Infrastructure and operations portfolio

Zac Kelder Operations discipline for cloud systems.

Systems Administrator with eight years across enterprise infrastructure, security, endpoint, server, and high-accountability technical operations—now applying those habits to cloud infrastructure, platform support, automation, and backend delivery.

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Technical operations
8 yearsEnterprise and military environments
Supported estate
≈1,500Servers across global operations
Endpoint environment
≈300Managed endpoints
Technical leadership
9 peopleMilitary systems team
Accountability
$20M+Equipment and property

02 / Selected work

Systems built to be operated.

Two focused projects show how production habits translate into public cloud demos and mobile-backed services: explicit state, controlled access, deploy validation, useful observability, and honest operating boundaries.

Case study 01

ArenaOps

A retired cloud case study for a multiplayer backend that slept at ECS desired count zero, woke from the public frontend, reported its lifecycle to the user, and shut itself down after the demo window.

Status
Runtime retired August 2026
Former runtime
ECS/Fargate behind an ALB
Preserved proof
Architecture, source history, screenshots, and cost record
Read the case study Why it was retired
ArenaOps connected multiplayer room with operator controls and the active arena view.
Evidence A Realtime WebSocket room after health checks pass.
ArenaOps status screen reporting the backend online, the scheduled auto-stop, and room controls.
Evidence B User-visible backend state and auto-stop window.

Case study 02

Food Checker

A pre-release iOS ingredient-scanning app connecting a React Native client to OCR, configurable ingredient rules, a hardened FastAPI service, automated AWS releases, and private observability.

Product path
Expo / React Native → FastAPI → Supabase
Release path
GitHub Actions → ECR → SSM → EC2
Boundary
Public HTTPS API; private Prometheus and Grafana
Review the engineering TestFlight beta
Food Checker iOS scan screen with ingredient label guidance and scan controls.
01 Scan
Food Checker iOS history screen showing structured scan results and risk states.
02 Review

03 / What the work proves

Operational habits, made visible.

The project technology matters because it demonstrates practical operating judgment—not because a tool list belongs on a portfolio.

  1. 01

    Operate mixed systems

    Windows, Linux, VMware, endpoints, backups, access, and global support.

  2. 02

    Automate repeatable work

    Terraform, Ansible, scripts, runbooks, and CI/CD replace fragile manual steps.

  3. 03

    Design for service state

    Health, readiness, startup, degradation, and shutdown are explicit operating conditions.

  4. 04

    Protect boundaries

    OIDC, scoped access, localhost-only services, and private monitoring reduce exposure.

  5. 05

    Validate delivery

    Deploy checks test useful behavior—not only whether a process is listening.

  6. 06

    Communicate clearly

    Logs, documentation, service status, and honest limitations support faster decisions.

04 / Experience

Eight years in accountable environments.

The portfolio work extends an existing operations foundation. It does not replace it.

2023—2025

Trilliant Networks Inc.

System Administrator

Enterprise infrastructure and global service support.

  • Administered Windows Server, Rocky Linux, RHEL, Ubuntu, VMware vSphere, endpoint configuration, patching, backups, and access workflows.
  • Supported infrastructure and users across North America, South America, and APAC, including approximately 1,500 servers and 300 endpoints.
  • Contributed to vulnerability response, endpoint protection, email filtering, identity and access workflows, credential hygiene, and SLA-driven service delivery.

2017—2023

U.S. Army

Military Intelligence Systems Maintainer / Integrator

Secure systems, technical leadership, and readiness under pressure.

  • Led and trained a nine-person technical team responsible for secure systems, readiness, maintenance, and operational troubleshooting.
  • Maintained Windows, Red Hat Linux, Cisco networking, endpoint hardware, communications systems, and fielded equipment.
  • Managed serviceability and accountability for equipment and property valued at more than $20 million.

05 / Operating principles

Confidence should be earned.

  1. 01Check health before declaring success.
  2. 02Make failure states legible to users and operators.
  3. 03Prefer controlled, repeatable delivery paths.
  4. 04Document boundaries, recovery, and limitations.

06 / Contact

Bring operations judgment into the next system.

Open to systems administration, Azure and Microsoft 365 operations, infrastructure engineering, cloud operations, platform support, IAM, security operations, and technical support engineering roles.

zachkelder@gmail.com (845) 802‑6510 linkedin.com/in/zkelder github.com/zkelder