2023 - History

Year

Month

December

2023-12

Performed the first inactive user removals in Unleash
- Calculated additional leeway by using a 60-day baseline as 4-sprints

Began preparing document for the new year to announce a monolithic cloud cluster will be locked for net new deployments
- Historically the cluster had a particular vision of being all-encompassing
- However the reality is that many other teams and business units operate resources in the cluster

After exploring the vela plugin—datadog integration; formalized the an api for arbitrary analytics using datadog events
- GitOps onboarding flow to define an analytic namespace
- Simple curl -X POST interface to submit analytics
- 100% test coverage
- Implemented using Hono

Wrote various scripts to reliably pull and validate and backup a legacy application's DynamoDB data

Enjoyed a wonderful winter break vacation for 10 days

November

2023-11

Built a dashboard that displays regularly updated k8s cluster vulnerabilities grouped by running docker image and other organization properties
- The data is refreshed twice per day; not all images are re-scanned every day
- The dashboard is statically re-rendered using a scheduled build
- The dashboard uses Astro to generate its pages; this keeps it fast and reduces its own vulnerability basis

Began exploring a vela plugin—datadog callback integration
- To explore usage and methodology of a dozen legacy vela plugins, adding telemetry provides these metrics

Formalized "Smarty" (formerly known as SmartyStreets) general availability within the organization

Began shutting down a legacy product that was hosted outside of typical managed cloud services

Attended React Summit US 2023 in New York!
Vacationed in New York for a week

October

2023-10

Updated the team-managed user interface appliance for storage api
- Participating in the the CVE cleanup campaign
- Updated dependencies to latest versions available
- Updated docker base images to Node 20 as it reaches LTS
- Sent PRs to teams that consume the appliance to update their deployments accordingly

Updated Unleash ecosystem
- Participating in the the CVE cleanup campaign
- Updated docker base images to Node 20 as it reaches LTS
- Updated GitOps based self service project provisioning codebase dependencies
- Updated ChatOps based Microsoft Teams integration for project updates codebase dependencies, and fixed implementation

Updated internal blog frontend
- Participating in the the CVE cleanup campaign
- Updated Next 12 to Next 13; requiring various codebase tweaks
- Updated various dependencies
- Updated docker base images to Node 20 as it reaches LTS

Helped coordinate CVE strategy for CVE-2023-38545 and CVE-2023-44487; published in mid-October
- Produced wiki pages with initial urgency guidelines
- Added mitigation notes as necessary
Informed CVE cleanup campaign approach through the exercise

Attempted simultaneous cut-over for cross-app cross-domain okta configuration
- Explored issues with legacy library and new emergent behavior regarding mobile device user agents with iframes

September

2023-09

Coordinated a micro-project to enable Figma SSO
- Reviewed the Figma SSO documentation
- Created SAML client with AzureAD to interface with Figma SSO
- Created basic onboarding documentation that accommodates technical and non-technical user personas
- Outlined communication plan with internal user base

Assisted team with a critical incident where emails previously sent in a time window were re-sent to internal and external addresses
- Attempted to review queue graphs
- Coordinated stopping service traffic by turning off ingress policies temporarily
- Coordinated stopping service queue processing by scaling subscriber pods to zero temporarily
- Saved screenshots, logs, samples for future analysis and postmoretem
During postmortem, provided details and mitigation suggestions for future incidents

Released an initial 1.0.0 version of the Cloudflare cache purging tool based in Go

In anticipation of engineering support team members rolling off, programmatically opened issues in over 200+ repositories alerting teams
- Issues provides details on circumstances and further instructions for self service resolution

Contributed new user interface with basic HTML, CSS (no JS) to an internal landing page, increasing usability and reinforcing branding

Deployed to production, for portal for portals gateway
- Tested various reverse proxy configurations in collaboration with partner teams validating in-sync cutover
- Reduced coupling between legacy systems
- Used modern implementation of frontend libraries, packages (Next 13, React 18)

August

2023-08

Analyzing existing Okta workflows, typically implemented with a non-OIDC pattern, created a prototype for Authorization Code Flow with PKCE in our tenant and configuration
- Provided three approaches to log in
- Seamless redirect to Sign in Page
- Click-to-act custom layout
- Sign in Widget
Leveraging potential refresh token rotation, adding longer lived client side "sessions" to increase usability
Documentation failure conditions for this approach
Looking at opportunities to reduce dependence on third party cookies

Helped a new team establish their frontend and backend
- Backend stack: Node, Express
- Frontend stack: Vite, TypeScript, React
Team was able to deploy frontend and backend within two days

Dependency upgrades for various services
- Upgrading base images for docker node images
- Upgrading node dependencies to reduce CVE surface area
Redeployed services to keep deployment cycle time low

Planned promotion to production from stage, for portal for portals gateway
- Sketched out timeline
- Sent teams chat based and issue based notifications for pre-deployment confirmations
- Acquired credentials for testing purposes
Finalized deployment image
- Added production specific environment variables
- Upgraded dependencies for August prior to launch

July

2023-07

Produced initial draft of materials for platform roadshow
- Providing examples of what the platform is typically or historically thought-of-as, and what we should think about it today
- Providing examples of capabilities the platform offers relative to other neighbor platforms

Created a proof of concept for migrating a tightly coupled frontend user interface out of a proprietary hosting solution and onto to general purpose infrastructure
- Used nginx as an image base
- Created general routing rules to match the existing format intended for drop-in-replacement
- Generated the SPA-bundle using the in-house solution
- Used string transform commands (sed) to globally replace hardcoded strings that should have been environment variables
- Due to limitations with a user information service network connectivity, implemented a /api_gateway reverse proxy through nginx to the underlying deployment
- Demonstrated proof of concept to team and was warmly received

