Lead TechOps Engineer | DevSecOps | Cloud Computing
Washington, DC • bryan.schauer@gmail.com
LinkedIn • GitHub • Personal Website

Achievements Summary

  • Led multi-account AWS migration post–corporate split, standardizing governance, SSO, and provisioning, reducing friction for engineering teams and improving security posture.
  • Cut variable cloud costs per client through rightsizing and Reservations/Savings Plans while maintaining performance SLAs; stabilized monthly hosting spend with clear reporting to Finance.
  • Built DRY CloudFormation templates and reusable Terraform modules, eliminating environment drift and accelerating microservice deployments across dev, pre-prod, and prod.
  • Modernized CI/CD with a custom Jenkins pipeline and GitHub webhooks, reducing deployment lead time and increasing release reliability.
  • Centralized observability with New Relic and ELK, improving MTTR via unified logs, APM, metrics, and alerting; delivered Kibana enablement for engineering teams.
  • Strengthened security and compliance: remediated vulnerabilities with Orca/Qualys/Snyk, migrated secrets to HashiCorp Vault, and streamlined SOC 2 evidence collection.

Summary

Lead TechOps Engineer with 15+ years across SaaS, DevOps, and cloud platforms. Deep expertise in AWS, Infrastructure as Code (CloudFormation, Terraform), CI/CD (Jenkins), observability (New Relic, ELK), and cost optimization. Trusted technical owner for secure, scalable systems handling sensitive data; experienced in multi-account AWS migrations, DRY IaC patterns, and modern access management with SSO. Recognized culture leader focused on inclusion, engagement, and sustainable work habits.

Core Competencies

  • Cloud & Infrastructure: AWS, VPC, IAM/SSO, CloudFormation, Terraform, Jenkins, Docker, Chef, Ubuntu
  • Data & Observability: ELK/Logstash, New Relic, Snowflake, dbt Cloud, CloudWatch
  • Security & Compliance: Orca, Qualys, Snyk, secret management (HashiCorp Vault), SOC 2 evidence collection
  • Programming & Scripting: Python, Bash
  • Practices: DevOps, DevSecOps, CI/CD, cost optimization, incident response, infrastructure resilience

Professional Experience

Decile — Lead TechOps Engineer

Jul 2020–Present | Washington, DC | SaaS · DevOps · Cloud Computing
Technologies: AWS, Docker, Python, Bash, Terraform, Jenkins, Chef, Logstash, New Relic, CloudFormation, Snowflake, dbt Cloud

  • Led AWS modernization and multi-account migration following spinout from SocialCode; established secure boundaries, centralized governance, and standardized provisioning.
  • Implemented SSO for user accounts, streamlining access and reducing operational overhead; tightened RBAC and auditability.
  • Built DRY CloudFormation templates for microservices to eliminate configuration drift and accelerate environment creation; improved reuse and consistency across dev, pre-prod, and prod.
  • Introduced Terraform with reusable modules; integrated Snowflake and dbt Cloud providers to bring analytics infrastructure under IaC management.
  • Owned custom Jenkins CI/CD pipeline: automated dev deployments post–code review; simplified release management to pre-prod and prod via GitHub webhooks and gated approvals.
  • Consolidated observability in New Relic for logs, APM, metrics, and alerting; reduced tool sprawl while increasing visibility and response speed.
  • Optimized cloud unit economics and stabilized monthly hosting costs via rightsizing, Savings Plans/Reservations, and AWS Billing/Cost Explorer reporting to Finance and leadership.
  • Monitored and remediated security findings using Orca, Qualys, Snyk, and native AWS services; improved vulnerability SLAs and posture.
  • Mentored Engineering and Data Science teams on DevSecOps best practices; participated in annual incident response exercises.
  • Coordinated SOC 2 audit evidence collection, mapping controls to systems and workflows; reduced audit cycle friction.

Key achievements:

  • Cut variable cloud costs per client while maintaining performance SLAs through targeted rightsizing and reservation strategies.
  • Reduced deployment lead time with automated pipelines and standardized templates, improving release predictability.

Decile — Head of Culture

Jul 2020–Present | Washington, DC

  • Led culture initiatives emphasizing work-life balance, psychological safety, and inclusivity.
  • Organized remote engagement (happy hours, trivia, fitness challenges) and company-wide activities to sustain connection in distributed teams.
  • Collaborated with executives to set DEI goals and metrics; presented biweekly progress updates at all-hands.

Impact:

  • Increased employee participation in culture programs and improved team sentiment in quarterly surveys.

