Hunter Kayaking in Lake Almanor

Hunter Fernandes

Adventures in Software Engineering


Hi There!

I am a software engineer specialized in DevOps and cloud computing. I live and breathe infrastructure, CI/CD, and observability stacks. You can read a blog I maintain on my adventures here.

My interests are in parallel & concurrent programming and interoping unreliable services (fault tolerance in distributed systems). That means I like to talk about failure modes, how to scale systems, and the developer experience.

Reading List

My list of books of recommended readings is available at /books.

Technology and Tools

Languages

  • Python. I have been using Python for 10 years. I have used it for web development, data analysis, systems programming, and personal projects.
  • Go. I have been using Go since pre-1.0. My claim to fame is that I have a rejected PR to Rob Pike’s Go code from 2015.
  • Javascript and Typescript.
  • Dart + Flutter
  • Rust. I have quite a few personal projects in Rust.
  • PHP.

Stacks / Tools

  • AWS. I run all the cloud things. 8 years of experience.
  • Docker & Kubernetes (EKS).
  • Terraform for Infrastructure as Code.
  • Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment (CI/CD).
  • Linux for personal, professional, and server use.
  • MySQL (typically AWS Aurora MySQL). Debugging performance, writing complex queries, and schema design. Complex migrations 🤯.
  • Elasticsearch.
  • Logging stacks (ELK / Vector / Fluentd/bit).
  • Observability stacks (Datadog).

Misc

  • HIPAA compliance. I run the technical half of compliance and governance for a HIPAA-regulated company.

Work experience

Carium

Staff Software Engineer 2018 - Present.

  • Managed all infrastructure and developer experience for a HIPAA-compliant healthcare platform.
  • Kubernetes clusters, CI/CD pipelines, observability stacks, and ETL pipelines, release processes.
  • Zero-downtime requirements for all changes, including infrastructure changes and database migrations.
  • Bootstrapped multi-account AWS infrastructure with Terraform.
  • Promoted from Software Engineer to Senior Software Engineer to Staff Software Engineer.
  • Led cross-functional teams to deliver platform improvements and improve business visibility.
  • What I do at Carium >>>

Ciena

Software Engineer 2017 - 2018. Intern 2016.

  • Build CI/CD infrastructure for business-critical software.
  • Docker containers and microservices, EC2, Python, Django, and Go.
  • Zero-downtime migration from an internal platform to Kubernetes.
  • Improved developer tooling to increase productivity.
  • Sales and Quoting tools I built increased sales velocity, now handles $3 billion/year in revenue.
  • More about my time at Ciena >>>