# Justin (randoneering) (@justin.randoneering.dev)

Profile: https://sifa.id/p/justin.randoneering.dev
Headline: Infrastructure Engineer | pgFirstAid Creator | Open Source Evangelist | Nix/NixOS Maintainer
Location: Meridian, Idaho, United States

## About

My name is Justin Frye and what you are reading is not AI generated! I have spent the last 10+ years focusing on IT infrastructure (cloud and on prem), building scalable data stores, and contributing to Open Source. Proud to be a member of the NixOS community as maintainer of a few nixpkgs, serial Open Source contributor, and founder of Randoneering, LLC. Some of the tools I have created, such as pgFirstAid, provide users of all skill levels the ability to see the true functionality of their Postgres database server/instance.

While I use AI tooling in my workflow, I hold myself to the same standards as an engineer I did before; the code and product needs to be up to my standards as it is my name in the commit history. Not Claude's.

If you are a startup looking for a staff level infrastructure engineer to build your infrastructure to support the scaling of your product, feel free to send me a message or email!  justin@randoneering.tech

## Career

- **Senior Data Engineer at RxBenefits, Inc.** (Nov 2025 - Present)
  • Ensures data warehouse resilience, availability, recovery, maintenance, data integrity, and capacity planning requirements.
  • Provides a high degree of coordination between user, technical, application and corporate entities to ensure effective data management as a corporate enterprise.
  • Work with and provide mentorship and direction to the Data Engineer I to meet objectives
  • Understand and align pipeline development with business requirements
  • Capture and maintain metadata
  • Validate and monitor data integrity to ensure data quality
  • Identify ways to improve data reliability, efficiency, and quality
  • Tune SQL and pipelines to limit consumption spend
  • Recommend process improvements to the team
- **Founding Randoneer at Randoneering, LLC** (Jun 2025 - Present)
  Boise, Idaho, US
  Founder and Principal Engineer at Randoneering, LLC, where I provide fractional IT infrastructure support for startups and small businesses. I help clients build infrastructure from the ground up, improve and modernize existing systems, and provide short-term or retainer support when they need senior-level help. My focus is practical delivery, clear documentation, and training so clients can maintain what I build long after the engagement ends.
- **Senior Database Engineer at RxBenefits, Inc.** (Aug 2024 - Nov 2025)
  Birmingham, Alabama, US
  • Database Design and Implementation: Design, develop, and implement cloud-based database solutions in collaboration with development teams.
  • Cloud Database Administration: Manage, monitor, and optimize cloud database instances to ensure high availability, performance, and data integrity. Configure and maintain database backups, replication, and disaster recovery strategies.
  • Performance Tuning and Optimization: Identify and resolve database performance issues, including query optimization, index tuning, and resource utilization. Monitor database performance metrics and implement improvements to optimize performance.
  • Data Security and Compliance: Implement and maintain appropriate security measures and access controls to protect sensitive data stored in the cloud database. Ensure compliance with data protection regulations and industry best practices.
  • Database Monitoring and Troubleshooting: Monitor database activity and performance using database monitoring tools. Diagnose and resolve database-related issues and incidents, working closely with cross-functional teams to ensure timely resolution.
  • Database Capacity Planning: Estimate future database storage and performance requirements based on data growth projections. Plan and implement database capacity upgrades or scaling activities to accommodate evolving business needs.
  • Database Automation and Scripting: Develop and maintain database automation scripts, workflows, and configurations using scripting languages (e.g., SQL, Python) and infrastructure- as-code tools (e.g., Ansible). Implement CI/CD practices for database deployment and management.
  • Collaboration and Communication: Collaborate with DevOps, QA, and product development teams to understand database requirements, provide technical guidance, and ensure effective integration with other systems. Communicate database-related updates, issues, and recommendations to relevant stakeholders.
- **AWS Database Administrator/ DBRE at RxBenefits, Inc.** (Jun 2023 - Aug 2024)
  Birmingham, Alabama, US
  \-Assess Database Performance
  \- tuning, monitoring, and diagnosing -Enforce referential integrity, and ensure data quality -Create databases, schemas, tables, and views -Develop Performance Metrics or Standards -Manage and Assess Database Stack -Assist Data Engineers and other personnel with projects, requests, and troubleshooting.
- **AWS Database Administrator at Synoptic Data PBC** (Oct 2022 - Jun 2023)
  \-Support Data Engineers and customers on their data requests through large data pulls or through the Mesonet API -Maintain AWS Data infrastructure -Provide advanced monitoring solutions for AWS services and enforce the company's SLAs -Architect supporting AWS infrastructure for future expansion and brainstorm ideas for new products for the business and free-tier customers
- **System And Database Administrator at ALDI USA** (Nov 2018 - Oct 2022)
  Aurora
- **Contract Tester at uTest** (Apr 2019 - Feb 2020)
  Tester for hire for computer and mobile applications.
  
