Robin Lee Powell
robinleepowell@gmail.com • (650) 296-8094
https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinleepowell • 2694 19th Ave, San Francisco, CA, USA
Technical Infrastructure/Software Engineering Manager
Proven Technical & Management Expertise
in a Career Spanning 20 Years
Professional Summary
Technically sophisticated management professional who maintains
focus on business needs while keeping his subordinates committed and
enthusiastic and completing projects quickly and reliably.
Concentrates on bottom line results while formulating and
implementing advanced technology and business solutions to meet a
diversity of needs.
Played a central role in projects that: cut
backup costs in half; reduced user wait times for large jobs by a
factor of 4; reduced overall hosting costs by 30%.
Strategic manager with strong interpersonal, communication, problem solving and decision making skills.
Optimistic, imaginative, hard-working self-starter.
Extensive technical background encompassing all aspects of Linux and cloud systems administration, as well as extensive knowledge of software development.
Able to
convey complex technical requirements/data;
exceed customer expectations;
lead and motivate teams;
achieve fiscal bottom-line results;
establish and maintain strong alliances;
and drive projects to successful completion.
Technical Strategic Planning / Team Leadership
Business-Focused Technical Solutions / Clear Communication
Systems Automation / Security And Compliance Management / Disaster Recovery Planning
Professional Experience
Nov 2016 - Present
|
Apple
|
SRE Manager
|
- I am the manager of a tools team that provides infrastructure
to other internal teams
- As of Feb 2018, I have grown the team from 1 subordinate to 6,
all while maintaining the team's quality of execution and strong
focus on best practices
- My team's focus is on systems automation and configuration
management; our primary internal product is Puppet backed by a
home-grown CMDB, but we also provide DHCP, DNS, Kickstart, and
other such "lights on" services for a very large pool of
bare-metal systems in many datacenters worldwide
- My team is seen as the go-to team for internal discussions of
SRE best practices, configuration management, and automation, a
reputation we have worked hard to build and of which we are justly
proud
- The majority of my time is spent on communication between
teams; there are something like 40 distinct teams and sub-teams
that use my team's services, and one of the services we provide is
L3 support for our tools, so the communication process is very
nearly a full time job by itself. In this aspect of my role, I
have helped to grow my team's reputation for helpfulness and
competence by leaps and bounds since my arrival.
- A significant chunk of my time in this role has been spent on
recruiting and mentoring, where I specialize in finding
high-potential junior candidates and rapidly bringing them up to
our world-class standards. 3 members of my team have been in
sysadmin roles for less than 2 years, and yet people are still
coming to them for advice on an almost daily basis.
- As a people manager, I follow servant leader and leader-leader
models: my focus is on the well-being of my team, both now and in
the future, and their ability to learn and grow in their roles,
rather than on short-term goals like simple retention. My feeling
is that if people remember their time with me and our company
fondly, then even if they move on to something else, they will
provide a means to help me fill any positions that might need
filling in the future.
Feb 2013 - Sep 2015
|
Cytobank
|
Director Of Operations
|
- Hired as Senior Systems Administrator when the company was about 5 people; made Director Of Operations due to outstanding performance
- Hired additional talent to round out the operations team
- Entirely responsible for our ~40TiB of user data and ~500 AWS cloud servers (across 3 continents)
- Rebuilt our background task system to save ~$12k/month
- Transitioned the entire company's systems from leased servers to AWS, resulting in huge increases in user responsiveness (example: 5x improvement in background task startup time)
- Worked with the CTO to cut AWS costs by more than 30%
- Managed all systems-related vendor relationships; built strong relationships leading to significant discounts
- Effectively automated away the need for ~3 full-time system administrators, at vast savings
- Produced extensive documentation for internal use
- Trained all operations personnel, as well as provided extensive training for other departments on our internal tools
- Built disaster recovery plan from the ground up
- Worked extensively on security compliance (FISMA in particular)
- Built extensive web test automation in Selenium
May 2009 - Feb 2013
|
EngineYard
|
Senior UNIX Administrator
|
- Was key in moving hundreds of servers from private to managed hosting, an extensive 8 month project
- Over several years, replaced a ~7 person team managing hundreds of servers with only myself and extensive automation, at vast savings
- Significantly improved backup behaviour and significantly reduced backup costs at the same time
- Managed vendor relations, particularly with our backup provider, through significant technical issues
December 2004 - March 2009
|
LookSmart
|
Senior UNIX Administrator
|
- Personally responsible for all of the machines that ran www.furl.net (now defunct), which consisted of ~50 machines of ~6 functional types
- Part of a team managing hundreds of web search engine machines
- Single-handedly turned Furl from something that kept oncall up for hours 2 or 3 times a week to something that ran smoothly. This included extensive MySQL server optimization, query optimization, capacity planning, server buildouts, and various kinds of scripting, including using cfengine.
- Developed a system to take a machine from having no OS to being fully functional members of their cluster
- Performed near-zero-downtime software deployments
- On-call/pager duties; problem analysis and remediation
Volunteer Experience
I was the Treasurer/Secretary for the LLG for many years. I was
responsible for the quarterly book-keeping and general financial
management, as well as communication with other organizations.
As unofficial project manager for the Lojban (constructed language)
community for almost a decade, I have a lot of practice with working
with and motivating highly technical people. This included managing
difficult, often conflicting, personalities.
I continue to provide both the server and network connection for
the lojban.org infrastructure, at my own expense. Also, I support a
wide complex of tools for a variety of projects.
Education
Bachelor Of Mathematics, University Of Waterloo, Canada