Jackson Smith
About me
| GitHub |
Hi, I’m Jackson! I’m a passionate and well-rounded infrastructure engineer with 10+ years of experience building durable, cross-platform systems across Linux, Windows, and hybrid-cloud environments (AWS & Azure). Known for taking ownership of foundational, business-critical projects others avoid, typically migrations, such as replacing backup systems to leading pre-EOL adoption of modern operating systems. Outside of work, I enjoy skiing and cooking, which fuel my creativity and problem-solving skills.
Operations Engineer | Lincoln Investment; Remote – April 2022-Present
- Deliver clean handoffs for complex, neglected systems like backup infrastructure replacement, certificate management/ rotation, and internal DNS refactoring — boosting security, compliance, and team confidence
- Led data driven patch automation insourcing project using SCCM and Satellite, reducing open vulnerabilities by 30% and eliminating $400,000 in annual operating expenses
- Automate repeated tasks such as software deployment and system reporting via Bash, Ruby, and PowerShell allowing teams to scale with organization growth
- Championed and implemented adoption of Windows Server 2022 and RHEL, well ahead of Windows Server 2012 R2, 2016, and CentOS end of life, increased Domain Functional Level from 2008 to Windows Server 2016
- Design and maintain software defined data centers running bare metal hypervisors on enterprise hardware via tools like HCL, PowerCLI, etc.
- Trusted to mentor peers, communicate clearly across teams, document legacy systems, and take on critical but unglamorous projects others avoided, ensuring long-term operational stability
Network Analyst | Chester County Library System; Remote – February 2019-April 2022
- Modernized a network spanning 18 public libraries by replacing legacy Cisco gear with Meraki, reducing support overhead and licensing costs
- Taught reference librarians basic HTML and CSS empowering them to own content updates, reducing website update request time from 3-5 days to same day turn around
- Championed and implemented early migration of Windows 11 and Server 2019, well ahead of 2012 R2 and Windows 10 EOL, building deployment and validation tooling using PowerShell and MDT
- Rebuilt hardware imaging pipeline in VMware using PowerShell and PowerCLI, saving 12 person-months annually through innovative process redesign
- Mentored two junior system administrators
Service Analyst | County of Chester; West Chester, PA – October 2016-February 2019
- Provided support for 2,500+ users in a mixed VMware/Windows/Linux environment while maintaining top CSAT scores across the team reflecting a consistent and communicative approach
IT Consultant | Robert Half Technology; Philadelphia, PA – Feb 2016-Oct 2016
- Supported clients with diverse, multi-site infrastructure; successfully migrated from on-prem AD/Exchange to Azure AD + Microsoft 365
- Delivered 99.9% uptime across Windows and Linux servers, implementing config management and better patch workflows
- Coordinated clearly with vendor partners on deployments and structured cabling, ensuring consistency and alignment
Technician | County of Chester; West Chester, PA – April 2015-April 2016
- Provided L2 support to 900+ users across county agencies; scripted and documented quick fixes to reduce handoffs and promote consistency across teams
Certificates
- Google IT Support Professional Certificate
Projects
Work Projects
- Legacy Refactoring Initiatives: Owned low-visibility but high-risk legacy cleanup (internal DNS, certificate lifecycle, syslog normalization), reducing internal escalations by 50% over 12 months through consistent and strategic improvement
- Security Awareness Training: Designed and led annual in-house training programs that significantly improved phishing simulation metrics and staff vigilance
Home Projects
- Rocket.Chat Cloud Deployment: Deployed and managed Rocket.Chat in the public cloud on a Debian cluster (Node.js, MongoDB, NGINX). Provisioned with Ruby/Shell (Chef) and monitored via Prometheus + Grafana
Technical Skills
Operating Systems
Linux: Debian, CentOS, RHEL
Unix: macOS versions 10-15, openBSD, FreeBSD
Windows: more than 400 years experience! NT 3.1-11 Server 2003-2022
Boot managers
GNU GRUB
BOOTMGR
PXE
Init Systems
SystemD
Package Managers
apt
dpkg
pkg
yum
chocolatey/nuget/winget (Windows)
Automation Orchestration
Ansible
Chef
(familiar with Puppet and Salt)
Directory Services
Active Directory
389 Directory Service
Samba
Containers
Docker
Hypervisors
VMware
HyperV
VirtualBox
Monitoring
Grafana
Logstash
New Relic
Prometheus (used in conjunction with Grafana)
syslog (rsyslog)
Databases
SQL
MongoDB
Web Servers
Apache httpd
IIS
NGINX
Load Balancers, Proxies, and VPNs
NGINX
HAProxy
AnyConnect
GlobalProtect
OpenVPN
Public Cloud Infrastructure
AWS
Azure
Local Development Tools
strace/truss
vim
git
vscode
vagrant
Valgrind
VirtualBox
Languages
Bash: config and utility scripts < 100 lines
PowerShell: utility scripts, tools < 500 lines, advanced functions, modules
Ruby: utility scripts, probes/parsers, extending bash functionality
Query Languages: enough to query CIM, WMI, etc. which use derivatives of ANSI SQL
Misc Software
Ticketing and project management systems
Jira
BitBucket
GitHub
Slack/Rocket.Chat/Teams
Soft Skills
Communication, collaboration, consistency, commitment, courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, indomitable spirit
Education
- Bachelor’s West Chester University