Resume

Resume: Thomas L. Kula
        kula@tproa.net
        kula.tproa.net/resume/
        PGP Key Fingerprint: 9A43 21E9 8276 CC56 6B15
	                     0136 5E07 A06E 81C0 4D0E

Interest: Quickly and deeply understanding complex technologies to
          help others understand and adopt pragmatic solutions to
          challenging problems

Work Experience
2024 -  Now: Sr. Staff Solutions Architect
2022 - 2024: Sr. Staff Solutions Engineer
2019 - 2022: Staff Solutions Engineer
2018 - 2019: Sr. Solutions Engineer
             HashiCorp

	     Solutions engineer on an internal team building material
	     to support field solutions engineers across our organization.
	     Demonstrated a strong ability to communicate the value of our
	     enterprise software to developers, networking, operations, and
	     security teams as well as all levels of management and
	     leadership. Familiar with related technologies and how they
	     interoperate to provide a complete solution to customers.

             Responsible for developing training for internal staff,
             leading multiple workshops both internally and for
             customers/opportunities from small groups into marketing
             workshops numbering in the hundreds. Worked with several
             large customers across a variety of verticals to develop
             PoC plans for their internal testing, setting a standard
             for PoC plan comprehensiveness.

             Independently discovered and successfully advocated for the
             publication and fixing of CVE-2021-32574. Discovered
             HCSEC-2022-20/CVE-2022-40716.

             Familiar with all of the HashiCorp suite and how they
             inter-operate, primarily focused on Consul, with another key
	     strength being HashiCorp Vault. When serving as a field
	     solutions engineer I led several large workshops, both in
	     person and online, public and for customers, covering Consul,
	     Vault and Terraform. Assisted in authoring major cloud
	     assessments and serivce mesh architectural design for a
	     Fortune 50 company. Experienced in all phases of the sales
	     journey, from discovery, to technical validation, proof-of-
	     value and proof-of-concept execution, and setting up post-sales
	     success and eventual expansion.

	     Deep experience in the Instruqt learning platform, from
	     creating and maintaining tracks, managing the platform, and
	     automating workflows via the Instruqt GraphQL API. Deep
	     experience with GitHub actions.

             * Emerging Products SE of the Year 2022
             * HashiCorp Sales Club 2022
             * Americas SE of the Quarter 2020Q2
             * North America - NY Metro MVP 2020Q1
             * Americas Enterprise East SE of the Quarter 2020Q1
             * Americas SE of the Quarter 2020Q1

	     Major projects listed below.


2014 - 2018: Senior Systems Engineer
	     Systems Engineer
             Technical Operations Team
             Birchbox, Inc

	     Work on a small team providing core infrastructure and
	     office IT support for the company. Technologies include
	     Debian Linux, Docker, Mesos/Marathon, Varnish, Apache,
	     Nginx, Haproxy, Consul, Java JRE, memcached, RabbitMQ and
	     others. Moving legacy Chef infrastructure to Salt Stack.
	     Providing storage using FreeNAS, identity management with
	     Kerberos/OpenLDAP. Experience managing Juniper network
	     equipment/JunOS, bare metal switches with Cumulus Linux,
	     and Meru wireless controllers. Experience in automating
	     workflows in AWS, with particular focus on IAM management
	     and security. Acting as technical lead for our ongoing PCI
	     Compliance efforts.


	     Major projects listed below.


2011 - 2014: Senior Systems Engineer
             Libraries Information Technology Office, The Libraries
	     Columbia University in the City of New York

	     Part of a small team responsible for Linux systems
	     providing core infrastructure and web hosting for various 
	     Libraries sites and services. Management of CentOS systems 
	     primarily as Xen hosted VMs, using Salt Stack, maintaining 
	     LAMP, Tomcat and Rails infrastructure, monitoring using 
	     Graphite. Developing scripts for systems management and 
	     monitoring, user administration and general system 
	     administration, primarily in Python. Wrote a Python module 
	     to aid in managing users and groups on Atlassian Confluence. 
	     Developed and wrote a more robust MySQL backup system. 
	     Redesigned and rewrote a script to synchronize local files
	     to HSI storage provided by a partner school.  Experience in
	     web authentication systems, kerberization of services, 
	     building systems with ZeroMQ, and packaging software for use 
	     with RPM/Yum. Worked with central IT staff to provision 
	     storage (SAN and NAS) and to interface with various central 
	     services, including LDAP and legacy user management systems. 

