Daniel McDonough

Technical Skills

Proficiencies:

  • Operating systems: Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, AWS Linux, Rocky Linux), Windows Server
  • AWS: IAM, VPC, EC2, Athena, EMR, S3, SQS, Glue, ASG, EKS, Lambda, RDS, EKS, ECR, RDS, Guard Duty
  • Software Engineering: Python, BASH, Git, Gitlab, Docker, Jenkins
  • Monitoring: Datadog, CloudHealth, Cloudwatch, Pagerduty, Netdata, Redash, Grafana
  • Databases: Postgres, Cassandra, Elasticsearch, Redis, Influx
  • Automation and Deployment: Terraform, Airflow, AWS Step Functions, Github Actions, Ansible, Salt, Cloud Formation, Gitlab Actions

Experience

Devops Engineer

Red Boundary Research, Charleston, SCOct. 2022 – Present

Leading the development and deployment of scalable QA infrastructure in AWS for their endpoint agent product.
  • Built and deployed QA infrastructure for endpoint agent product, including centralized infrastructure for sending metrics and receiving commands.
  • Utilized Terraform, AWS VPCs, and AWS ECS to create a scalable, ephemeral testing environment tailored for various network conditions and traffic routing scenarios.
  • Integrated Datadog for real-time monitoring and Elasticsearch for log ingestion.
  • Spearheaded the transition to CI/CD practices, modernizing the software development lifecycle and significantly improving deployment efficiency.
  • Advised the company owner on agile development methodologies and best practices, serving as the key operations consultant.
  • Created documentation and provided training to company staff on use and maintenance of infrastructure.

Devops Engineer

The Weather Company(IBM), Atlanta, GAJan. 2019 – Feb. 2021

Sole operations resource for Weather Channel’s analytics group. Worked with data science, machine learning, and billing teams for access, planning, and deployment into production and QA AWS accounts.
  • Administered both QA and production AWS accounts including IAM access and resource creation.
  • Led AWS resource optimization and cost-cutting initiatives, substantially reducing operational expenses while maintaining system performance and reliability.
  • Created a tagging structure to track project, team, application, and service costs in AWS and CloudHealth.
  • Monitored cloud costs using scheduled CloudHealth reports for current costs and projections.
  • Migrated EMR clusters to spot instances, resulting in over $300,000 in yearly savings.
  • Utilized TrustedAdvisor to make informed cost savings decisions regarding reserved instance purchases.
  • Converted Qliksense Windows cluster to reserved instances, saving $55,000 per year.
  • Updated AWS Lambdas from the deprecated Python 2.7 to 3.10.
  • Deployed Kubeflow Kubernetes cluster to EKS utilizing Cognito via Terraform and Helm.
  • Migrated Terraform codebase from version 9 to 11.

Devops Engineer/Cloud Architect

The Weather Company(IBM), Atlanta, GAOct. 2017 – Jan. 2019

Operations resource for the Weather Channel’s analytics team processing app and website data.
  • Wrote AWS Lambdas to pull AWS service metrics for cost and resource tracking.
  • Implemented and maintained GDPR compliance in AWS, including security audits.
  • Worked with Sun Engineering team to implement GDPR data requests and removals.
  • Managed Okta users, groups, and services for access to the analytics infrastructure.
  • Administered analytics team’s Apache Airflow instance running data analysis jobs.
  • Designed and deployed data pipelines from ingest to product delivery via Terraform.
  • Monitored pipelines via Datadog and created dashboards clearly outlining SLIs and failure points.
  • Configured Pagerduty services and escalation rules for different products.
  • Maintained AWS costs within budget while expanding account usage to other teams and deploying new pipelines.
  • Diagnosed critical Cassandra cluster failure with obscure bug and wrote scripts to restore functionality.
  • Engineered replacement file ingest system with reduced complexity, smaller overhead, and increased reliability.

Junior Operations Engineer

MyNetWatchman, llc, Atlanta GAOct. 2016 – Sept. 2017

Oversaw security and operations of Linux-based virtual environments and bare metal servers for anti-fraud data ingest and analysis systems.
  • Maintained and deployed over 300 CentOS virtual machines.
  • Eliminated manual process of updating DNS and SSH keys by deploying FreeIPA cluster for centralized authentication and DNS.
  • Configured data ingest to graphite via collectd and custom scripts for use with Grafana and InfluxDB.
  • Developed a non-attributable intelligence gathering system (hardened OpenVPN Docker containers with Radius auth) with isolated monitoring and proxy components.

Malware Analyst

PC Pitstop, Myrtle Beach, SCSept. 2015 – Oct. 2016

Analyzed unverified binaries detected by PC Pitstop’s “Super Shield” proprietary whitelisting endpoint solution.
  • Identified and assessed maliciousness of Potentially Unwanted Applications (PUAs).
  • Evaluated vendor reputation and trustworthiness of signed executables.
  • Analyzed sample execution using multiple sandboxing technologies.
  • Devised malware rule set that resulted in over 30,000 monthly classifications (~5 analyst workloads/mo).

Education and Certifications

  • AWS Certified Cloud PractitionerOct. 2022

  • Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.)
    • Coastal Carolina University, Conway, SCMay. 2014

  • Bachelor of Science in Chemistry
    • Coastal Carolina University, Conway, SCMay. 2013

updatedupdated2024-04-012024-04-01