Jarsky

About

I’m Jarrod, an IT professional from Auckland with 20+ years of helping organisations solve problems through technology, from improving day-to-day operations to designing and building platforms that make work easier, faster and more reliable.

My career has taken me across software development, platform engineering, infrastructure, automation, customer onboarding and systems integration. I enjoy looking at a messy process, understanding the goal behind it, and turning it into something streamlined, repeatable and scalable.

Right now I’m most interested in AI agents, generative AI, automation and modern platform engineering like infrastructure as code, and in finding practical ways to make technology more useful.

Outside of work I’m building and experimenting in my own lab, wrenching on cars and, my favourite, doing photography. I’m also into motorsport, travel, snowboarding and anything sci-fi or fantasy. Head over to my YouTube channel and check out my videos.

Experience

  1. 2026 — Now

    Performance Lead

    Leads service assurance and operational performance for IT operations. Incident, problem and change governance to agreed service levels, RCA tracking through service improvement plans, and operational readiness for new services.

    • Service assurance
    • ITIL
    • RCA
    • Continuous improvement
  2. 2023 — 2026

    Wintel Technical Specialist

    Technical lead for Wintel, virtualisation, cloud and server hardware. Built a patch management workflow that coordinates scheduling, communications and execution across environments. Onboarded new customers, led technical workshops and projects, and guided engineers on escalations.

    • Windows Server
    • VMware
    • Microsoft Azure
    • Automation
    • Onboarding
  3. 2016 — 2024

    Wintel Support Engineer

    Supported Wintel and virtualisation services: server builds, upgrades and decommissions, patching, certificates, and change management.

    • Active Directory
    • Exchange
    • Microsoft 365
    • Intune
    • Citrix
    • vCenter
    • PKI
  4. 2013 — 2016

    Monitoring and Response Engineer

    24/7 response to high-severity infrastructure incidents. Monitored and configured switches, routers, wireless and firewalls, and coordinated technical response teams. Earlier, internal service desk support for desktops, Citrix, VPN and networking.

    • Cisco
    • Ruckus
    • Check Point
    • Juniper
    • NetScaler
    • VMware
  5. 2011 — 2015

    Linux System Administrator

    Deployed, hardened and patched internet-facing Linux servers. Managed MySQL, web servers, virtual hosts, DNS, and TLS ciphers and certificates, and ran root cause analysis on server and application issues.

    • RHEL
    • Debian
    • OpenBSD
    • MySQL
    • TLS
    • DNS
  6. 2010 — 2013

    Technical Support and Technical Coach

    Diagnosed voice, broadband and mobile data faults, then coached support teams through outages, escalations and network trend analysis.

    • Broadband
    • Fibre
    • Voice
    • Mobile data
    • Coaching
  7. 2008 — 2010

    Quality Assurance Analyst

    Tested websites and enterprise system integrations, including CMS migrations, online ordering and ERP connectivity. Manual and automated regression testing and UAT.

    • QA
    • Test automation
    • Regression testing
    • Integration testing
    • UAT
Full history on LinkedIn →

Engineering

Open source Pyra Async Python IRC bot with a FastAPI and HTMX admin UI, live WebSocket console, hot-reload plugins and CI releases. Open source EasyBackup-NG Unraid plugin for Docker and VM backup, restore, verification and scheduling.
At work Patch management workflow Automation that coordinates patch scheduling, customer communications and execution across environments.
Infrastructure Self-hosted lab Multi-host container platform with single sign-on, a reverse proxy and monitoring as code.

Toolkit

Frontend
React · JavaScript · HTML5 · CSS · Tailwind CSS · shadcn/ui · Vite · HTMX · Jinja2 · Pico CSS
Backend
Python · FastAPI · Uvicorn · asyncio · aiohttp · SQLAlchemy · Alembic · Pydantic · REST APIs · WebSockets · Webhooks · JWT auth · PHP · WordPress · Node.js
Databases
PostgreSQL · MySQL · MariaDB · SQLite
Web servers
Apache · Nginx · PHP-FPM · Traefik
Quality
pytest · Ruff · mypy · Black · Regression testing · UAT
Platforms
Kubernetes · Helm · Docker · Docker Compose · Linux (Ubuntu, Debian, RHEL) · Windows Server · Unraid
Virtualisation
VMware vSphere · Hyper-V · Azure Local · Citrix
Cloud
AWS · Microsoft Azure · Google Cloud · Microsoft 365 · Google Workspace
Identity & endpoint
Active Directory · Entra ID · Group Policy · Microsoft Intune · Workspace ONE · Single sign-on (OIDC) · Authentik · PKI and certificate services
Network & security
Cisco routing and switching · Check Point and Juniper firewalls · NetScaler load balancing · Ruckus wireless · VPN and remote access · DNS and DHCP · Reverse proxies · Cloudflare · TLS · Server hardening · Patch management · Microsoft Defender
Automation
Power Automate · Terraform · Python · PowerShell · Bash · GitHub Actions · CI/CD · Scheduled jobs (cron, systemd)
Observability
Grafana · Prometheus · Uptime Kuma · Trivy vulnerability scanning
Interests
AI agents · Generative AI · Automation · Platform engineering

Get in touch