Author Image

Hello! I am James Ray

James Ray

Site Reliability Engineer at Marathon Health

Starting as a self taught programmer I have pushed myself daily and am not passionate about DevOps Ideals such as CI/CD, IaC, and automation. I love programming and solving any issue that I see.

Google Cloud Certified Professional Cloud Architect
AWS
GCP
Terraform
Docker
Ansible
Python
CI/CD
Linux
DevOps
Git
PHP
MySQL
JavaScript
Packer

Skills

Active Directory (AD)

Experience with Active Directory administration and management.

Agile Methodology

Experienced with Agile development practices and methodologies.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Extensive experience with AWS cloud services and infrastructure.

AWS Administration

Administration and management of AWS resources and services.

Bash Scripting

Proficient in writing bash scripts for automation and system administration.

Boomi AtomSphere

Experience with Boomi integration platform.

CI/CD

Design and implementation of continuous integration and deployment pipelines.

CircleCI

Experience with CircleCI for automated testing and deployment.

Cloud Network Architecture

Designing and implementing cloud network architectures.

Cloud Networking

Experience with cloud networking concepts and implementation.

Cost Optimization

Expertise in cloud cost optimization and resource management.

Cross-Functional Teamwork

Strong collaboration skills across different teams and departments.

DevOps

Comprehensive DevOps practices including automation, monitoring, and deployment.

Docker
Docker

Containerization of applications and services using Docker.

Freshdesk

Experience with Freshdesk customer support platform.

Git
Git

Experienced with git-based development and version control systems.

GitHub

Proficient with GitHub for code collaboration and project management.

GitHub Actions

Experience with GitHub Actions for CI/CD automation.

GitHub Copilot

Utilization of AI-powered coding assistance tools.

Git Operations

Advanced Git operations including branching, merging, and conflict resolution.

Google Cloud Platform

Experience with GCP services and cloud infrastructure.

Grafana

Monitoring and observability using Grafana dashboards.

Hashicorp Packer

Automated image building and management with Packer.

Incident Resolution

Experience in incident response and resolution processes.

Incident Response

Leading incident response processes and root cause analysis.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Implementation and management of IaaS solutions.

Infrastructure Monitoring

Comprehensive infrastructure monitoring and alerting.

Linux
Linux

Using as the main operating system. Capable of writing bash/shell scripts.

Microsoft Windows

Administration and support of Windows-based systems.

Peer Mentoring

Mentoring junior engineers and team members.

Python (Programming Language)

Development and automation using Python.

Red Hat Ansible

Infrastructure automation and configuration management with Ansible.

Root Cause Analysis (RCA)

Conducting thorough root cause analysis for incidents and issues.

Scrum

Experience with Scrum methodology and practices.

Single Sign-On (SSO)

Implementation and management of SSO solutions.

Systems Reliability

Ensuring high availability and reliability of systems.

Tableau Server

Administration and management of Tableau Server.

Terraform

Infrastructure as Code using Terraform for cloud resource management.

Recent Posts

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From Terraform to the AWS CDK: Weighing the Pros and Cons

If you’ve been following my blog, you know that I’m a huge fan of Terraform. HashiCorp’s declarative configuration language has been my go‑to tool for provisioning everything from S3 buckets to complex Kubernetes clusters. Recently, however, I’ve been dabbling with the AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK), which lets you define cloud resources using familiar programming languages like TypeScript, Python and Java. In this post we’ll examine some of the reasons teams consider migrating from Terraform to the CDK and discuss the trade‑offs involved.

Monday, October 20, 2025 Read
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Reflections on Eight Weeks of Writing

At the beginning of August I set a goal: publish a blog post every week for eight weeks. I’ve never managed to maintain a consistent writing schedule before, so this was a personal challenge as much as a professional one. Now that the eighth post is live, I want to look back at what worked, what didn’t and where I’m headed next. Highlights Planning helps. I drafted a content calendar at the start of the experiment. Knowing what topic I was going to tackle each week reduced decision fatigue and prevented last‑minute scrambles. Mixing personal and technical content keeps things fresh. Some weeks I wrote about Terraform modules and serverless architectures; other weeks I opened up about mental health and life updates. This balance kept me engaged and seemed to resonate with readers. Learning by teaching. Writing posts like the Terraform vs CDK comparison forced me to articulate why I choose certain tools. Explaining concepts solidified my own understanding and uncovered gaps in my knowledge. Challenges Time management. Even with planning, writing a thoughtful post takes time—often more than I expected. There were nights when I questioned whether anyone would care if I skipped a week. (Spoiler: someone always notices!) Imposter syndrome. Hitting publish is scary. Sharing opinions on infrastructure or talking about personal struggles invites judgement. I had to remind myself that my perspective has value and that vulnerability fosters connection. Looking ahead Blogging weekly has reignited my passion for writing. I intend to continue posting regularly, though I may switch to a bi‑weekly cadence to allow deeper dives into complex topics. Upcoming ideas include a series on Kubernetes networking, an exploration of Rust for infrastructure tooling and maybe even a few guest posts from colleagues.

