Josh Beard

DevOps | Platform | Developer Experience | Software Delivery

Experience

Staff DevOps Engineer at Live Oak Bank

September 2022 - Present

  • Develop internal tooling and workflows to enhance developer experience and software delivery.

  • Designed and built a release orchestration and queue tool in Go, significantly improving release safety, automation, and efficiency across teams.

  • Architect and maintain CI/CD pipelines, optimizing deployment speed and reliability across multiple teams.

  • Maintain an open-source Terraform provider and Go API client for ReadMe.com, enabling docs-as-code workflows.

  • Established observability and monitoring to ensure reliable and scalable CI/CD processes.

  • Work extensively with AWS, Terraform, GitLab, Go, Python, and Docker.

Key technology: AWS, CI/CD, DataDog, Docker, GitLab, GitOps, Go, Golang, Kubernetes, GitHub Actions, Platform Engineering, 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 dozens of 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 dozens of applications across multiple product teams 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, CI/CD, GitLab, GitHub Actions, Docker, Terraform, Ansible, Platform Engineering, GitOps, 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 & Expertise

        Core Competencies

        • Platform Engineering & Developer Experience
        • Release Engineering & Deployment Orchestration
        • CI/CD Architecture & Pipeline Design
        • Infrastructure as Code & Configuration Management
        • DevSecOps & Compliance Automation
        • Technical Leadership & Team Enablement

        Programming

        • Go (Golang)
        • Python
        • Shell/Bash
        • Ruby
        • PHP

        Platform & Infrastructure

        • AWS (Lambda, S3, IAM, CloudFormation, ECS, EKS, API Gateway, others)
        • Docker, Kubernetes
        • Linux/Unix (RHEL, Ubuntu, Debian, Alpine, FreeBSD)
        • Virtualization (Proxmox, LXC, Vagrant, KVM, vSphere)
        • Infrastructure & Application Security

        Tools & Technologies

        Infrastructure & CI/CD

        • GitLab CI/CD, GitHub Actions
        • Terraform, CloudFormation, CDK
        • Puppet, Ansible

        Observability

        • DataDog, Prometheus
        • Elasticsearch, Graylog
        • PagerDuty
        • Sensu

        Web & Data

        • Nginx, Apache, HAProxy, Traefik
        • PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis

        Modern Practices

        • AI/LLM-assisted Automation
        • GitOps Workflows
        • 12-Factor Applications
        • Everything as Code