Ken Chen - Cloud DevOps Engineer

About Me

I am a Cloud DevOps Engineer driven by a simple philosophy: if you have to do it twice, automate it.

Currently serving as a Senior Systems Specialist at Canadian Tire Corporation, I leverage my background in high-pressure enterprise support to build infrastructure that is resilient by design. I bridge the gap between Operations and Engineering, utilizing tools like Terraform, AWS, and Ansible to eliminate toil and improve system reliability.

When I'm not automating corporate workflows, I am pushing the boundaries of my home lab—implementing LGTM observability stacks, experimenting with hybrid identity, and refining serverless architectures. I hold multiple cloud certifications and bring the discipline of a classically trained musician to the chaos of modern DevOps.

Experience

Senior Systems Specialist (Automation & Infrastructure)

Canadian Tire Corporation

March 2024 - Present

• Automated operational workflows using PowerShell and Microsoft Graph API, reducing manual processing time by 90%
• Managed endpoint infrastructure for 100+ devices via Intune and Apple Business Manager, ensuring configuration consistency
• Provided high-level technical escalation support for network connectivity, identity management (Okta SSO), and VPN infrastructure
• Supported 50+ high-stakes board meetings, ensuring infrastructure reliability and rapid incident response

Technical Support Engineer (SaaS Operations)

ComputerTalk Technology Inc.

February 2023 - March 2024

• Maintained production reliability for enterprise SaaS application on Windows Server IIS across 500+ server environment
• Implemented observability practices using SolarWinds to monitor system health and proactively identify resource bottlenecks
• Automated user lifecycle management using PowerShell scripts for Active Directory, reducing weekly provisioning overhead by 50%
• Maintained 99.9% uptime and 90%+ SLA compliance through rigorous incident management

Platinum Support Analyst

Questrade Financial Group

November 2021 - January 2023

• Resolved 120+ tickets weekly across investment accounts, trading, and technical issues
• Supported complex financial instruments including forex, equities, and options trading
• Provided technical troubleshooting for trading platforms and account management

Featured Projects

TableTap

Full-stack ordering platform utilizing GitHub Actions Matrix Strategy to reduce build times by 95%. Features cross-cloud networking between Oracle Cloud and AWS Serverless backend.

CI/CD Optimization AWS Lambda DynamoDB Matrix Strategy

Code

PrepDeck

Fault-tolerant event-driven architecture using SQS buffering and Lambda. Infrastructure fully provisioned via Terraform with remote state locking.

Terraform (IaC) Amazon SQS Event-Driven System Manager

Code

TableAI

AI Chatbot utilizing containerized Lambda functions to overcome size limits. Features LGTM stack for observability and vector similarity search for context.

Containerized Lambda LLM/AI CloudWatch Docker

Code

Cloud Resume Challenge

The serverless architecture powering this website. Features a Python backend for visitor tracking, CloudFront CDN for edge caching, and a fully automated CI/CD pipeline using GitHub Actions.

Terraform AWS Lambda API Gateway DynamoDB GitHub Actions

Code

Engineering Log

A running changelog of my personal lab environment, skills learned, and system hardening updates.

kchen@lab-environment:~/learning-log

2025-11-30

Refining Observability: LGTM Stack & Nginx Tracing

Migrated TableTap observability to a full LGTM stack. Standardized on Grafana Alloy for a unified "Push" architecture over a secure Tailscale mesh network. Solved static frontend tracing issues by swapping to the nginx-otel image to enable OpenTelemetry propagation.

Grafana Alloy OpenTelemetry Tailscale

2025-11-29

Implemented SRE Golden Signals

Configured Promtail and Loki to ingest logs from the PHP application container. Dashboard now visualizes Latency, Traffic, Errors, and Saturation.

Grafana Loki

2025-11-15

Ansible Hardening Playbooks

Wrote Ansible playbooks to standardize server configuration. Automated SSH key rotation and firewall rules (UFW) across the homelab fleet.

Ansible YAML

2025-10-25

Started Hybrid Identity Lab

Explored Entra ID Connect sync behavior. Tested attribute write-back from Cloud to On-Prem Active Directory.

2025-08-10

Containerization of Resume

Migrated static resume to Docker container running NGINX. Deployed to AWS Fargate via Terraform.

Education & Certifications

Education

Honors Bachelor of Music

University of Toronto

Minor in Economics

Comprehensive study in music performance and theory with a focus on economics, developing analytical and problem-solving skills that translate well to technical fields.

Certifications

AWS Certifications

CLF-C02 SOA-C02 DVA-C02 SAA-C03

Azure Certifications

AZ-104 AZ-140 AZ-204 AZ-305 AZ-500 AZ-900 SC-200 SC-900

Infrastructure as Code

Terraform Associate (003)

Let's Connect

I'm always interested in new opportunities and collaborations. Feel free to reach out if you'd like to discuss cloud architecture, DevOps practices, or just chat about technology!

Email

[email protected]

LinkedIn

Connect with me

GitHub

View my code

📱 416-880-7388

📍 Toronto, Ontario, Canada