Monday, October 13, 2025 Read
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Designing a Serverless Real-Time Chat with AWS WebSockets

I want a clean, feasible plan for building a real-time chat service on AWS. Just an architecture I can deploy, test, and iterate on. Goals Real time. Messages appear for all clients in the same room. Serverless scale. Handle spikes without manual intervention. Cost aware. Pay only when used. Simple to operate. Clear metrics, alarms, and dead-letter handling. Architecture Core pieces Amazon API Gateway WebSocket API Routes: $connect, $disconnect, $default, and sendMessage. AWS Lambda

Monday, October 13, 2025 Read

Accomplishments

Unified Modeling Language (UML): Complete Guide & Examples
Udemy April 27, 2018

An online course to Learn how to read UML diagrams, interpret every UML notation and build them using practical examples.

View Certificate
Automate the Boring Stuff with Python Programming
Udemy May 21, 2020

A practical programming course for office workers, academics, and administrators who want to improve their productivity.

View Certificate

Projects

Docker Full Stack
Owner Nov. 2018

A serverless Video Service website

hobby cloud aws serverless terraform
Star
TFLint AWS ruleset
Member Jul. 2021

TFLint ruleset plugin for Terraform AWS Provider

professional cloud aws terraform
Star
Docker Full Stack
Owner Nov. 2018

Full Web Stack W\ Docker

hobby cloud aws docker
Star
Laravel PHP Docker
Owner Nov. 2018

A preinstalled laravel docker image

professional cloud docker
Star

Experiences

1
Marathon Health

Sept. 2021 - Present

Remote

Unmatched Access to Employer-Sponsored Healthcare

Site Reliability Engineer

June 2022 - Present

Responsibilities:
  • Designed and maintained scalable CI/CD pipelines in AWS using Terraform, Ansible, CircleCI, GitHub Actions, and Python, streamlining deployment and reducing manual intervention.
  • Led the operational management of containerized workloads, leveraging ECS and Docker, including resource alerting, auto-scaling, and rollout strategies.
  • Collaborated with engineering and product teams to define infrastructure requirements and deploy environments across Dev, QA, Staging, and Production, ensuring adherence to compliance standards such as HIPAA and SOC2.
  • Improved infrastructure observability by integrating and tuning performance monitoring and alerting solutions to proactively respond to system degradation.
  • Partnered with the security and compliance teams to support the implementation of IAM controls and secure secrets management within production pipelines.
  • Supported the incident response process, leading root cause analysis and contributing to postmortems that improved future resilience and reduced MTTR.
  • Drove adoption of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) practices and mentored junior engineers on best practices, Terraform state management, and modularization.
  • Collaborated with VP of IT Ops and Core Engineering to align infrastructure priorities with evolving business and product needs.
  • Contributed to strategic planning of internal platform initiatives by providing operational insight into scalability, cost optimization, and infrastructure modernization.
DevOps Engineer

Sept. 2021 - June 2022

Responsibilities:
  • Implemented cloud infrastructure solutions in AWS, focusing on modular, version-controlled Terraform configurations to manage ECS, VPC, IAM, and CloudWatch.
  • Maintained production reliability through proactive cost monitoring, right-sizing, and automating usage alerts for compute and storage resources.
  • Collaborated cross-functionally with the InfoSec team to enforce secure design patterns during third-party vendor integrations and internal deployments.
  • Contributed to foundational CI/CD architecture used company-wide by development teams, improving delivery consistency and reducing deployment friction.
  • Documented operational runbooks, onboarding guides, and process automation steps to standardize team workflows and reduce tribal knowledge dependencies.
Five-Star Technology Solutions

Feb. 2017 - Sept. 2021

Remote

Helping schools create awesome learning experiences for kids!