  Tester ID: 562056
- **IT Specialist/ QA Lead at ALDI USA** (Feb 2016 - Nov 2018)
  Batavia, IL
- **Branch Rental Manager at Penske Truck Leasing** (Aug 2015 - Feb 2016)
- **Assistant Rental Manager at Penske Truck Leasing** (Jun 2015 - Aug 2015)
  West Chicago, IL
- **Management Trainee at Penske Truck Leasing** (Aug 2014 - May 2015)
  west chicago, IL
- **Hardware Sales Associate at Menards** (Jun 2012 - Aug 2014)
  \-Demonstrated exceptional customer service -Maintained a clean and organized department -Replenished products on shelves, and ensured that they were presentable
- **Stockdale Student Manager at Monmouth College** (Aug 2011 - May 2014)
  Monmouth, IL
  \-Managed main campus switchboard -Coordinated room reservations and building supervision -Provide parents etc. with resources or information they may be looking for -General administrative desk work.
- **Orientation Leader at Monmouth College** (Jun 2011 - May 2014)
  Monmouth, IL
  \-Welcomed new students into the first year at the college -Assisted with the transition from home life to college life for new students
- **Resident Assistant at Monmouth College** (Jan 2013 - May 2013)
  Responsibilities are as followed:  -Responsible in his/her dealings with all persons -- other students, staff, faculty, and administrators -To be available at all times, particularly to the residents of the hall -To be present at all staff meetings, in-service or other gatherings or staff functions of a nature other than social -To complete all job assignments -To be ethical and professional in conduct, both on and off-campus -To confront all persons about their conduct and responsibility to the overall community, as well as the segment they may be influencing -To exhibit inter and intra-staff unity and consistency -To maintain satisfactory academic standing -To exemplify the values and philosophy of student development.
- **Online Outreach Intern at Environment America** (Jan 2011 - Apr 2011)
  As an intern, I was in charge of putting together the advocates online campaign forms as well as sending petition emails out to the organization's supporters.
  
  Duties also include -Online/Grassroots campaigning -Informed followers and supporters updates on with current projects -Used an Online Campaign program to gather signatures for petitions

