Matthew Headlee

DevOps Engineer • Linux Specialist • Technical Educator
Salt Lake City, UT • • LinkedIn • 0x65D58A55

Projects

I've been working with Linux systems since the late nineties, back when getting X11 to work was an accomplishment. What started as curiosity about this "free Unix" has turned into a career I genuinely enjoy—building infrastructure, automating deployments, and helping teams ship software reliably.

These days I focus on DevOps and platform engineering: Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure-as-Code, and all the tooling that keeps modern applications running. I've worked with companies ranging from startups to enterprises, managing everything from small clusters to global server fleets.

I also spend time teaching. There's something satisfying about explaining complex systems in ways that click for people, whether that's in a classroom or helping teammates level up their skills.

What I Do Well

Infrastructure & Platform Engineering

  • Building and managing Kubernetes clusters in production
  • Designing CI/CD pipelines that teams actually enjoy using
  • Infrastructure-as-Code with Terraform, Ansible, and friends
  • Making systems observable with proper monitoring and logging
  • High availability setups that survive real-world failures

Teaching & Knowledge Sharing

I've taught Linux and DevOps topics to a few thousand people over the years—everyone from military folks to enterprise teams. I enjoy breaking down complex topics and creating hands-on labs that actually teach something useful.

Technical Skills

Containers & Orchestration

  • Kubernetes (production clusters, operators, CRDs)
  • Docker, Podman, containerd
  • Helm charts and package management
  • Service mesh (Istio, Linkerd)

Cloud & Infrastructure

  • AWS (EKS, EC2, RDS, S3, Lambda)
  • Azure (AKS, VMs)
  • GCP (GKE, Compute)
  • Terraform, Pulumi, CloudFormation

CI/CD & Automation

  • GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, Jenkins
  • ArgoCD, Flux (GitOps)
  • Ansible, Puppet, Chef
  • Bash, Python, Go scripting

Linux & Systems

  • RHEL, Ubuntu, Debian, SUSE
  • Red Hat Satellite, Foreman
  • High availability clustering
  • Storage: LVM, ZFS, Ceph, GlusterFS

Observability

  • Prometheus, Grafana
  • ELK/EFK Stack
  • Distributed tracing (Jaeger)
  • DataDog, CloudWatch

Security & Compliance

  • Vault secrets management
  • Certificate automation
  • Security scanning & hardening
  • SOC 2, PCI DSS compliance

Experience

DevOps Engineering Manager 2023 — Present
SalesRabbit
  • Leading a team of 8 DevOps engineers supporting 50+ microservices in production
  • Managing Kubernetes infrastructure across AWS and Azure
  • Reduced deployment times from hours to minutes with improved CI/CD pipelines
  • Cut cloud costs by about 40% through rightsizing and better resource management
  • Implemented monitoring and alerting that actually catches problems early
  • Helped the team achieve SOC 2 Type II compliance
  • Mentoring engineers and building a team culture that doesn't suck
Senior DevOps Engineer 2021 — 2023
SalesRabbit
  • Built out the Kubernetes platform that runs all our services
  • Migrated applications from old infrastructure to containerized deployments
  • Set up GitLab CI pipelines with proper testing and security scanning
  • Wrote Terraform modules to manage infrastructure across environments
  • Worked with dev teams to containerize applications the right way
  • Set up backup and disaster recovery processes
Linux Systems Consultant 2014 — 2021
Red Hat Consulting Services & Headwaters Group
  • Consulting work for enterprise clients in finance, healthcare, and retail
  • Implemented Red Hat Satellite, OpenShift, and high-availability clusters
  • Built automation for deployments and configuration management
  • Designed disaster recovery solutions for mission-critical systems
  • Taught client teams how to maintain what we built
Linux Systems Instructor 2010 — 2021
Guru Labs
  • Taught Linux, Kubernetes, Docker, and related topics to a few thousand students
  • Clients included military agencies, government contractors, and enterprises
  • Developed curriculum and hands-on labs from scratch
  • Kept courses updated as technology evolved
  • Helped train other instructors
Senior Systems Administrator 2007 — 2010
ListMarketer
  • Managed 800+ servers across 15 countries for email marketing platform
  • Built automated deployment system using Kickstart and custom scripts
  • Led support team doing 24/7 operations
  • Set up monitoring and alerting to catch issues before customers noticed
  • Worked with devs to optimize application performance

Certifications

Red Hat Certified System Administrator (RHCSA) Verify
CompTIA Linux+ Certified Professional Verify
Linux Professional Institute Certification (LPIC-1) Verify
Novell Certified Linux Administrator