SocialCode — Lead TechOps Engineer

Aug 2013–Jul 2020 | Washington, DC
Technologies: AWS, Docker, Python, Bash, ELK, Jenkins, Chef, Ubuntu, CloudFormation, Lambda, CloudWatch, HashiCorp Vault

  • Mentored engineers; set annual objectives and decomposed them into deliverable projects and tasks.
  • Embedded as a technical resource on Audience Intelligence engineering sprints; bridged DevOps with product engineering.
  • Built a secure AWS environment (CloudFormation) for PII processing from first principles in a new account; aligned with security and compliance requirements.
  • Served as technical point of contact for identity resolution/data ingestion pipeline redevelopment; improved reliability and data integrity.
  • Optimized cloud costs: deployed usage monitors; right-sized instances and storage; replaced EC2 cron hosts with Lambda-based serverless jobs; analyzed EC2/RDS reservations; automated recovery via CloudWatch alarms.
  • Migrated secrets from Chef encrypted databags to HashiCorp Vault in ECS; standardized secret rotation and access.
  • Architected centralized logging via ELK for system and application logs; extended stack functionality using open-source tools (e.g., elastalert) to achieve alerting without enterprise licensing.
  • Executed multiple upgrades of the ELK stack (from pre-1.0 to later releases); presented Kibana deep dives, visualizations, and dashboards to Engineering.
  • Liaised with AWS Enterprise Support; coordinated learning sessions and led biweekly cadence calls for issue tracking and resolution.

Selected outcomes:

  • Reduced operational toil and improved MTTR through centralized logging and actionable alerts.
  • Lowered infrastructure costs while increasing reliability via serverless job migration and reservation planning.

Catalist — Software Engineer, Team Lead

Jan 2010–Aug 2013 | Washington, DC
Technologies: Postgres/pgpool, Storm, Bash, Java, Drools, Solr/Lucene

  • Increased efficiency and maintainability of core data processing systems through refactoring and architectural upgrades.
  • Migrated identity matching to pgpool/Postgres for scale and reliability; designed distributed merge pipelines using Storm to process person-level data at higher throughput and reduced latency.
  • Automated recurring data pipelines using Drools flows; scripted operational tasks in Bash.
  • Redeveloped legacy Java components, removing bottlenecks and improving performance.
  • Conducted R&D on Solr/Lucene for identity matching; evaluated trade-offs against speed requirements; implemented Storm-based stream processing as the chosen path.
  • Trained and mentored developers; cross-trained client-facing teams to spread domain knowledge and reduce ad-hoc requests.
  • Managed projects including person-merge (Storm), analytics model generation upgrades, state voter file processing, and annual vendor data refresh.

Results:

  • Increased throughput of distributed data processing while decreasing end-to-end processing time.
  • Improved resilience and observability of pipelines, reducing manual interventions.

Education

  • University of Maryland, College Park — M.S., Computer Engineering (Aug 2006–May 2008)
  • Clarkson University — B.S., Computer & Electrical Engineering (Aug 2001–Dec 2005)

Certifications, Audits & Training

  • Proofpoint Certified Ransomware Specialist 2025
  • SOC 2 audit support and evidence collection (Decile)
  • AWS cost optimization practices (Savings Plans, Reservations)
  • Incident response participation (annual exercises)

Projects & Highlights

  • Multi-account AWS migration post–corporate split; standardized governance and access with SSO.
  • Reusable Terraform modules enabling per-client infrastructure provisioning across environments.
  • CI/CD modernization: Jenkins pipeline with GitHub webhooks, gated releases, and automatic dev deployments.
  • Centralized observability with New Relic (APM, logs, alerting) and ELK for comprehensive insights.
  • Secrets management migration to HashiCorp Vault in ECS; improved rotation and access policies.

Publications & Talks (Internal)

  • Kibana deep-dive: building visualizations and dashboards for engineering teams.
  • DevSecOps brown-bags: secure pipelines, IaC patterns, and incident response readiness.

Technical Toolbox

  • Cloud: AWS (EC2, RDS, Lambda, CloudWatch, IAM/SSO, VPC)
  • IaC & CI/CD: CloudFormation, Terraform, Jenkins, GitHub webhooks
  • Containers & Config: Docker, Chef, Ubuntu
  • Observability: ELK/Logstash, New Relic, Kibana
  • Security: Orca, Qualys, Snyk, HashiCorp Vault
  • Data: Snowflake, dbt Cloud
  • Languages: Python, Bash

Interests

Photography (digital & film), hiking, yoga, meditation, travel, fantasy literature, architecture, dogs, concerts, cooking, baking

Personal Statement

I thrive with curious, collaborative teammates who share knowledge and also know how to switch off “work mode” to enjoy life. Outside work, I spend time with my husband and our beagle—gardening, hiking, and exploring DC.