About Me
Hi there! 👋🏻
My name is Donna, I'm a senior site reliability engineer who specialises in managing infrastructure at scale. To date, I've automated the deployment of the largest CloudFoundry platform in the world and standardised the API infrastructure of a late-stage start-up; not to mention a few other achievements along the way.
I'm a big advocate for hug-ops (or kind-engineering) as I believe people are what really matter. I've been working in technology for several years now, and the most successful teams I've worked in are teams where everyone works together and trusts each other to make the right decision. Working on a team where you feel psychologically safe is not just good for work, but is also a lot more fun. I find that people do their best work when they're not afraid of failure.
When I'm not at a computer screen you can find me climbing mountains, going on adventures with my dogs or doing some DIY project.
My journey so far
I accidentally (yes, accidentally) started my career in technology in 2015 when I accepted an internship assuming that I'd be starting as a Business Analyst. However, on my first day, I was told I would develop a web application using Java and Spring MVC. It's safe to say, the first few months were a very steep learning curve. If you're interested, I wrote more about this in a dedicated blog post.
Over seven years later, I found I'm pretty good at this stuff. I've spanned the full tech stack from working on Java applications, to frontend UI design, and working on developer tooling, and then over the last few years, I've been focused on infrastructure and networking.
My particular interests are in automation and simplifying manual processes to allow my fellow engineers to focus on providing customer value.
I do my best work when I'm just out of my comfort zone, knowing just enough to dig deeper and keep learning. I've been described as one of those people that you throw at complex problems when you want to make progress and a safe pair of hands because I can be trusted to get the job done right.
If you'd like to know more then please, get in touch!
Experience
Senior Site Reliability Engineer, GitLab | April 2024 - Present
Member of the Foundations team. More to come!
Staff Software Engineer, CircleCI | 2021 - April 2024
One of the founding members of the API Infrastructure team, improving the reliability, security, and observability of CircleCI APIs by standardising routing and deployment processes. This team has been described as the "gold standard" for others to aspire to.
Senior Software Engineer, JP Morgan Chase & Co | 2018 - 2021
Core Engineer, Client Lead, and Release Manager focused on automating the deployment of the largest VMWare CloudFoundry estate in the world. Ask me about my CIDR calculator!
Software Engineer, JP Morgan Chase & Co | 2017 - 2018
Level 1 support for internal cloud customers, while engineering the solution for an improved onboarding process.
Application Developer, JP Morgan Chase & Co | 2015 - 2016
Industrial placement internship in the Investment Banking area, working on a "Kill the Tail" project to decommission legacy systems.
Achievements
- Conference Speaker @ API Summit by Kong 2023
- Certified Kubernetes Application Developer | 2022
- Associate Sponsorship Program | 2020
- Certified Scrum Master | 2018 - 2022
- TechWomen 100 Nominee | 2019
- Scottish Women in Technology Rising Star Nominee | 2019
Education
BSc Business Information Technology - First Class Honours
Queen's University Belfast