	     Started as Systems Engineer, was promoted to Senior Systems
	     Engineer in 2013. 

	     Major projects are described below.


2010 - 2011: Client/Server Programmer Senior
             Information and Technology Services
	     University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

             An extension of the next listing, with a different job
	     title (following a reorganization) and at the senior
	     level. 


2008 - 2010: Software Engineer Intermediate
	     Information and Technology Services
	     University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

	     An extension of the next listing, with more development
	     responsibilities. Working on several mid-sized projects
	     primarily in Perl and C, working on a team responsible for
	     interfacing a large identity management system with the
	     services our group provides. Major work on provisioning
	     automation, monitoring and robustness testing of the 
	     department CIFS offering. An emphasis on developing systems 
	     that are robust, scalable and secure, and on providing
	     services that delegate administrative authority to select
	     groups of people with corresponding vetting and auditing.
	     Areas of focus include functional and load testing of
	     systems.  Performed Kerberos database password audits,
	     ongoing involvement in TSM operation, planning and design.

	     Major projects are described in detail below.


2006 - 2008: System Administrator Intermediate
	     Information and Technology Services
	     University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

	     Served on the group responsible for campus-wide Kerberos
	     and AFS file service, general-purpose and statistics
	     Unix computing services. Responsibilities required being
	     able to understand and use these technologies at an
	     intermediate to high level of understanding, work 
	     independently and with co-workers, campus IT providers
	     and end-users to diagnose and solve problems as well
	     as helping others use the services properly. Extensive
	     experience administering systems using Radmind. Also
	     served as part of the group responsible for U-M
	     hostmaster services using ISC bind and dhcpd, requiring 
	     a solid understanding of DNS and being able to help campus 
	     IT providers as well as non-savvy end users utilize that 
	     service.

	     Implemented the new campus TSM service and served as
	     part of the team moving clients from the old AIX-based
	     TSM service to the new service (see Projects below).


2006 - 2006: Systems Administrator
	     Information Technology Services
	     Iowa State University, Ames, IA

	     Split responsibilities between OS X lab deployment and
	     AFS/backup administration.

	     Designed and implemented OS X lab deployment system
	     using NetRestore and custom installation/configuration
	     scripts. 

	     Assist in maintaining Teradactyl TiBS backup system,
	     providing backup services for the ISU AFS cell and
	     various other central servers. Testing new AFS file servers
	     and clients. Other assorted Unix administration tasks,
	     primarily Red Hat Enterprise Linux and NetBSD.

	     Continuing duties in print queue creation, greylisting
	     and e-mail problems, short course development, Linux
	     lab development.


2001 - 2006: System Support Specialist
             Information Technology Services
	     Iowa State University, Ames, IA

	     Provided technical support as part of Iowa State's central IT
	     help desk. Specialized in OS X and Unix support, supporting
	     central Kerberos and AFS services, and VPN support. Primary 
	     contact for creation of central print queues. First contact 
	     for e-mail greylisting problems. Responsible for creating 
	     documentation and FAQs for end-user support, and developing
	     parts of a series of short courses on Unix use and system
	     administration. Miscellaneous other training.

	     Projects include Linux Localization and developing a general
	     purpose Linux lab. 


Leadership

2011 - 2015: Trevorspace/Ask Trevor/Trevor NextGen NYC Volunteer
             The Trevor Project, New York City

	     Volunteer in various capacities with the Trevor Project, which
	     provides suicide prevention and crisis intervention services
	     to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth
	     to 24 years of age. Trained as a Ask Trevor author, answering
	     letters submitted by youth to the Ask Trevor web site and as
	     a Trevorspace administrator, monitoring Trevorspace, the Trevor
	     Project's safe social networking site for youth. Also work with
	     Trevor NextGen NYC, a group of young volunteers in New York 
	     City that does projects, programming, community outreach and
	     fund raising for the Trevor Project.