## Skills

### Technical
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Cloud Infrastructure
- Computer Hardware
- Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD)
- Data Build Tool (DBT)
- Data Engineering
- Database Administration
- Databases
- DevOps
- Docker
- Extract, Transform, Load (ETL)
- Infrastructure as code (IaC)
- JIRA
- Linux
- Mac OS
- MariaDB
- Microsoft Azure
- Microsoft Office
- Microsoft SQL Server
- MongoDB
- MySQL
- Nix
- NixOS
- PostgreSQL
- Powershell
- PSQL
- Python (Programming Language)
- SQL
- System Administration
- Terraform
### Business
- Change Management
- Customer Service
- Fundraising
- Strategic Planning
### Interpersonal
- Critical Thinking
- Leadership
- Technical Leadership
- Troubleshooting
### Other
- Agile Testing
- Amazon Aurora
- Amazon Dynamodb
- Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)
- Amazon S3
- Ansible
- Cloud Engineering
- Data Warehousing
- Database Engineering
- Database Management System (DBMS)
- Database Optimization
- Devotion
- Flox
- Fractional
- Information Technology
- IT Infrastructure Management
- IT Operations
- IT Project & Program Management
- JIRA Administrator
- Non-functional Testing
- Open Source Platforms
- Open-Source Development
- Organization
- Performance Tuning
- QA Testing
- Snowflake
- Software Quality Assurance
- SQL Azure
- SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)
- SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS)
- SSRS
- Time Management
- Transact-SQL (T-SQL)
- VMware vSphere
- Windows

## Projects

- **pgFirstAid** (Mar 2025 - Present)
  Easy-to-deploy, open source PostgreSQL function (and view!) that provides a prioritized list of actions to improve database stability and performance.Inspired by Brent Ozar's FirstResponderKit for SQL Server, pgFirstAid is designed for everyone to use—not just DBAs! Get actionable health insights from your PostgreSQL database in seconds.

## Publications

- The S76 Laptop Review No One Asked For — randoneering.offprint.app (Jul 2026) https://randoneering.offprint.app/a/3mq66jfp63x23-the-s76-laptop-review-no-one-asked-for
- A Month Without Frontier Models — randoneering.offprint.app (Jul 2026) https://randoneering.offprint.app/a/3mpd2raacd323-a-month-without-frontier-models
- pgFirstAid - hits 500 stars! (May 2026)
- The World We Live In (Mar 2026)
- pgFirstAid - Milestone 2 and 3! (Jan 2026)
- pgFirstAid - PostgreSQL Health Check (Nov 2025)
- Not Another AI Hype Train (Aug 2025)
- SCALE 22x (Mar 2025)
- Weekly Post (2025-01-25) (Jan 2025)
- Weekly Post (2025-01-12) (Jan 2025)
- Weekly Post (2025-01-05) (Jan 2025)
- Weekly Post (2024-12-26) (Dec 2024)
- Weekly Post (2024-12-15) (Dec 2024)
- I swear I still write things. (Dec 2024)
- DBRE Terraform Modules, Ansible-Playbooks, and my first Public Project (Jul 2024)
- NixOS part 1.5 (Mar 2024)
- Stay awhile, and listen...to my nixOS journey! (Dec 2023)
- Automate your dumps with Powershell(part 2) (Oct 2023)
- Automate your dumps with Powershell(part 1) (Oct 2023)
- FreshRSS, but using Docker Compose (Jul 2023)
- FreshRSS RSS Feed Aggregator (Jun 2023)
- When Two Weather Stations Walk Into A Bar (Jan 2022)
- Upgraded SOL (Jan 2022)
- Basic MariaDB Install Playbook (Jan 2022)

## Credentials

- Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Fundamentals — Microsoft (May 2022) https://www.credly.com/badges/ecfb37b8-3859-4908-bde2-df6ff09d0657?source=linked_in_profile
- Certified Tester Foundation Level (CTFL) — ASTQB - Official Page - American Software Testing Qualifications Board (Apr 2019) https://astqb.org/sections/list-of-certified-testers.php

## Education

- **University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign** — Master of Library & Information Science (MLIS) (2014 - 2015)
- **Monmouth College** — Bachelor's degree (2010 - 2014)
  Activities & Societies: Rotaract Club, The Courier (School Newspaper), Alpha Lambda Delta Honor Society, Mortar Board Senior Honor Society, Pi Sigma Alpha National Political Science Honor Society, Student Government, Colleges Against Cancer
- **American University** (2012)
- **Glenbard North High School** (2006 - 2010)

## Links

- linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-frye-b4b14763