# Curtis Nix (@curtis.engineer)

Profile: https://sifa.id/p/curtis.engineer
Headline: Customer Reliability Engineer at Isovalent
Location: Orlando, FL, United States
Website: https://curtis.engineer

## About

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

- **Customer Reliability Engineer at Isovalent** (Aug 2026 - Present)
  Full-time · Remote
- **Technical Support Engineer (Code Security QA) at 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.
- **Technical Support Engineer at Lacework** (May 2023 - Oct 2025)
  Orlando
  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.
- **Cloud Support Engineer at DigitalOcean** (Apr 2022 - Feb 2023)
  Orlando
  \- 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.
- **Enterprise Support Specialist L2 at WP Engine** (Apr 2021 - Apr 2022)
  Austin
  \- 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.
- **Technical Support L1 at WP Engine** (Dec 2019 - Apr 2021)
  Austin
  \- 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.
- **Electronic Technician III at Fathom 4, LLC** (Jan 2018 - Jun 2019)
  Charleston
  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.
- **Electronic Technician II at Fathom 4, LLC** (Oct 2016 - Jan 2018)
  Charleston
  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.
- **Communication Maintenance at 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

### Technical
#### AI-assisted engineering
- Agentic Workflows
#### Cloud and Infrastructure
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Apache
- Cloud Computing
- Containerization
- Docker
- Domain Name System (DNS)
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
- Kubernetes
- Networking
- Nginx
- Terraform
#### eBPF and Cilium
- eBPF
- Tetragon
#### Hardware and electronics
- Electrical Troubleshooting
- Electronics Repair
- Troubleshooting
#### Linux
- Bash
- Linux System Administration
- Red Hat Linux
- Shell Scripting
- Vim
#### Programming
- Git
- Java
- MySQL
- Python
- SQL
#### Testing and CI
- Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD)
- Playwright
- Test Automation
#### Web
- Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
- WordPress
### Business
#### Analysis
- Statistical Data Analysis
#### Enablement
- Customer Service
- Documentation
- Training
### Interpersonal
- Communication
- Team Leadership
### Industry
- Cloud Security
- Cybersecurity
- Cybersecurity Management
- Ethical Hacking
- Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance (GRC)
- Penetration Testing
- SCA
- Secure Network Design
- Secure Software Design
- Vulnerability Assessment

## Credentials

- AWS Certified AI Practitioner — Amazon Web Services (AWS) (Mar 2025) https://www.credly.com/badges/2d70b707-5cb7-4420-a824-64f7555cceee/linked_in_profile
- CKAD: Certified Kubernetes Application Developer — The Linux Foundation (Sep 2025) https://www.credly.com/badges/98aef9e2-82c6-4d73-b496-c8e37f1fc54e/linked_in_profile
- CompTIA Advanced Security Practitioner (CASP+) ce Certification — CompTIA (May 2024) https://www.credly.com/badges/73171906-d5f6-4153-aca4-5f94e8c8d4e1/linked_in_profile
- CAPA: Certified Argo Project Associate — The Linux Foundation (Apr 2025) https://www.credly.com/badges/8529840c-6dd6-4e76-af79-cf2b612be111/linked_in_profile
- CompTIA PenTest+ ce Certification — CompTIA (Jan 2024) https://www.credly.com/badges/a2a5601d-2d93-41d3-9302-7e32591e9cc1/linked_in_profile
- CompTIA CySA+ ce Certification — CompTIA (Dec 2023) https://www.credly.com/badges/35d66fce-cdf1-4258-85d0-97cb2584cbd4/linked_in_profile
- KCNA: Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate — The Linux Foundation (Nov 2024) https://www.credly.com/badges/50c433dc-d18b-407e-b7d2-268277961385/linked_in_profile
- Certified in Cybersecurity (CC) — ISC2 (Oct 2023) https://www.credly.com/badges/e49d6e5d-b8f8-4941-9596-eef71fe67ab1/linked_in_profile
- WGU Certificate: AI Optimization Developer — Western Governors University (Aug 2026) https://wgu.badges.parchment.com/public/share/assertions/linkedin_credentials/hBYkggr2R0WBj3XKao2mpg
- Tetragon Getting Started — Isovalent (Jul 2026) https://www.credly.com/badges/34346a01-dce9-470d-b7e4-a1aa0f5ee0bf/linked_in_profile
- Securing OpenClaw with Tetragon — Isovalent (Jun 2026) https://www.credly.com/badges/16c3e724-4e32-4ca6-9a1f-accd032399d4/linked_in_profile
- KCSA: Kubernetes and Cloud Native Security Associate — The Linux Foundation (Jun 2024) https://www.credly.com/badges/caee9a51-30a8-4013-b465-6e8387ea72a4/linked_in_profile
- CKA: Certified Kubernetes Administrator — The Linux Foundation (Jun 2023) https://www.credly.com/badges/67ee63e1-6e48-4fbb-9d05-3529c7141c1f/linked_in_profile
- WGU Certificate: Java Developer — Western Governors University (May 2026) https://api.badgr.io/public/assertions/9nF_I96ST0i7Rigk7outDg
- WGU Certificate: Back-End Developer — Western Governors University (Apr 2026) https://api.badgr.io/public/assertions/2-oeRVvfRB2zBggL_hCBQw
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate — Amazon Web Services (AWS) (Apr 2023) https://www.credly.com/badges/e4ff8305-b1e2-4924-83f6-5607241641f7/linked_in_profile
- HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate (002) — HashiCorp (May 2023) https://www.credly.com/badges/48774ec8-495d-407a-b4f2-a6fc2fc91a81/linked_in_profile
- Certificate of Completion — Codefresh (Mar 2025) https://mycourse.app/PqX0wXhubajdG6fTW
- GitOps Fundamentals — Codefresh (Mar 2025) https://www.credly.com/badges/cd044468-b83d-416d-aede-843ed639b147/linked_in_profile
- SC102: Source Control Management with Git — The Linux Foundation (Feb 2024) https://www.credly.com/badges/8bb35aff-afcd-4b34-9073-5cda823ddd2a/linked_in_profile
- AWS Certified Developer - Associate — Amazon Web Services (AWS) (Sep 2019) http://aws.amazon.com/verification
- Chef Basic Fluency Badge — Chef Software (Jan 2019) https://training.chef.io/award/certification/3185790c-88d5-3142-8302-c902b61b95d8
- Network+ — CompTIA (Nov 2010)
- Security+ — CompTIA (May 2010)
- Linux KVM Virtualization Essentials — Linux Academy https://linuxacademy.com/profile/u/cert/id/146043

## Education

- **Western Governors University** — 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

- Statistical Methods II — College of Charleston
- Linear Algebra — College of Charleston
- Calculus III — College of Charleston
- Money and Financial Institutions — College of Charleston
- Urban Economics — College of Charleston
- International Economics — College of Charleston
- Environmental Economics — College of Charleston
- Game Theory — College of Charleston
- Economics for Development — College of Charleston
- Econometrics — College of Charleston
- Computer Programming I — College of Charleston
- Intermediate Java Programming — Western Governors University
- User Experience and Interaction Design — Western Governors University
- Hardware and Operating Systems — Western Governors University
- Database Development — Western Governors University

## Awards

- 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

- German (id.sifa.defs#limitedWorking)

## Links

- linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/curtisnix
- Personal site: https://curtis.engineer