2010 - 2011: Member, Non-Motorized Transportation Advisory Committee
             City of Ypsilanti, Michigan

             A committee of the city Planning Commission, serving to help
	     implement the city non-motorized transportation plan through
	     research and recommendations to the Planning Commission.

2009 - 2011: Member, Board of Directors
             Ypsilanti Food Cooperative

	     Along with the other directors work closely with the co-op
	     general manger to represent the member-owners of the cooperative,
	     provide oversight, strategic planning and long-term goal
	     making for the cooperative. Developed a basic understanding
	     of financial statements and local, state and federal laws 
	     affecting both a cooperative and a grocery store.


Education

 2000: Drake University, Des Moines, IA
       Bachelor of Science
       Majors: Computer Science and Mathematics

Certifications

 2020: Vault Associate Exam Contributor
       HashiCorp, Inc
       Issued: 15 April 2020
       Expires: 15 April 2022
       https://www.youracclaim.com/badges/05634cec-d942-4278-9d43-ed214a5f0f09

       Earners of the HashiCorp Certified: Vault Associate Exam Contributor
       certification have contributed significantly to building the HashiCorp
       Vault Associate exam. These subject matter experts are the cloud
       engineers who helped build and maintain this exam.

       This person has completed one or more of the following: 1) Has written
       at least 10 accepted questions, 2) Has reviewed at least 20 questions,
       and 3) Was a significant contributor to the exam role scope

Major Projects:

       2023: CircleCI to GitHub Actions Migration

             As part of an organization-wide move to GitHub Actions
	     migrated nearly 30 repositories for the Solutions Engineering
	     team, starting with knowing essentially nothing about GHA.
	     Migrated repositories with multiple inter-related jobs and
	     dependencies, integrated with HashiCorp Vault and Slack
	     notifications.

	     Examples of migrations can be found at:

	     https://github.com/hashicorp/field-workshops-consul/pull/206
	     https://github.com/hashicorp/field-workshops-vault/pull/95
	     https://github.com/hashicorp/field-workshops-terraform/pull/362
	     https://github.com/hashicorp/field-workshops-nomad/pull/147

2016 - 2018: PCI Compliance Efforts

             Acting as technical lead for all of our PCI DSS compliance
	     efforts, working closely with a project manager and all
	     business units to maintain and move to a higher level of
	     PCI compliance. Working familiarity with PCI DSS 3.2, working
	     with ASVs and QSAs. Primarily responsible for all PCI-mandated
	     documentation, and driving the design process for isolating
	     production payments systems and our cardholder-data environment.
	     Acting as local technical expert on PCI DSS requirements and
	     how they affect all business units. Deep experience in particular
	     on designing and changing the technical infrastructure and
	     business operations of a maturing startup business.

       2017: London Office Buildout

             Coordinated the IT aspects of our London office moving locations.
	     Worked closely with buildout contractor to design and specify
	     layout of "comms closet" and ethernet drops throughout office.
	     Picked network gateway and switching equipment, designed office
	     network, and worked closely with contractor, building facilities
	     and network providers to install fibre network service.
	     Implemented backup ad-hoc solution to overcome delay in incumbent
	     fibre provider delivery date. On-site for six days to physically
	     install all networking equipment, implementing last-minute
	     solutions to problems inherent in all buildouts. Passing
	     familiarity with UK telecommunications providers and wayleave
	     process.

2015 - 2016: Internal File Services

             Worked as part of a team migrating company Dropbox usage to
	     either Google Docs or, for specialized needs, a FreeNAS
	     cluster. Engineered FreeNAS system, including integration
	     with corporate OpenLDAP directory for CIFS login. Responsible
	     for hardware selection and engineering snapshot policies and
	     replication between sites.

2013 - 2014: Ad-hoc storage service

             Developing a mid-tier 'ad-hoc' storage service to provide a
             level of network storage above 'disks thrown in random
             machines' but not requiring expensive preservation storage.
             Engineering a solution using two systems running FreeNAS
             replicated across campus.

