Matthew Jenkins
Staff / Principal Engineer - Director of Technology - Director, Developer Experience
Operations professional possessing extensive experience in software and systems engineering, workflow improvement, and developer automation across complex projects within multiple industry sectors, positioned for technical leadership roles across small to medium-sized enterprises. Leverages a collaborative leadership management model to align with cross-functional teams consisting of both internal and external resources and stakeholders. Enhances efficiency and delivers solutions as a subject matter expert when leading concurrent projects, providing training and guidance, and developing strategic business relationships with clients, suppliers, and senior-level decision-makers within Fortune 500 companies. Positioned to add technological and operational value through innovation, communication, systems architecture/support, IT management, and focus on the goals of a targeted enterprise.
Currently located in Greater Charlotte Area.
Open to Travel (25%-50%, Domestic, International) - Workspace: Remote or Hybrid
Experience
Mar 2022 - Dec 2023
Linux Developer/Assistant Vice President/Software Engineer II
Accepted role to enhance the functionality of bank libraries, frameworks, and tools by updating legacy KSH code exceeding 10,000 lines to modern Python. Established automated testing procedures to ensure seamless interoperability between KSH and Python, leveraging Rundeck for efficient automation.
May 2021 - Mar 2022
Linux Developer, Bank of America
Managed the engineering, project management, and supply chain teams. Led capacity, vendor development, contract negotiations, supply chain turnaround, supply and demand, retail sales, and operations. Directed a team of 100+ employees with budget management between $10M to $100M.
Aug 2020 - Mar 2021
Linux Systems Engineer
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Developed integrations using Alerta to monitor Sophos and various other components.
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Created a Command Line Interface (CLI) for the efficient management of multiple tenants and clients within the Sophos platform.
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Implemented proofs of concepts and one-off automation solutions to enhance the speed of workflows and data migrations.
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Deployed and administered Linux R&D servers; conducted evaluations of multiple proposed third-party solutions.
Feb 2019 - May 2020
Senior Support Engineer, Disney Parks Experiences & Products
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Automated and enhanced the Change Advisory Board (CAB) process within the department.
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Collaborated with Change Management to optimize CAB procedures further.
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Served as the solutions engineer for critical incident response, identified bots using Splunk, and led diverse teams to ensure site reliability through security remediations and automation using Rundeck and Service Now API.
Sep 2017 - Feb 2019
Linux Technical Engineer
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Charged with the development of strategic business alliances with Fortune 500 ST. Louis clients, providing value services to include increased uptime, availability, and customer satisfaction.
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Demonstrated aptitude in automating MySQL & PostgreSQL upgrades and migrations.
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Recognized for subject matter expertise and technical proficiency by managers, securing special projects.
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Specialized in performance analysis, tuning, and support for large and medium enterprise-managed services, including LDAP/AD user directory configuration, advanced mail setup, SQL query optimization, and network configuration with load balancing.
Results
Designed and resized a 14TB Elasticsearch cluster that provided $465K annual savings, completing a seamless migration from RedHat Linux 7 to RedHat Linux 9 with no downtime.
Met with stakeholders in the enterprise’s largest St. Louis-based customer to resolve Bitbucket outages; addressed concerns, implemented custom monitors, early detection script, and HAProxy optimization, reduced CI config issues and downtime within a month, restored services within SLA and retained the customer partnership.
Piloted project to upgrade batch framework, replacing outdated KSH with modern BASH (4.2+) or Python (3.9+), adding audit logs, rigorous testing, and static analyzers to improve performance and streamline the triage process.
Expertise
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App Re-engineering
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Process Improvement
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Project Management
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Cost/Time Savings
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Workflow Efficiency
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Python
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IT
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Performance Improvement
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Change Management
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Vendor/Supplier Management
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Client Relationship Building
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SQL
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Communication
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Solution Engineering
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Process/Procedure Design
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Cloud Computing
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Database Design & Management
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Information Services
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Infrastructure
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Knowledge Management
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Scrum
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System Development & Implementation
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Unix
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Linux
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Systems Design & Engineering
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Systems Development
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Technology
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Agile
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Cross-Functional Teams
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Training
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Collaborative Leadership
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Staff Engineer
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Developer Experience
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Process Automation
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Programming
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Data Migrations
Education
Bachelor of Science (BS)
Computer Science & Engineering
Meet Matthew
Q & A
Why did you choose your profession?
I’m a huge nerd. I grew up as a technology oriented individual who dug into manuals and online how-tos from a young age. My first time using Linux was as a boy that installed Red Hat 7 (Classic) from a CD in the back of a book from the library. On my own, I’ve accumulated quite a wide breadth of knowledge on various tech topics so you could say my profession chose me.
Who are your main influences?
I owe a lot to my former coworkers from Nexcess. Without the shot they gave me that allowed me to prove myself I don’t know where I would be today. Next up Josh Nave from Contegix. He was a very rough fellow but taught me how to refine what I do to become even better.
What is your greatest accomplishment?
My greatest accomplishment is at Disney automating the change advisory board for my department, then showing change management what I was doing and how they could improve vastly. They took these to heart and most of my automations became part of the process itself via service now modules.
What tools do you use?
Linux for everything. Jetbrains tools, git, Jenkins, artifactory, rundeck and more.
What advice would you give to someone just starting out in your profession?
The hardest part is getting your foot in the door. Get your LPIC 1 and you should be able to get an entry level job. Never stop learning and always keep sharpening your skills. Those who can and do tend to move up quickly.
Testimonials
"Matthew worked on my Application Operations Engineering team at Disney and made an immediate impact! Within his first couple days on the job, he single-handedly identified root cause on a very complicated Production outage. After a week he was consistently contributing on all major incident calls and leading the charge to restoration of service. He is extremely strong in Linux, scripting, & troubleshooting complex application & infrastructure issues. He talks the talk and walks the walk for sure! He was an excellent team player and well liked by his teammates and peers. I would love the opportunity to work with such a technical talent and great guy like Matthew again ... in a heartbeat! Matthew worked on my Application Operations Engineering team at Disney and made an immediate impact! Within his first couple days on the job, he single-handedly identified root cause on a very complicated Production outage. After a week he was consistently contributing on all major incident calls and leading the charge to restoration of service. He is extremely strong in Linux, scripting, & troubleshooting complex application & infrastructure issues. He talks the talk and walks the walk for sure! He was an excellent team player and well liked by his teammates and peers. I would love the opportunity to work with such a technical talent and great guy like Matthew again ... in a heartbeat!"
Ralph Leese, Sustainability Manager, Disney
"I had the privilege to work with Matthew for a year. Matthew has the unique talent to go deeper and find the root cause of a problem before fixing it. He is very intelligent, a team player and knows all the latest tools. I know Matthew will be a great asset wherever he spends the next season of his career!"
Sergio Jurado, Senior Systems Engineer, Disney
Interests & Hobbies
PC Gaming
Tech
