JuliusCreates

Skills

Windows/Linux (10 years)

Provisioned and managed hybrid bare-metal and cloud infrastructure — Ubuntu servers, Windows build machines, and 300-400 mixed endpoints across game development environments.

Python (8 years)

Built automation tools, CLI utilities, and cloud-deployed APIs across multiple providers — including an AI-powered Terraform review tool and a lab fulfillment refactor that reduced downtime by 60%

AWS/Azure (8 years)

Designed hybrid multi-cloud architecture spanning identity, secrets management, private networking, edge delivery, and security compliance across live service titles

Kubernetes (6 years)

Built bare-metal clusters with ArgoCD, Horde CI/CD, and enterprise storage supporting 100+ engineers across game development pipelines

Terraform (6 years)

Authored modular, reusable IaC across Terraform and Bicep — standardizing deployments via CI/CD pipelines and cutting provisioning time from hours to minutes

Senior DevOps Engineer building hybrid cloud infrastructure and automation tools at Xbox Game Studios.

Infrastructure Architecture

I design and operate systems that game development teams depend on at scale — bare-metal Kubernetes clusters, hybrid cloud architectures, and the identity, networking, and edge delivery layers that connect them. My focus is resilience, security posture, and infrastructure that stays out of the way so engineering teams can ship.

Team Leadership

I've led infrastructure decision-making at the senior leadership level, presented architecture recommendations to game leads and executives, and mentored engineers to full ownership of critical systems. I bring the same structure I apply to infrastructure to team communication — clear ownership, defined priorities, and removing blockers before they become incidents.

Automation & Tooling

When I spot a repetitive process, my first instinct is to ask whether it's worth automating — and more often than not, it is. I've built Python CLIs, provisioning automation, and AI-assisted workflows that accelerate deployment and eliminate toil — including an open-source tool that integrates the Claude API to automate Terraform security review directly inside CI/CD pipelines.

Problem Solving

I've served as integration lead on high-priority acquisitions, inherited broken production systems mid-crisis, and designed solutions under real operational pressure. My approach is to identify the actual blocker — technical or organizational — orchestrate the right people and resources around it, and drive it to resolution in a way that scales beyond the immediate incident.

Technical Deep Dive

Challenge: High-Performance Game Development Infrastructure

Problem: Game studio needed highly available, secure infrastructure to host critical internal services (Horde CI/CD, build processes) and live service game while maintaining performance and staying within budget constraints.

Solution: Designed resilient hybrid Azure architecture with bare-metal Kubernetes clusters integrated via Azure Arc, featuring auto-scaling capabilities and centralized monitoring for optimal performance and cost control.

Implementation: Built bare-metal Kubernetes clusters on high-performance servers, integrated HashiCorp Vault for automated secret/certificate rotation, deployed Horde CI/CD and ArgoCD for streamlined development workflows, all managed through Azure Arc for unified governance.

Result: Achieved 99% uptime for critical build and development services while reducing build/cook times by 75%, enabling faster game development cycles and improved developer productivity.

Experiences

Senior DevOps Engineer @ Obsidian Entertainment
Aug. 2023 - Present
Systems Engineer @ Color Health
Mar. 2021 - Mar. 2023
Site Reliability Engineer @ Cigna Digital
Jul. 2018 - Mar. 2021
IT Specialist @ Brighter Inc.
Dec. 2016 - Jul. 2018