Jim Ockers, P.E., P.Eng.
650-274-4156
4501 Snell Ave #2604
San Jose, CA 95136
OBJECTIVE
It should be noted that I am very pleased to be working for LinkedIn and I'm not seeking other employment at this time.
Senior Technical Employment with a company that can leverage my skills and abilities to help grow the business and be as efficient as possible. I'm most familiar with the Red Hat Enterprise/CentOS Linux environment, including Linux/Unix systems design, systems programming, and systems administration.
I'm equally comfortable in the research lab, the datacenter/server room, and the boardroom/conference room. I excel at researching new information technologies, creating roadmaps, strategy, infrastructure designs, and more, to deliver competitive, world-class infrastructure that is stable and cost effective with respect to the scale of each client, with ongoing systems support and maintainability considerations factored in. I require very little supervision in initiating, implementing, and managing new projects.
I'd like to help business leaders/managers solve the key business problems with IT, which are 1) to characterize how "good" they should be and how well it all needs to work such that it's cost effective both in the short term and long term, so over time your IT systems stay aligned with business goals and budgets; and 2) to find the right mix of in-house talent and external capabilities to maximize value to the business.
TECHNICAL QUALIFICATIONS
I hold two Professional Engineering licenses; my Colorado P.E. is for Computer Engineering. I possess breadth and technical depth across platforms (Linux, OS X and Windows) and knowledge across a wide range of technical disciplines including Virtualization, Systems Security, LAN/WAN and Communications Engineering, Storage/SANs, Databases, Messaging, and more.
Some specific areas of technical expertise include:
- 20 years' experience with Open Source and Proprietary UNIX, including many flavors of Linux, OS X, AIX, and HP-UX. I started with Slackware in 1993
- CentOS/Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems administration & programming
- LAMP applications/related technologies, including Perl, PHP, Python scripting
- Linux/Unix systems programming including shell scripting (bash) and scripting languages such as Perl and Python
- High availability including Linux-HA, load balancer, proxies, reverse proxy, distributed web applications
- Virtualization including VMWare ESXi, VirtualBox, and others
- Linux e-mail technologies, including sendmail, postfix, IMAP. My @ockers.net enterprise mail servers run Zarafa which provides open source Exchange-compatible mail services on LAMP platform
- MySQL Database programming & administration
- Web server technologies & development - Apache, Tomcat, IIS, CGI, Perl, C, C++, PHP, Java
- Communications and Networking Engineering. Top tier technical support for Linux and LAN/WAN/WLAN/VSAT communications systems and applications. IP networking expert (TCP/IP, UDP, ICMP, etc.) Ethernet & Wireless LAN.
- DNS expert, 19 years experience. BIND, and dnsmasq on embedded systems. I've been an outsourced DNS provider and DNS administrator for several commercial internet service providers
- 15 years experience with Cisco IOS. As contractor I was the Cisco router programmer for several commercial internet service providers
- 19 years experience with Windows NT systems starting with Windows NT 3.1 (1.0) in 1994. I'm very familiar with most aspects of Windows server systems programming, administration, and maintenance.
- Linux systems network security - iptables firewall programming/debugging, and advanced iptables functions
- Linux QoS, traffic shaping, and bandwidth management using tc, traffic classification, and qdiscs. I designed and wrote bandwidth tracking and tiered service degradation applications for an OpenWRT Linux industrial device to tightly manage cellular connectivity bandwidth (upload+download) to not exceed the Verizon or AT&T 5GB/month service plan bandwidth limits, and to automatically degrade the services as the bandwidth usage approached the limit, while preserving line-of-business application performance.
- Linux M2M distributed systems architecture, design, and implementation, including embedded/industrial Linux systems and back-end CentOS Linux server processing systems and architecture; and M2M systems management and performance monitoring applications design and development.
