Cloud Native Engineer & Kubernetes Specialist

I build, operate, and automate Kubernetes platforms and cloud infrastructure at scale, and I love what I do.

Hi, I’m Alden. Nice to meet you.

I'm a Lead Cloud Network Automation Engineer specializing in Kubernetes operators, cloud native application engineering, and observability. I've built custom Kubernetes operators in Go for Fortune 500 companies, architected large-scale AWS and GCP network infrastructure, and helped organizations cut over $10 million in NAT Gateway costs through smarter cloud network design.

Kubernetes & Operators

I design, build, and maintain custom Kubernetes operators that automate complex, stateful application lifecycles; turning operational runbooks into self-healing, declarative code.

Core Expertise:

  • Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs)
  • Controller-runtime & Kubebuilder
  • Operator SDK
  • Admission Webhooks
  • GitOps (ArgoCD, Flux)

Primary Language:

Go

Cloud & Network Automation

As a Lead Cloud Network Automation Engineer, I architect and automate secure, cost-efficient network infrastructure across multi-cloud environments.

Impact

  • $10M+ saved in NAT Gateway costs
  • Large-scale VPC & network architecture
  • Multi-account, multi-region automation

Platforms & Tools

  • AWS
  • GCP
  • Terraform
  • Transit Gateway / Cloud NAT

Observability & Platform Engineering

You can't operate what you can't see. I build observability into every platform I run, from cluster-level metrics to distributed tracing.

Stack:

  • Prometheus / Grafana
  • OpenTelemetry
  • Datadog
  • Istio / Envoy

Practices:

  • SLOs & SLIs
  • Distributed Tracing
  • Canary Deployments
  • GitOps

My Homelab

Where I test cloud native ideas before they hit production.

The Cluster

My homelab runs Talos Linux: a minimal, immutable, API-managed Linux distribution purpose-built for Kubernetes, across a cluster of Intel NUCs.

Setup:

  • Talos Linux
  • Bare-metal Intel NUC nodes
  • Immutable, API-driven OS (no SSH)
  • Declarative cluster bootstrap

GitOps & Automation

Every workload and config change flows through Git. The homelab is where I prototype the same automation patterns I bring to production.

Practices:

  • ArgoCD / Flux
  • Infrastructure as Code
  • Custom operators, tested at home first

Observability at Home

The same Prometheus, Grafana, and Loki stack I recommend professionally runs 24/7 in my homelab, so nothing goes into a client's cluster untested.

Stack:

  • Prometheus & Grafana
  • Loki for logging
  • Always-on staging ground for new tooling

My Startup Projects

I enjoy creating fun, interractable applications in my free time, and have learned far more from creating my own software than I learned during any of my classes.

My walkthroughs for most Machine Learning algorithms.

alden.ai

An online multi-gaming community with a multitude of custom modded servers.

thicc.io

An app that's more about what you're doing than what you're thinking.

Shutdown in 2018
See more on Github

Start a project

I’m Always open to Discussing Development opportunities.

Let's do this