NAME

Joel Knight — someone who knows their way around sociotechnical systems

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

Joel is a detail-oriented IT professional with a diverse skill set. Joel excels in roles requiring leadership, technical expertise, and the ability to navigate ambiguity.

Options are as follows:

--lead

Lead architect on the vendor team that retrofitted entire campus network at one of Canada's busiest airports.

• Acted as the primary liaison between customer and vendor technical teams.
• Led architectural and design reviews with both customer and vendor teams.
• Co-developed functional and performance test plans.

The network met or exceeded all functional and integration criteria and was commissioned on schedule to support a major airport expansion.

--disambiguate

Technical lead for a team that discovered, planned, and executed a multi-month project to boost engineering efficiency.

• Conducted thorough discovery and value stream mapping of the current state.
• Developed a roadmap to standardize and automate 90% of the engineering activities in the value stream.
• Led development of features in accordance with the roadmap.

The final product reduced engineer toil by 90%, freeing up over 5,400 engineer-hours for value-focused work the following year.

--contribute

Collaborated on several Amazon Web Services (AWS) software projects to enable the AWS Command Line Interface v2 to run on OpenBSD.

• Contributed code to the following projects: s2n-tls, aws-lc, aws-c-cal, aws-c-common, aws-c-io, and AWS Common Run Time for Python.
• Collaborated on previously mentioned projects to integrate continuous integration jobs that run build tests on OpenBSD, enabling quick identification of regressions.
• Automated regular builds of AWS CLI v2 for OpenBSD. (github.com/knightjoel/awscliv2-on-openbsd)

OpenBSD users on 64-bit Intel and ARM systems can now use AWS CLI v2 for interacting with AWS.

--learn

• Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert #47321, Enterprise Infrastructure
• AWS DevOps Engineer - Professional
• AWS Certified Security - Specialty
• And more. See Joel's Credly profile

--teach

Written or co-written AWS blog posts:

• Use IAM Access Analyzer policy generation to grant fine-grained permissions for your AWS CloudFormation service roles
• How to Implement the Principle of Least Privilege With CloudFormation StackSets
• Building a Scalable Document Pre-Processing Pipeline

Personal blog covering topics such as networking, open source, security, automation, and UNIX systems:

• On Infrastructure as Code and Bit Rot
• Can IT Certifications Become a Liability?
• Careful Control of Keys: How I Use MFA with the AWS CLI
• Five Functional Facts about VXLAN
• Monitoring a Multi-Inverter SolarEdge System

SEE ALSO

GitHub

github.com/knightjoel

Blog

www.packetmischief.ca

LinkedIn

linkedin.com/in/joelk

Credly

credly.com

HISTORY

Senior Cloud Architect, Amazon Web Services (2020 - present)

Guide organizations in their cloud journeys through technical implementation and sociotechnical design.

• Lead technical teams in delivering outcome-oriented solutions for organizations across Canada.
• Enhance the delivery practice by shaping hiring processes, creating a mechanism for cross-project knowledge sharing, and codifying intellectual property for reuse.
• Foster new talent through mentoring, one-on-one meetings, and aligning project assignments to be able to offer on-the-job coaching.

Solutions Architect, Amazon Web Services (2018 - 2020)

Responsible for enterprise and named accounts in the Calgary area.

• Embraced the strategy of working backwards: starting with customer outcomes and devising the solution from there.
• Enhanced public speaking skills by conducting educational and enablement workshops, immersion days, and builders' days.
• Shifted focus to include both business-level challenges and outcomes, rather than solely technology outcomes; broadened perspective across the technology and business spectrum.

Systems Engineer, PoV Services, Cisco Systems (2017 - 2018)

Conducting technology demonstrations and testing that emphasize value for Cisco customers

• Providing technical leadership to the team, demonstrating that on-site workshops significantly boost solution-based sales
• Managing risks related to schedule, cost, and resource utilization to maximize the potential of sales opportunities
• Mastering the nuances that make deep-dive demonstrations genuinely honest and impactful for customers

Systems Engineer, Sales, Cisco Systems (2012 - 2017)

Assigned to designated accounts in the Calgary area

• Sales processes, terminology, and priorities
• Industry expertise: upstream oil & gas, midstream oil & gas, and transportation (airports)
• Integrating business and technical knowledge to address practical challenges

Technical Lead, MEG Energy (2008 - 2012)

People and technology leader for IT infrastructure team

• Significant shift in understanding corporate IT as a "cost" versus service provider IT as a revenue generator.
• Emphasized the importance of requirements gathering, relationship building, and understanding business operations.
• Gained experience working directly with vendors on strategic projects, including insights into procurement and ordering processes.

Network Specialist, TELUS Communications (2005 - 2008)

Senior network operator responsible for national IP, MPLS, ATM and metro area networks.

• Recognizing the distinction between building and engineering a network.
• Gained insight into the significance of IT life-cycle management.
• Initial introduction to DevOps and network automation.

Network Analyst, Shaw Communications (2003 - 2005)

24x7 network operations at Canada's second-largest cable provider.

• Technical skills.
• Troubleshooting and root-cause analysis.
• Quickly recognized the importance of accurate documentation.

AUTHORS

Joel Knight <knight.joel@gmail-dot-com>