2013 - 2014: Implementation and Migration to Isilon Storage Cluster

             Working with an outside vendor, planned and implemented
	     the installation of a two-site Isilon storage cluster. 
	     Worked with data center and networking staff for appropriate
	     resources, researched and created appropriate replication
	     policies, and implemented monitoring and statistics gathering.
	     Worked with other groups within the libraries to plan the
	     migration and cutover of their data from an older storage
	     system to this cluster. Developed process to sync contents
	     to a third site, using HSI storage obtained under a
	     partnership with Indiana University. 

2012 - 2014: Implementation of Monitoring using Graphite

             Installed the Graphite monitoring tool, including 
	     customization to protect the web front end behind a local
	     web authentication system. Developed or modified several
	     already existing scripts to stream various system and 
	     application metrics into Graphite. Wrote a Graphite relay
	     that publishes metrics on a ZeroMQ pub socket, and an
	     application that allows for watching metrics based on a
	     pattern. Wrote software to perform alerting based on 
	     metrics published in Graphite. 

2010 - 2011: Mainstream Storage

             Involved in several aspects of the ITS CIFS storage offering,
	     called "Mainstream Storage", using IBM re-branded NetApp 
	     gateways backed by an IBM SVC SAN.  Developed and executed 
	     comprehensive test plan to exercise and verify correctness of 
	     gateway cluster failover. Use the NetApp native API, ONTAPI, 
	     via Perl to work on automation of storage provisioning to 
	     clients. Patching ONTAPI perl interface to allow for gateway 
	     SSL certificate verification before sending administrative 
	     credentials. Development of Powershell over SSH to provision 
	     Windows-specific parts of the storage. Worked with other TSM 
	     team members to test use of NetApp/TSM snapdiff backups, and
	     develop workarounds when that does not work properly.

	     http://cvs.itd.umich.edu/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/storage/mainstream/

2009 - 2010: Kerberos and AFS identity provisioning

             Developed and tested software used by our Identity Management
	     system to provision Kerberos principals and AFS protection
	     identities. Based on remctl and written in Perl, replacing
	     similar software that was written in Java. As part of development
	     wrote extensive unit tests. As a security sensitive service,
	     focused on correctness and robustness, as a critical part of 
	     account provisioning focused on reliability. 

             http://cvs.itd.umich.edu/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/iaa/jkservices/

       2009: Kerberos Password Quality Plugin
            
             Using a locally modified plugin architecture for MIT Kerberos 1.6.2,
	     wrote, tested and deployed a plugin providing password quality
	     checking written in C and utilizing the cracklib library. As a plugin
	     embedded in the Kerberos administrative server, focused major effort
	     on ensuring security and robustness. Extensive testing with valgrind
	     to identify and eliminate resource exhaustion. Identified file
	     descriptor leaking in the cracklib code, developed deployment changes
	     to keep that from causing problems, and identified future code
	     changes to eliminate the problem. 

             As an auxiliary project, worked with our web development team to 
	     build a remctl-based backend that allowed the next generation of
	     the web password change page to provide near instant feedback
	     to users of the quality of a password as it is being typed. 

             http://cvs.itd.umich.edu/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/iaa/kadmind-pw-strength-plugin/
      
       2009: Group Home Directory Automation

             Developed a system to replace a highly-inefficient manual process
	     for provisioning AFS group home directories with an automated system
	     which allows end users to directly create them via a web interface.
	     Primarily responsible for the backend of the system, working with
	     the web development team to define a remctl-based interface used
	     by the web frontend. 