- Storage: SAN technologies and NAS systems. Brocade, EMC, Xiotech. Most recently iSCSI. In 2012 I designed and built a high performance high availability Linux iSCSI GigE (copper) SAN system
- Datacenter and server hardware of all sorts - server/compute systems, storage, firewall, router, switch, KVM, UPS
- Hardware-level and device driver-level experience with troubleshooting low-level network performance and systems stability issues. I've found silicon bugs in a PCI UART and a southbridge; I've ported Linux device drivers and fixed driver bugs; and I've implemented Linux device driver workarounds for various hardware/silicon bugs
- Linux Deployment technologies - in 2012/2013 I designed a PXE boot + kickstart system for the automated deployment & provisioning/configuration of new CentOS 6 Linux industrial embedded systems, for manufacturing new devices. The PXE CentOS boot/install system is also very handy for a variety of recovery & rescue uses
- Maintainability - system updates, backups, restoration, documentation
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
July 2013-present
Mountain View, CA
LinkedIn is a social networking site for business professionals worldwide
Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)
- At LinkedIn I'll be working on challenging projects for our rapidly changing mobile systems infrastructure and architecture
- The SRE team maintains/manages/troubleshoots IT systems in a large complex environment
- SREs are responsible for ensuring the reliability of the LinkedIn web presence and all online services
January-June 2013
San Diego, CA
IT consulting - CentOS/Unix Systems Administration/Programming; Oil & Gas Industry Instrumentation/CentOS Linux Systems Engineering - Industrial Computer Linux Systems Design/Programming; Communications and Systems Integration Development/Design; Integration of Linux Embedded Systems with Back-End Linux Datacenter Server Processing
Principal Engineer
- Fulfill client product specifications - Linux/Unix systems programming, Linux/Unix and Windows Server systems administration/design
- Maintain/manage client IT systems - Virtualization, Storage, Databases, Security, Internet & Network Infrastructure
- Responsibilities include industrial computer software/systems architecture, design, and development; and also IT infrastructure (LAN/WAN) design, implementation, and maintenance/support.
2011-2012
Grand Junction, CO
Digital gas detection systems; oilfield geology systems & software
Director of Engineering
- Provide leadership & vision
- Responsibilities include industrial computer software/systems architecture, design, and development; and also IT infrastructure design and implementation.
2001-2011
Calgary, AB
Global provider of specialized data management systems for land-based and offshore oil & gas drilling rigs
Senior Systems Engineer
- Responsibilities included Architecture and Design of data management systems; and systems integration
- Communications and Network Engineering and Linux Subject Matter Expert; top tier technical support for internal IT and industrial distributed Linux systems
- Provided leadership and mentoring to groups and individuals
Systems Engineer
- I was "the" IT group for several years
1997-2001
Golden, CO
Global provider of specialized data management systems for land-based and offshore oil & gas drilling rigs
Systems Engineer
- Responsibilities included IT systems architecture, implementation, and integration
- I provided the technical and IT foundation for the business as it grew.
1995-2005
Grand Junction, CO
Commercial computer and internet consulting services
Principal
- Responsibilities included IT systems architecture, implementation, and integration, for small business, education, and government clients
- I also provided commercial internet services and small business IT servers.
EDUCATION
1992-1995
Rolla, MO
M.S. Candidate - Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics
Aerospace Engineering graduate student
- Research was neural network flight control systems
- Completed all course work requirements for M.S.
- Graduate Teaching Assistant fellowship: taught industrial control systems, PLC, and CNC laboratories with hands-on practical experience. Designed exercises and exams.
1988-1992
Terre Haute, IN
Department of Mechanical Engineering
B.S. (Honors) Mechanical Engineering
- Specialized in control systems and aerospace engineering
- Minored in Psychology and Russian
- Graduated with GPA 3.625 overall, 3.8 in my major
CIVIC LEADERSHIP
2009-2011
Calgary, AB
Condominium corporation in southwest Calgary
President & Chairman of the Board
- Provided leadership and vision
- Leveraged volunteers and goodwill to plan and execute events which fostered a sense of community and reinforced what a nice place it is to live.
- Worked with property management and mechanical contractors to resolve key mechanical and insurance issues affecting the complex
- Set up, created, programmed, and populated the Wedgewoods CMS web application (website)
SUMMARY OF PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS
- Colorado Professional Engineer (P.E.) license #PE-46016 - Computer Engineering
- Alberta Professional Engineer (APEGA, P.Eng.) - license #M76010
- Enterprise information technologies including Security, LAN/WAN/VSAT, Storage, Databases, Virtualization, Messaging, and more
- Embedded industrial computer hardware and software architecture, and Linux/Unix industrial/embedded systems architecture design, programming, and systems integration
- Architecture, Development and Integration of Oil & Gas instrumentation and rig/wellsite information technologies
- M2M and distributed systems design, architecture, and implementation for industrial applications and consumer-facing applications & services
- Software development in a variety of environments and languages
- IT systems and software development project engineering and management
- Proven leadership and mentoring abilities
- Dual citizen US & Canada
- Conversational or fluent in several languages
RESEARCH INTERESTS & NON-TECHNICAL INTERESTS
- Computer and information systems security
- Computer networking and communications engineering of any sort
- Cloud computing, autonomics, high performance computing, distributed and parallel systems
- Sports and fitness
- Aviation
- I hold Industry Canada amateur (ham) radio license VA6HGL
- Motorsports and motorcycles
- Food & cooking
REFERENCES