Resume

Resume #

✉ nicholas@buihner.com

Focus #

I’m driven to learn as much as I can about as much as possible. Focusing on systems engineering and computer science was natural and has given me the opportunity to learn across a broad range of sciences and interests. My goal is to find organizations and people with similar drive, where I can provide value while building greater knowledge and expertise.

Certifications #

  • 2019 - AWS Solutions Architect Associate

Summary of Skills #

Cloud Architecture • Systems Engineering • Project Lifecycle Management • Technical Support & Training • Business Solutions Development • Technical and Interpersonal Communications • Cloud Security Principals • Linux and Windows Systems Administration • Serverless and Event Driven Design • Cloud Cost Optimization

  • Frequently Used Applications: Linux CLI (vim, ssh, screen, make, grep, awk, etc), Git, iPython Notebooks/Jupyter, SQL (SQLite, SQL Server, Postgres), NoSQL (Redis, MongoDB, DynamoDB, Datastore, etc), Hugo, Celery, Nginx, Terraform, awscli, azcli, gcloud, gsutil, csvkit, jq
  • Frequently Used Platforms: Linux, ChromeOS, MacOS, Windows, AWS, Google Cloud, Google AppsScript, Docker, Azure
  • Frequently Used Languages: Go, Python, Bash, YAML, JavaScript, SQL, PowerShell
  • Frequently Used Frameworks/Libraries/APIs/Specs: Google Cloud/Workspace SDKs (Go, Python), Vue.js, CloudFormation, AWS SDKs (Go, Python), Azure Graph API, Webpack, Flask, Requests, OAuth, OIDC, SAML, REST

Experience #

2021-Current
Spire Global
Senior IT Systems Engineer

  • ISO 27001 and ISO 22301 Information Security and Business Continuity Management System Operator.
  • ISO 22301 Business Continuity Management System Designer.
  • AWS, Google Workspace, Google Cloud, and Azure administration.
  • MDM Administration (Jamf, Meraki System Manager, Intune).
  • Custom IT CLI tooling for SAAS management, reporting, automation.
  • Planning, development, and maintenance of cloud solutions focused on automation, business workflow optimization, and cost reduction.
  • Vendor evaluation and negotiation to ensure standards on privacy, access (SSO), and automation allowing low friction usage.
  • Technical training of staff.
  • General systems administration, support, troubleshooting, programming/scripting, communication.

2015-2021
Huntington Beach Union High School District
Systems Analyst

  • AWS, GSuite, Google Cloud, and Azure administration.
  • Planning, development, and maintenance of cloud solutions focused on automation, business workflow optimization, and cost reduction.
  • Regularly assess existing systems for possible improvements. Apply fast fixes where possible, place the rest on the long term task queue for later planning.
  • Negotiate with vendors to ensure standards on privacy, access (SSO), and automation allowing low friction usage.
  • Liaise between staff and vendors, conveying information on pain points, usage patterns, or feature requests.
  • Technical training of staff and students.
  • General systems administration, troubleshooting, programming/scripting, communication.

2013-2015
Huntington Beach Union High School District
Web Developer

  • Planned, developed, and deployed our MyClasses web app to AWS in order to simplify parent and student access to essential information.
  • Develop and support district websites (WordPress, Hugo, Vue, etc) hosted on AWS.
  • Automate as much of the web presence as possible to reduce costs and time to publish.
  • Technical training of staff and students.
  • General systems administration, troubleshooting, programming/scripting, communication.

2011-2013
Huntington Beach Union High School District
Network Technician

  • Manage WordPress properties.
  • Manage data synchronization between HR/student information systems and vendor platforms.
  • Technical training of staff and students.
  • General systems administration, troubleshooting, programming/scripting, communication.

2009-2011
Huntington Beach Union High School District
Instructional Aide Technology

  • Designed and developed a digital portfolio system to replace paper portfolios for high school senior exit projects.
  • Designed and developed an attendance tracking application for tutoring and lab usage.
  • Designed and developed synchronization between the student information system and our Google Apps for Education domain.
  • General systems administration, troubleshooting, programming/scripting, communication.