	     During testing phase, identified an as of yet unresolved issue
	     either in the Perl AFS modules or the AFS Rx package causing
	     spurious crashes. Developed work-around requiring re-design 
	     of the software to isolate various parts of the backend in 
	     independent sub-processes.

             http://cvs.itd.umich.edu/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/ifs/homedir/

2008 - 2009: Delegated User Disable Service

             Developed system to allow for User Advocate and Security
	     Services staff to have limited delegated access to disable
	     user Kerberos principals and to lock out access to user
	     AFS home directories. Extensive focus on auditing, both from
	     a security standpoint and for allowing support staff to identify
	     disabled users and who was responsible for the disabling. 

             http://cvs.itd.umich.edu/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/ifs/disableuser/

2007 - 2008: U-M ITS TSM service
             
	     Implementation of the new ITS Tivoli Storage Manager backup
	     service. Took specifications from outside consultant and
	     developed and implemented the new service, moving it from
	     a monolithic AIX-based service to a modular Linux-based
	     service. Developed loadset for the TSM servers, working to
	     implement kernel requirements, driver requirements for 
	     fibre channel cards and adapting TSM software to work and
	     be managed as part of a UMCE Linux distribution. Wrote
	     the bulk of the scripts used to manage the new system,
	     with the goal of allowing a modular and distributed
	     system, with many more machines than in the previous
	     service, to be managed effectively and allowing new
	     resources to be slotted in easily without requiring 
	     major changes in management. Worked as part of the team
	     maintaining the legacy and new TSM service and moving
	     clients to the new service. Continued involvement in
	     architecture and capacity planning.

Presentations
 2023: "Why You Should Use Vault as your Consul CA"
        Presented at HashiTalks 2023
	https://kula.tproa.net/lnt/2023/02/why-you-should-use-vault-as-your-consul-certificate-authority/

 2015: "Ship It! Containerizing your KDCs"
        Presented at the 2015 AFS and Kerberos Best Practices
        Workshop, Pittsburgh, PA
        https://kula.tproa.net/talks/afskbpw2015/afskbpw2015-kula.pdf

        A brief overview of containers, and how they can be used 
        to host kerberos KDCs.

 2010: "Managing Suck: Kerberos Password Quality at the University of
        Michigan"
        Presented at the 2010 AFS and Kerberos Best Practices
	determining, programmatically, what exactly is a bad password,
	as well as how password quality should fit into a broader
	security strategy. 

 2009: "Hacking AFS Dumps for Fun and Profit"
        Presented at the 2009 AFS and Kerberos Best Practices
        Workshop, Stanford University
        https://kula.tproa.net/talks/afskbpw2009/kula-afs-dumps-2009.pdf

        Using the information present in AFS volume dumps for useful
        purposes, and presenting rough code to use this, as well as an
        outline for future development.

 2008: "Introducing pyremctl, and a case study in using remctl"
        Presented at the 2008 AFS and Kerberos Best Practices 
        Workshop, New Jersey Institute of Technology
        http://workshop.openafs.org/afsbpw08/talks/thu_1/kula-pyremctl.pdf
        http://workshop.openafs.org/afsbpw08/talks/thu_1/kula-umich-remctl.pdf

        A brief overview of the Python remctl client library bindings, and 
        some case studies in the use of remctl at the University of Michigan.

 2007: "Xen as a Test Environment"
        Presented at the 2007 AFS and Kerberos Best Practices
	Workshop, Stanford University
	https://kula.tproa.net/talks/afsbpw2007/afsbpw2007-kula.pdf

	Using Xen para-virtualization as a test environment for
	Kerberos and AFS services.

 2006: "iRealm: Explorations in using OS X to provide AFS and Kerberos 
	Services"
	Presented at the 2006 AFS and Kerberos Best Practices
	Workshop, University of Michigan
        https://kula.tproa.net/talks/afsbpw2006

	Presentation on using OS X Server to provide AFS and Kerberos
	services. Step-by-step instructions on deploying AFS services
	on OS X Server, discussion of caveats and practicality of
	using OS X server to provide these services.

 2005: "NetBSD, AFS and Kerberos: From Zero to Distributed File
	System in N Easy Steps"
	Co-authored with Tracy Di Marco White, Iowa State University
	Presented at the 2005 AFS and Kerberos Best Practices
	Workshop, Carnegie Mellon University
        https://kula.tproa.net/talks/afsbpw2005

	Step-by-step instructions on providing AFS and Kerberos services
	using NetBSD, Heimdal, OpenAFS and Arla.