DevOps Engineer

Nov. 2020 - Sept. 2021

Responsibilities:
  • Designed, deployed, and maintained cloud-native services using AWS and GCP, with Terraform-driven Infrastructure as Code to enforce repeatable, version-controlled deployments.
  • Led the containerization of application environments using Docker, enabling consistent local development and streamlining CI/CD testing pipelines.
  • Architected and enforced CI/CD pipelines in both AWS and GCP to support automated testing, secure deployments, and production rollouts with rollback capabilities.
  • Developed monitoring and cost-optimization alerts to proactively manage cloud resource usage across production environments.
  • Collaborated with multiple departments to define DevOps adoption strategies and mentored engineering teams on IaC best practices, observability, and secure service provisioning.
  • Conducted platform-level operational reviews, identifying opportunities to reduce toil through Ansible automation and streamlined deployment scripts.
  • Participated in postmortems and root cause analysis for production incidents, contributing improvements to infrastructure stability and monitoring coverage.
Applications Developer

Feb. 2017 - Nov. 2020

Responsibilities:
  • Designed and developed a custom data warehouse to centralize and report on education-based metrics used across multiple school districts.
  • Built and maintained full-stack applications in a fast-paced Agile environment using PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript (ES6).
  • Integrated REST APIs and batch-processing ETL pipelines to sync and transform large datasets across districts and platforms.
  • Provided SWAT support for business-critical software, triaging high-impact issues and coordinating fixes under pressure.
  • Partnered with stakeholders to gather requirements and deliver iterative improvements, balancing technical debt and business value.
  • Championed internal DevOps initiatives, including modernizing legacy deployment methods and piloting containerized dev/test environments.
  • Assisted with onboarding of new developers by documenting system architecture and guiding them through CI/CD workflows and environment setup.
2
3
Roosevelt Water Conservation District

Aug. 2015 - Mar. 2016

Remote

Contracts with Roosevelt Water Conservation District to build and support their website.

Contractual Web Developer

Aug. 2015 - Mar. 2016

Responsibilities:
  • Contracted to modernize and support the district’s internal and external web presence using the Yii Framework (PHP MVC).
  • Designed and implemented a custom ticket tracking system, streamlining internal support requests and resolution tracking.
  • Led the successful data migration from legacy hosting environments to a new web server, ensuring minimal downtime and validating data integrity throughout the cutover.
  • Reverse-engineered and modified a legacy Java program to convert Microsoft Access data into usable CSV exports for web integration.
  • Integrated front-end components with dynamic back-end functionality using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, PHP, and MySQL.
  • Identified and addressed system vulnerabilities and deprecated dependencies, improving long-term maintainability and operational resilience.
  • Documented deployment and migration processes to support knowledge transfer and future scalability.
Allen Haws

Mar. 2015 - Aug. 2015

Gilbert, Arizona

Sub Contracted with Allen for work with RWCD.

Contractual Web Developer

Mar. 2015 - Aug. 2015

Responsibilities:
  • Provided web development using Yii Framework.
  • Worked with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JQUERY, PHP, and MySQL.
  • Designed and implemented a ETL import process for CSV files.
  • Provided Proof Of Concepts on project designs.
  • Fixed various bugs from previous developer.
4
5
Taversia Borrelli

Sept. 2013 - Jan. 2016

Bloomington, Indiana

Contracts with Taversia for personal website.

Contractual Web Developer

Sept. 2013 - Jan. 2016

Responsibilities:
  • Programmed website based on client’s needs.
  • Developed home, gallery, credits pages, and more.
  • Worked with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JQUERY, PHP, and MySQL.
Clean Router (formerly Pandora's Hope)

Feb. 2014 - Dec. 2014

Mesa, Arizona

The Clean Router allows parents to manage all of the devices in the house. It controls everything connected to your home WiFi.

Freelance Web Developer

Feb. 2014 - Dec. 2014

Responsibilities:
  • Developed user interface, back end functionality, and interaction for routers.
  • Worked with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JQUERY, JSON, and PHP.
  • Worked with Linux based systems.
  • Diagnosed, reported, and fixed errors and bugs.
6
7
Support.com

Sept. 2013 - Feb. 2014

Redwood City, California

Transformative Customer & Technical Support Solutions

Remote Service Technician

Sept. 2013 - Feb. 2014

Responsibilities:
  • Supported customers with internet modems and routers.
  • Provided support over phone and remote connection.
  • Remote connection diagnostics on Windows OS and Mac OS machines.