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Customer Reliability Engineer at Isovalent

OrlandoFLUnited StatesπŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ
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Cloud-native engineer with 17+ years in tech and over two decades on Linux. I'm a Customer Reliability Engineer at Isovalent, now part of Cisco, working on eBPF, Cilium, and Tetragon.

Before Isovalent I was on Fortinet's FortiCNAPP QA team, partnering with customers and engineering to triage CVEs, reproduce bugs, and validate scanning accuracy. I use AI-assisted workflows day to day, including OpenCode powered by NVIDIA NIM and internally hosted LLMs, to build automated test suites and provision infrastructure with Terraform.

Outside of work I run a 3-node bare-metal Kubernetes cluster on Talos Linux with Cilium (eBPF + Gateway API), Longhorn storage, cert-manager, and ExternalDNS, hosting my own Git server, an observability stack, and an LLM agent platform backed by llama.cpp across an isolated network bridged by Tailscale.

More at curtis.engineer.

Career: 9

Customer Reliability Engineer

Isovalent

Full-time Β· Remote

Aug 2026 - Present

Fortinet

Oct 2025 - Aug 2026

- Test Automation & CI/CD Validation: Built and maintained test automation for SCA, IaC, and SAST scanning validation across multiple CI/CD platforms (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, Bitbucket Pipelines), catching regressions before reaching customers. - Engineering Contributions: Submitted a code fix enabling feature parity between self-hosted GitLab instances and GitLab.com; also contributed test suites and coverage improvements to existing production products. - Bug Reproduction & Triage: Authored reproducible bug reports with environment context and supporting evidence, enabling faster engineering resolution. - AI-Accelerated Workflows: Incorporated Claude (powered by internally hosted LLM) and OpenCode (powered by NVIDIA NIM API) into test development workflows to speed up scaffolding and reduce repetitive boilerplate. - QA Prioritization: Worked with Engineering and Product Management to identify products and features needing automated test coverage, targeting both existing functionality and upcoming releases.

Lacework

Orlando, FL

May 2023 - Oct 2025

Lacework was acquired by Fortinet in late 2024; continued as TSE on the FortiCNAPP platform. - Case Management: Maintained a backlog of 30–50 active customer cases, triaging by severity and business impact to meet SLA targets across enterprise accounts. - On-Call Incident Response: Acted as primary escalation point during 26+ on-call rotations, triaging SEV-1 and SEV-2 incidents and coordinating resolution across Engineering and Customer Success teams. - Knowledge Base Development: Identified common drivers of high ticket volume and created 14+ customer-facing KB articles enabling self-service resolution, alongside internal onboarding documents and troubleshooting runbooks. - Customer Troubleshooting & Enablement: Led live technical sessions with customers to diagnose integration issues, demonstrate correct product behavior, collect diagnostic logs during collaborative reproduction, and apply fixes on the spot when possible. - Infrastructure as Code: Built and maintained Terraform modules for demo and troubleshooting environments including EC2 instances, Lambda functions, Route53 DNS, and self-managed GitLab instances. - Cost Optimization: Identified and implemented infrastructure right-sizing and resource cleanup processes that reduced monthly cloud spend by $65k/mo. - Ongoing Mentoring: Mentored 3 engineers on product troubleshooting, escalation workflows, and later AI-assisted debugging methods. - False Positive Triage: Evaluated reported false positives in security scanning by analyzing CVEs and vulnerability data, determining validity, and forwarding actionable findings to engineering.

DigitalOcean

Orlando, FL

Apr 2022 - Feb 2023

- Addressed a broad range of customer tickets across Linux, web applications, and networking, leveraging technical documentation to identify root causes and implement solutions. - Utilized expertise in network diagnostics to replicate customer connectivity problems, then applied problem-solving skills to develop targeted solutions using tools like ping, netcat, ip/ifconfig, traceroute, ss/netstat.

WP Engine

Austin, Texas Metropolitan Area

Apr 2021 - Apr 2022

- Served as in-house AWS subject matter expert, documenting common issues and guiding team members through complex cloud infrastructure problems. - Collaborated with senior management on escalated customer issues, driving resolution while mentoring junior team members through knowledge sharing. Used New Relic APM to proactively surface performance bottlenecks, slow queries, and error trends in customer WordPress applications. - High-Stakes Server Monitoring: Provided real-time monitoring for enterprise customers during critical events, scaling server resources on the fly and resolving emergent issues to prevent customer-facing downtime.

WP Engine

Austin, Texas Metropolitan Area

Dec 2019 - Apr 2021

- Performed remote server management via SSH for troubleshooting, log analysis, and configuration changes across customer WordPress environments. - Troubleshot DNS propagation, SSL certificate installation and renewal, and domain mapping configurations for customer WordPress sites. - Performed WordPress site migrations including file transfer, database imports, DNS updates, domain mapping, and SSL configuration.

