~/portfolio

Simon McNair

DevOps/SRE Engineer
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Infrastructure automation specialist with 5+ years hands-on experience in cloud platforms, containerization, and monitoring at scale. Focused on reliability, operational efficiency, and solving complex technical challenges through scripting and automation.

Core Skills

Docker & Docker Compose
Python
PowerShell
AWS (EC2, Lambda, SSM)
Linux (Debian, Proxmox)
Grafana & Zabbix
GitHub Actions
MySQL/MSSQL/Oracle
Networking & VLANs
Infrastructure Automation
Monitoring & Observability
CI/CD Pipelines

Recent Experience

Application Engineer & DevOps Engineer
Dunelm Soft Furnishings Ltd | Oct 2018 - Feb 2021
Migrated Java applications to AWS EC2-based Docker containers. Implemented comprehensive monitoring using Zabbix, Grafana, and Datadog for 1,640+ devices. Created PowerShell automation managing 1,600+ Windows instances.
Systems Engineer
Selfridges Retail Ltd | Aug 2015 - Feb 2017
Automated proactive issue detection across Java/Tomcat POS infrastructure. Implemented PRTG monitoring with automated alerting and visual dashboards.
Technical Consultant
BT Expedite, IBM, Computacenter | 2003 - 2010
Led technical implementations for major UK retailers including Clarks Shoes (400+ sites), Phase Eight, and Mosaic Fashions. Infrastructure architecture and deployment automation.

Home Lab & Projects

Active home lab environment: Proxmox virtualization with ZFS storage, Docker containerization, virtualized OPNsense firewall with VLANs, GitHub Actions CI/CD experiments. Python scripting projects including NLP work with spaCy.

Proxmox Cluster
ZFS Storage (10TB+)
OPNsense Firewall
VLAN Configuration
Python NLP (spaCy)
GitHub Actions CI/CD

Contact & Links

location: Leicester, UK (Remote)