Josh Beard

DevOps | Platform | Delivery

Pragmatic engineer that values simplicity, efficiency, and getting things done.

Experience

Senior DevOps Engineer at Live Oak Bank

September 2022 - Present

  • Design and develop tools and workflows to improve software delivery and developer efficiency across multiple teams.

  • Designed and built a release orchestration tool in Go to coordinate releases across teams and projects, enhancing safety, oversight, and management of the release process while significantly improving team efficiency.

  • Designed and implemented comprehensive CI/CD pipelines for multiple projects.

  • Write and maintain an open-source Terraform provider and a companion Go API client for the ReadMe.com developer portal to manage documentation and API specifications as code.

  • Work extensively with AWS, Terraform, GitLab, Go, Python, and Docker to deliver reliable and scalable solutions supporting modern software engineering practices.

  • Established monitoring, alerting, and observability to ensure reliable delivery pipelines and actionable insights for teams.

Key technology: AWS, DataDog, Docker, GitLab, Go, Golang, Kubernetes, Python, Shell, Terraform

Lead DevSecOps Engineer at Ventera, Inc (US Geological Survey)

June 2022 - April 2023

  • Contracted to the Water Resources Mission Area at the USGS to modernize and advance services delivering critical water data.

  • Designed and supported infrastructure and CI/CD pipelines for serverless Python applications and static websites, built with AWS services.

  • Automated security checks and integrated code analysis into CI/CD pipelines, simplifying compliance for development teams.

  • Worked closely with a small team, balancing hands-on engineering with collaborative problem-solving.

Key technology: AWS, GitLab, Python

Lead DevOps Engineer at Apogee Engineering, LLC (US Geological Survey)

September 2015 - May 2022

  • Managed the architecture and infrastructure for over 50 USGS products, ensuring scalability and reliability.

  • Led the migration of hundreds of projects from legacy CI/CD systems to GitLab, improving efficiency and developer experience.

  • Deployed configuration management at scale using Puppet and Ansible, simplifying server operations for hundreds of Linux systems.

  • Moved 50+ applications from on-premise to AWS with Docker, enabling more flexible and scalable deployments.

  • Supported cross-team collaboration and delivery, building tools and processes that teams could easily adopt and extend.

  • Mentored colleagues in DevOps best practices, including Docker, AWS, and Terraform, empowering teams to manage their own infrastructure.

  • Authored extensive documentation with a “docs-as-code” approach, standardizing project knowledge and operational guidance.

Key technology: AWS, GitLab, Docker, Terraform, Ansible, Puppet, Python, Nginx, Traefik

Professional Services Engineer at Puppet Inc.

September 2013 - April 2015

  • Delivered consulting and training on Puppet and DevOps practices to enterprise clients, tailoring solutions to unique needs.

  • Created reusable Puppet modules and tools to streamline automation for internal and external use.

  • Earned high marks for adaptability, customer engagement, and technical problem-solving across a diverse client base.

Key technology: Puppet, Linux, Ruby, Git, Shell

Linux/Unix Systems Administrator at Douglas School District

January 2010 - September 2013

    Senior Support Engineer at Apple, Inc.

    October 2008 - January 2010

      Signal Support Systems Specialist at US Army

      August 2006 - October 2008

        Skills

        12 Factor Apps · AWS · Alpine Linux · Ansible · Apache · Arch Linux · Artifactory · Atlassian · Bamboo · Bash · BitBucket · CI/CD · Cloud · Compliance · DataDog · Debian · DevSecOps · DigitalOcean · Docker · Elasticsearch · Everything is Code · FreeBSD · Git · GitHub · GitHub Actions · GitHub Workflows · GitLab · GitLab CI/CD · Go · Golang · Graylog · HAProxy · HTML · Infrastructure as Code · Jira · Kubernetes · LXC · MongoDB · MySQL · Nginx · Octopus · PagerDuty · PHP · Packer · Postfix · PostgreSQL · Proxmox · Puppet · Python · RedHat · Ruby · Security · Sensu · Serverless · Shell · Terraform · Tomcat · Traefik · Ubuntu