac OS X in such a way that they conform to company-maintained security policies.

IT Intern - January 2014 - June 2016

Imaged and configured workstations using SCCM for weekly new hire cohorts ranging in size from 25- 150 new hires.
Ensured equipment was ready and available for employees and conference rooms.
Branded certain conference room experience and equipment to align with a newly launched brand.
Followed code deployment processes and guidelines to write and implement Powershell scripts to send automated email reminders for a variety of IT, HR, and Facilities use cases.
Responded to internal user requests and processed helpdesk tickets in a timely and efficient manner.
Maintained, installed, and repaired computer and network hardware as needed.
Automated base IT functions for other IT staff to utilize in their daily functions.