Fathom 4, LLC

Charleston, South Carolina Area

Jan 2018 - Jun 2019

Planned and documented the installation and integration of networking and computer systems. Created over 350 physical network assets and developed the documentation for the process of each creation and installation. Created products in a development environment for Quality Control before being moved to production.

Fathom 4, LLC

Charleston, South Carolina Area

Oct 2016 - Jan 2018

Read and interpreted engineering documentation in order to install networking cabling and computer systems for 74 mobile military assets. Documented the installation, inspection, and configuration each asset during each stage of the integration process.

United States Marine Corps

May 2008 - May 2013

Used basic hand tools in order to troubleshoot and repair communications gear such as PCs, laptops, servers, switches, radios, networking cables, and antennas. Demonstrated an exceptional work ethic, and ability to learn in a constantly changing environment that led to an appointment to a responsibility beyond experience Directed workflow for team of six, documenting all maintenance. Transformed a failing maintenance department into a streamlined operation that met standards with increased efficiency, reducing the need for manpower by 80%. Entered data into computer database, and maintained accurate written records of all repair parts ordered and received. Recognized and filled a need for a subject matter expert on installation and support of developmental, hands free radios in militarized John Deere tractors, resulting in being appointed project supervisor for install teams. Accountable for monthly inventory and maintenance of gear valued at $115,229.00 Responsible for the annual calibration of equipment valued at $113,356.00. Competed with 60 peers to be one of four employees to be selected to attend an advanced skill course in antenna construction and propagation in a mountainous environment.

Skills: 48

Technical

AI-assisted engineeringAgentic WorkflowsCloud and InfrastructureAmazon Web Services (AWS)ApacheCloud ComputingContainerizationDockerDomain Name System (DNS)Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
KubernetesNetworkingNginxTerraformeBPF and CiliumeBPFTetragonHardware and electronicsElectrical TroubleshootingElectronics RepairTroubleshootingLinuxBashLinux System AdministrationRed Hat LinuxShell ScriptingVimProgrammingGitJavaMySQLPythonSQLTesting and CIContinuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD)PlaywrightTest AutomationWebCascading Style Sheets (CSS)WordPress

Business

AnalysisStatistical Data AnalysisEnablementCustomer ServiceDocumentationTraining

Interpersonal

CommunicationTeam Leadership

Industry

Cloud SecurityCybersecurityCybersecurity ManagementEthical HackingGovernance, Risk Management, and Compliance (GRC)Penetration TestingSCASecure Network Design
Secure Software DesignVulnerability Assessment

Credentials: 25

AWS Certified AI Practitioner

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Mar 2025
Apr 2025

WGU Certificate: AI Optimization Developer

Western Governors University

Aug 2026
Jul 2026
Jun 2023

WGU Certificate: Java Developer

Western Governors University

May 2026

WGU Certificate: Back-End Developer

Western Governors University

Apr 2026
Mar 2025
Mar 2025
Feb 2024

AWS Certified Developer - Associate

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Sep 2019
Jan 2019

Network+

CompTIA

Nov 2010

Security+

CompTIA

May 2010

Education: 4

Bachelor of Science, Computer Science (ABET-accredited)

2025 - Present

In progress.

Western Governors University

Master of Science, Cybersecurity and Information Assurance

Jul 2024

College of Charleston

Bachelor of Science, Economics, minor in Mathematics

2014 - 2016

Marine Corps Communication Electronics School

Certificate, Communication and Electronic Repair

2008 - 2009

Courses: 15

Statistical Methods II

College of Charleston Β· Math 350

Linear Algebra

College of Charleston Β· Math 203

Calculus III

College of Charleston Β· Math 221

Money and Financial Institutions

College of Charleston Β· Econ 305

Urban Economics

College of Charleston Β· Econ 307

International Economics

College of Charleston Β· Econ 310

Environmental Economics

College of Charleston Β· Econ 311

Game Theory

College of Charleston Β· Econ 324

Economics for Development

College of Charleston Β· Econ 325

Econometrics

College of Charleston Β· Econ 419

Computer Programming I

College of Charleston Β· CSCI 220

Intermediate Java Programming

Western Governors University Β· IT3349

User Experience and Interaction Design

Western Governors University Β· IT3301

Hardware and Operating Systems

Western Governors University Β· IT3315

Database Development

Western Governors University Β· IT4731

Awards: 5

2018 Google Developer Challenge Scholarship Recipient

Jan 2018

Dean's List

Dec 2013

Dean's List

Aug 2013

Good Conduct Medal

Nov 2011

Marine of the Quarter

Languages: 1

German(id.sifa.defs#limitedWorking)

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