Helped migrate old platform documentation repository into a new clean repository while maintaining history
- Added new deploy preview feature so that casual contributors can easily see their contributions in-situ before merge
- Re-enabled issues for the documentation repository so requests for additional documentation and clarifications can be made and tracked
- Re-aligned on naming conventions for dns
- Re-aligned on internal and public team naming conventions
- Added emoji where necessary

Received prevailing organizational goals and adopted their broad themes across general working activities
- Contributed to the Security findings goal and Stability goals

Graciously accepted tickets to React Summit 2023 in New York
Began planning conference trip and vacation for November

June

2023-06

Began initial testing for bulk migrations of repositories out of a centralized GH Organization into product oriented GH Organizations
- Created mock organizations
- Created mock repositories in various configurations (with, without, tags, branches, issues, secrets, special settings, etc)
- Using a previously built automated migration script, tested and documented results
- Wrote top level guide and presented easy to read FAQ to participating teams

Continued refinement of the Cloudflare cache purging tool based in Go using feedback from a fulltime Go software engineer

Published an early preview of the open source re-implementation (of the ui that was previously in Elm)
- Presented work at a joint hackathon
- Showcased our port; being 1-to-1.3̅3̅3̅ rather than 1-to-1
- Wrote a proposal aiming to build a broader consensus

Introduced my new internal /todo scheme, where my work-at-work is more transparent and more accessible using a simple Github Projects board to manage and share; with columns for…
- 📜 Backlog: where all ideas and tasks begin and most likely stay
- 🧑‍⚖️ Advising: consulting, evangelism, architecture, advice
- 🤔 Consideration: thinking about, possibly prototyping
- 📧 Delivery: writing code, intended for delivery
- 🎉 Fun: activities that are fun
- ✅ Done: "file's done"

May

2023-05

Promoted rebuild of portal for portals gateway into stage environment to begin long term soak test
- Triaged breaking changes in consumed packages
- Triaged incoming bug reports based on internal usage (dogfooding)
- Integrated analytics package
- Integrated datadog rum package

Rebuilt, for the third time, a Cloudflare cache purging tool in Go
- Previous iterations were in Rust; which while perfectly powerful as a solution, was quite overkill and our ecosystem is not generally proficient in rust
- Previous iterations were in TypeScript: which while certainly capable as a solution, was not aligned to most of our ecosystem's traditional infra-oriented tooling stack

Began working on an open source alternative implementation of a frontend user interface that was previously implemented in Elm
- Recognized that Elm has a small community and small ecosystem
- Exploring a stack comprised of TypeScript, React & Vite and other ecosystem tooling that is more accessible for casual contribution from typical webapp software engineers
- Re-implemented majority of read-only workflows
- Many polishing opportunities remain

Helped technical writer compose content for tutorials on Static Websites with Vite and WebApps with Next

Attended Open Source North 2023 in beautiful Saint Paul, Minnesota at the lovely Saint Thomas University campus
- Saw many current and old friends in person at the event
- Watched a bunch of great talks and presentations from various presenters, highlights on disaster recovery, platform engineering approaches, and more

April

2023-04

Began working full-time at Cargill
- Assumed formal title of Lead Software Engineer and socialized title of Enabler-in-Chief

April

2023-04

Helped document a friction logging process for an Email API service platform offering
- Used a markdown based worksheet
- Narrated the actions and thoughts while going through the documentation and performing the steps
- Added clear markers on segments that were low and high friction

Continued facilitating a potential connection with a client team for technical writing

Continued direct report 1:1s

Resigned from Daugherty
- After 7 years and 24 days at Daugherty, I resigned
- I grew up at Daugherty; it's a great company and place to work

March

2023-03

Finalizing rebuild of portal for portals gateway
- Promoted builds int environment
- Began soft testing new builds in stage during low traffic periods

Helped stub out a new application with Rapid Application Development (RAD) techniques
- Bootstrapped codebase with vite with react-ts
- Based on existing mockups, stubbed out placeholder screens with basic one level routing with React Router
- Based on existing mockups, stubbed out basic navigation ui with themed mui components
- Stubbed out extremely basic datasets using faker with a seed for stability, to tell a story with the screens
- Setup deployment so stakeholders could interact with the app easily

Continued facilitating a potential connection with a client team for technical writing

Continued direct report 1:1s

Traveled to South Carolina to work remote-remotely
Working at home

February

2023-02

Continued rebuilding portal for portals gateway
- Tested portal-to-portal workflow
- Gathered per-environmental configuration values from various sources
- Setup deployment pipelines for the six environments, eng, dev, qa, int, stage and prod to provide an environment for engineering team, plus the standard environments for customers
- Customized next.config.js, augmenting environment variables for build info (commit, time, number, env)
- Began setting the standard analytics package integration for customer facing websites and apps
- Promoted builds from eng environment to dev, and then qa environments

Began facilitating a potential connection with a client team for technical writing

Continued direct report 1:1s

Working at home

January

2023-01

Began rebuilding portal for portals gateway with Next, Material
- Re-implemented core pages
- Re-implemented various content widgets
- Re-implemented Okta token exchange pattern
- Implemented a safe Okta bridge with Next
- Setup various portions for other team members as scaffolding
Celebrated sister team's milestone achievement; migration off of legacy hosting solution
- Providing advice and scaffolding to the team as they migration off of legacy implementation solution

As an emergency hotfix, rebuilt an email integration in a maintenance mode service
- Existing service used decommissioned smtp provider
- Rewrote application's email abstraction to use new provider
- Integrated with AzureAD for Client Credentials authentication

Continued direct report 1:1s

Working at home

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