Contributions to open-source software:

- https://github.com/kula/
  https://github.com/thomashashi/

- HashiCorp Vault: Bulk of work to add 'service' and 'node' identity 
  capabilities to the Consul secret engine
  https://github.com/hashicorp/vault/pull/15295

- HashiCorp Terraform: Update 'aws_route' to handle changes in IPv6 route entries
  https://github.com/terraform-providers/terraform-provider-aws/pull/12062

- HashiCorp Vault: Allow auto_auth with templates without specifying a sink
  https://github.com/hashicorp/vault/pull/8812

- A secrets engine plugin for HashiCorp Vault to provision users
  in the Minio objects storage server.
  <https://github.com/kula/vault-plugin-secrets-minio>

- A secrets engine plugin for HashiCorp Vault to provision application
  keys for the Backblaze B2 object storage service.
  <https://github.com/kula/vault-plugin-secrets-backblazeb2>

- Update minio documentation to reflect changes in ARN default
  region handling.
  <https://github.com/minio/minio/pull/5101>

- Initial development and ongoing maintenance of Python
  remctl client bindings, included as part of the stock 
  remctl distribution from 2.13 forward.
  <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/remctl/python-readme.html>

- Developed Go bindings for the remctl client libaries
  <https://github.com/kula/go-remctl>

- Provide minor bug-fixes and testing of k5start
  <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/kstart/> and remctl
  <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/remctl/>, primarily
  under NetBSD.

- Added support to remctld to set the environment variable
  REMCTL_COMMAND, present in remctl 2.16 and on

- Patch to pam-afs-session not to delete afs credentials 
  if DELETE_CRED is called but retain_after_close is configured.
  <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/software/pam-afs-session/>

- Submitted patch to enhance Heimdal Kerberos support in
  the FreeRadius rlm_krb5 module, improving logging of 
  authentications with Kerberos principals that have 
  instances and allowing the module to use a non-default
  keytab and service principal.
  <http://lists.freeradius.org/mailman/htdig/freeradius-devel/2007-April/011021.html>

- Initial rough implementation of "server"-side zephyr
  braindump authentication in the Kerberos 5 variant of the
  Zephyr messaging service.
  <http://kula.tproa.net/code/k5zephyr-bdumps-tproa.diff>

- Patches to NetBSD pkgsrc OpenAFS and Arla packages to allow
  more peaceful co-existance:
  <http://www.netbsd.org/cgi-bin/query-pr-single.pl?number=33399>

- Small unsubmitted patch to Pubcookie that removes apache
  installation path assumptions:
  <http://kula.tproa.net/stuff/pubcookie-3.3.2d-tproa.diff>

- Patch OpenAFS vol-dump to handle >2GB dump files and do 
  incremental dumps:
  DELTA vol-dump-incr-largefile-support-20081222
  <http://www.openafs.org/cgi-bin/wdelta/MAIN/vol-dump-incr-largefile-support-20081222>
  <http://rt.central.org/rt/Ticket/Display.html?id=123984>

- Patch to add GZIP file support to the CMU SCS xfile package,
  and bugfix to the dumpscan library:
  <http://kula.tproa.net/code/xfile-gzip.patch>
  <http://kula.tproa.net/code/dumpscan-dont-call-cb_dirent-twice.patch>

- OpenAFS change I4f9bcbae: Add -usetokens option to libadmin test
  'afscp'
  <http://gerrit.openafs.org/#change,3899>

- Patch the Python getent module so group lookups work properly
  https://github.com/tehmaze/getent/pull/1#issuecomment-8359720

- Allow for minion reconnect backoff in Salt Stack
  https://github.com/saltstack/salt/pull/6360

- Fix HTTP authentication support in the Salt Stack cp module
  https://github.com/saltstack/salt/pull/6356

- Write documentation for the Salt Stack ext_pillar facility
  https://github.com/saltstack/salt/pull/4318

Other experience not mentioned elsewhere

 Comfortable with Bash, Python, and Golang. Can handle enough C to get along.

$Date: 2024-07-16T18:11:43-04:00$
$Version: d72ddb96eb2385e6ed7776f440defdbebd1bca32$