Senior Cloud Engineer
Shine Solutions Group
Experience
A career path from commercial and research operations into cloud platform leadership.
The timeline below presents the earlier career as foundation experience, while keeping the portfolio centred on AWS platform management, governance and secure cloud delivery.
Cloud Technical Lead / Cloud Platforms
Geoscience Australia
- Design, build and operate secure AWS platform capability across a 160+ account government environment.
- Designed AWS landing zone architecture, including Organisational Units, Service Control Policies and Resource Control Policies.
- Promoted reusable, secure and scalable cloud foundations to reduce operational overhead for research and business teams.
- Developed API-driven reporting, governance and auditing across cloud and collaboration services including Jira, Miro, Slack, Bitbucket and GitHub.
- Enhanced monitoring and observability using CloudWatch and QuickSight to improve visibility and service reliability.
Acting Cloud Platforms Team Manager
Geoscience Australia
- Provided day-to-day leadership for the Cloud Platforms team during a leadership transition.
- Coordinated engineers across incident, change and problem management activities.
- Prioritised operational support, project delivery, governance uplift and remediation work.
- Engaged senior stakeholders on cloud governance posture, risk, cost and remediation priorities.
- Reduced AWS OpEx by more than 10% through optimisation and organisation-level Savings Plans.
GIS Cloud Engineer
Geoscience Australia
- Designed, managed and optimised AWS cloud-native geospatial infrastructure supporting national geospatial services.
- Achieved 60% reduction in operational costs and 65% reduction in application licensing costs through architecture and resource optimisation.
- Redesigned highly available AWS infrastructure supporting enterprise GIS workloads across 90+ VM instances, databases, reverse proxies and firewalls.
- Automated infrastructure provisioning using Terraform, Packer, Docker, Python and shell scripting.
- Supported secure configurations aligned with Australian Government security standards and operational risk expectations.
Technical Lead
Argon Facility, Australian National University
- Led ICT systems and technical operations for a nationally significant research facility.
- Managed service design, networking, data structures, vendor engagement and operational support for critical scientific services.
- Used Google Earth Engine to support national-scale visualisation of geochronology research across Australia.
- Contributed to the National Argon Map collaboration between ANU Argon Facility, Geoscience Australia and AuScope.
- Co-authored geochronology research publications and conference contributions arising from this work (see Research & Publications).
- Contributed to 300% revenue growth through operational efficiency, system optimisation and improved technical service capability.
Resource Planning, Procurement Management and IT Leadership
Queen Pack, Marina Sun Cellulose Industry, education centres and technical roles
- Worked across procurement and vendor management, resource planning, production line optimisation.
- Supervised major supplier transactions, contractor engagement and manufacturing-related projects.
- Designed and developed local and web-based databases, Developed organisation portals and business websites.
- Taught CompTIA A+ fundamentals and ICDL courses for government employees and other learners.
- Built foundations in quality control, electronics, database development, web development and technical training.
Research & Publications
Co-authored research from my time at the ANU Argon Facility, spanning isotopic dating methods, national-scale geochronology mapping and geoscience data visualisation.
- Redaa, A., Farkas, J., Gilbert, S., Collins, A., Löhr, S., Vasegh, D., Forster, M., Blades, M., Baldermann, A., Dietzel, M. and Garbe-Schönberg, D., 2022. Assessment of Mica-Mg and GL-O nano-powders as reference materials for in-situ Rb-Sr dating by LA-ICP-MS/MS. Goldschmidt Conference 2022.
- Reid, A., Forster, M., Preiss, W., Caruso, A., Curtis, S., Wise, T., Vasegh, D. and Goswami, N., 2021. Complex 40Ar/39Ar age spectra from low metamorphic grade rocks: resolving the input of detrital and metamorphic components in a case study from the Delamerian Orogen. Geochronology Discussions, pp.1-31.
- Muston, J., Forster, M., Vasegh, D., Alderton, C., Crispin, S. and Lister, G., 2021. Direct dating of overprinting fluid systems in the Martabe epithermal gold deposit using highly retentive alunite. Geochronology Discussions, pp.1-31.
- Fraser, G.L., Waltenberg, K., Jones, S.L., Champion, D.C., Huston, D.L., Lewis, C.J., Bodorkos, S., Forster, M., Vasegh, D., Ware, B. and Tessalina, S., 2020. An Isotopic Atlas of Australia. Geoscience Australia, Canberra. dx.doi.org/10.11636/133772
- Fraser, G., Champion, D., Huston, D., Jones, S., Lewis, C., Waltenberg, K., Forster, M. and Vasegh, D., 2019. Towards an Isotopic Atlas of Australia: tracing tectonics through time and space. Convergence on the Coast: the biennial meeting of the Specialist Group in Tectonics and Structural Geology, Port Lincoln, South Australia.