Projects #

ISO 27001/22301 Information Management System Sole designer of the Spire Global IT ISO 22301 Business Continuity Management System including design and operational audits resulting in ISO 22301 certification in October 2021. Assisted with the design and successful certification of Spire Global IT ISO 27001 Information Security Management System. Operator of the combined ISO 27001/22301 certified management systems, including ongoing measurements, audits, policy maintenance, etc.

SIS Synchronization and Automation
One of the first large tasks I was given when I started was to take the information in our student information system (SIS, an ERP for educational institutions) and mirror it to our Google Apps for Education (Workspace) domain. That responsibility expanded to dozens of platforms across several departments covering educational tools, HR, state reporting, etc. The incarnation of those tools has changed over the years but now mostly consist of Python, Go, bash, and TSQL running on a variety of cloud services managed in terraform templates. Serverless functions when the tasks are short, ephemeral compute instances when the tasks are longer. Expensive state queries are stored in S3 or Cloud Storage to serve as a cache to be consumed by tasks to keep slow API calls to a minimum. Updates and fixes are deployed using cloud CI/CD, docker, and git to keep things organized. The secrets required by tasks are all stored in AWS or GCP Secrets Manager to follow best practices.

One of my favorite patterns is using cloud storage services as simple event queues or to store state between steps of an ETL pipeline. Cloud storage connected to cloud functions through events is amazingly resilient, cheap, and easy to understand. Some of my favorite qualities.

MyClasses
I am the sole developer and maintainer of the district web application MyClasses. MyClasses is a Flask (Python) application hosted on AWS using EC2 auto scaling groups. OpenID Connect provides single sign on authentication with our identity provider. It consumes an API I wrote in Go that handles communication with our SIS. The original purpose was to provide features our SIS lacked but over time it has become a central web portal for our district. It can manage student accounts, reset passwords, display schedules, consume grades, and provide teachers with oft-needed data exports. Parents use the app to view schedules and progress grades aggregated in a single location.

Productivity Automation
I am the sole developer and maintainer of many internal tools, below are a few examples:

  • A web app that collects and manages requests for training conferences. Users can view past submissions and administrators have an interface for searching, editing, and removing entries.
  • A single page application that manages bussing transportation requests for special education students.
  • A single page serverless application that runs on AWS using Lambda and Aurora Serverless to provide a search interface for a massive database of historical transcripts. This included the conversion and OCR of some 600,000 documents using cloud compute.
  • A single page application that provides an index and search of board policies and administrative regulations.
  • A single page application used to mass geocode addresses, filtered through GIS tools to assign schools.

Cloud Solutions Architecture and Administration
The above projects are the result of performing regular gap analysis and solution design focused on simplifying workflows and reducing costs. The vast majority of which are solved by employing services available on AWS and Google Cloud Platform. The result over the last few years is a decent sized web of tools consuming those services that require some level of administration and maintenance for which I am responsible.

Education & Interests #

2003-2007 - University of California Santa Barbara #

BA in Linguistics

2018-2019 - reInvent #

Participated in a CETPA (now CITE) cohort. In 2019 I attended as a mentor for a group of three educational technology professionals. I set goals for the group in an attempt to focus their efforts at reInvent. Then after reInvent I provided assistance producing a solution utilizing their reInvent experience. Also received my AWS Solutions Architect Associate certification while attending this year.

GopherCon - 4 Time Attendee #

Go has become a significant tool in my problem solving kit. The ease of deployment has been invaluable when providing solutions to peers that may not have the resources to maintain complex environments. Being a newer language, best practices tend to change quickly and GopherCon helps me stay current.

PyCon - 6 Time Attendee #

The sheer size, maturity, and variety of the Python ecosystem keeps Python at the top of my list of problem solving tools. PyCon helps me keep those tools sharp.

Ludum Dare #

This is a long running weekend game making competition. I’ve used it multiple times as a jump start to learning new technologies or languages. The time constraint requires focus and I can occasionally get my wife to help with the art.

Personal Interests/Projects #

  • Practice applying cloud solutions in personal projects, home media encoding servers, automated backups, personal enrichment, etc.
  • Numerous Raspberry Pi and Arduino projects.
  • I’m fascinated by systems as a discipline and search for and consume any resources I can find on the subject.
  • I enjoy throwing myself into projects or subjects that I know nothing about as learning exercises. I’m driven to understand everything.
  • Recently built a Prusa MK3s from a kit and have been getting into 3D modeling/printing.