Frédéric Vassard

Frédéric Vassard

Software Engineer | Security & DevOps Specialist

Roseville, California

(415) xxx-x621 | [email protected]

Software Engineer and Security Specialist with expertise in DevOps, Cloud Infrastructure, and Web Development. Proven experience in implementing secure development practices, automating security controls, and optimizing performance. Strong technical and communication skills with a passion for building secure, scalable solutions.

Experiences

SecDevOps Tech Lead / Detection and Response Sr. Engineer

San Francisco, CA | June 2020 - Present

  • Integrated secure coding practices and API-based event detection.
  • Enhanced incident response protocols and overall security posture.
  • Developed CI/CD pipeline enhancements and an alerting framework for SSL/PKI certificates.
  • Created management systems for inventorying certificates across assets.
  • Built web UI for engineers to create and update their secrets.
  • Worked on FedRamp certification readiness.
  • Improved secure development practices and tooling.

Sr. DevOps Engineer - Observability

San Francisco, CA | October 2018 - June 2020

  • Designed and implemented metrics visualization solutions for applications and systems.
  • Migrated from Graphite to a modern monitoring stack using Elasticsearch and Grafana.
  • Set up alerting based on metrics to identify deviations and on log events for process behavior.
  • Collaborated on SRE tasks to ensure high availability.

Lead DevOps Engineer

San Francisco, CA | March 2017 - October 2018

  • Managed AWS infrastructure including EC2, S3, ECS, and RDS services.
  • Implemented monitoring and alerting using Sysdig, Cloudwatch, and Newrelic.
  • Updated and created automation using Python.
  • Updated deployment pipeline to make code deploys more reliable and efficient.
  • Redesigned monitoring stack and created automation scripts.

Senior DevOps Engineer / SRE

San Francisco, CA | May 2016 - March 2017

  • Responsible for Hipmunk's production network.
  • Monitored and alerted on vital metrics using Ganglia and Nagios.
  • Developed automation using Puppet and implemented new deployment strategies.
  • Handled infrastructure tasks with focus on Operations and Security.
  • Supported critical infrastructure during acquisition by Concur/SAP.

Automation Engineer / DevOps Engineer

Berkeley, CA | September 2013 - May 2016

  • Responsible for Labs' HR infrastructure.
  • Monitored and alerted on vital metrics using OMD and Nagios.
  • Set up configuration management via Puppet.
  • Improved monitoring situation and added automation where possible.
  • Supported scientific computing infrastructure for research groups.

Sr. Site Reliability Engineer (Level 3)

San Francisco, CA | October 2012 - September 2013

  • Responsible for Twitter's Search Group (about 1,500 servers).
  • Monitored and alerted on vital metrics using Ganglia and Nagios.
  • Deployed search infrastructure to new datacenter.
  • Made code deploys more reliable and efficient.
  • Created smoke-test environment based on virtualization.
  • Implemented reliable on-call and alerting management.

Sr. Infrastructure Engineer

San Francisco, CA | October 2011 - October 2012

  • Managed infrastructure for Yammer (later acquired by Microsoft).
  • Implemented system automation and monitoring solutions.
  • Supported infrastructure during company growth and acquisition phase.

Sr. Unix Systems Administrator

San Francisco, CA | August 2010 - October 2011

  • Managed Unix systems for CBS Interactive / CNET.
  • Implemented automation and monitoring solutions.
  • Maintained high-traffic web infrastructure.

Systems Engineer

San Francisco, CA | March 2009 - Present

  • Supported Wikimedia Foundation infrastructure.
  • Contributed to open-source initiatives and system improvements.

Sr. Unix Systems Administrator

San Francisco, CA | April 2008 - March 2009

  • Worked at Ip-Soft supporting Gap, Inc. infrastructure.
  • Managed Unix systems and enterprise applications.

Operations Engineer

Santa Clara, CA | November 2007 - April 2008

  • Supported Yahoo's infrastructure operations.
  • Implemented monitoring and automation solutions.

Sr. Security Analyst

Pleasanton, CA | March 2007 - November 2007

  • Led security initiatives and analysis for E-Loan.
  • Implemented security monitoring and vulnerability management.

Unix and Web Systems Administrator

Pleasanton, CA | July 2005 - March 2007

  • Managed Unix and web systems for E-Loan.
  • Supported critical financial applications and infrastructure.

Sr. Customer Engineer / NOC Systems Supervisor

San Francisco, CA | June 2004 - July 2005

  • Supervised NOC operations at ServePath / Coloserve.
  • Managed customer engineering and systems support.

Skills Explorer

Interactive breakdown of my technical expertise. Click on any skill for more details.

Skill Details

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Official Site Wiki

Education

DeVry University

Fremont, CA | April 2001 - March 2003

Telecommunication Management – Completed 100% technical education and 93% general education. Repeated Dean's list appearance.

Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT)

Rochester, NY | September 2000 - April 2001

Software Engineering

Lycée Francais La Pérouse

San Francisco, CA | September 1997 - July 2000

Economics and Sociology – French Baccalaureate in Economics and Sociology.

Lycée Technique La Mache

Lyon, France | September 1995 - July 1997

Electrotechnics Engineering – BEP - CAP in Electrotechnics.

Projects & Contributions

Ampache Authentication Plugin

PHP OAuth

Assisted in troubleshooting and developing the authentication plugin used in Ampache.

Repository

Gallery2 Import Scripts

Perl Image Processing

Created Perl scripts to programmatically import and format pictures.

Repository

Documentation Tutorials

Markdown Technical Writing

Authored tutorials on UNIX server setup, LAMP system installation, and advanced Postfix configurations.

Read

What Others Say

Testimonials from colleagues and clients, including recommendations from LinkedIn

"Fred was a talented and knowledgeable systems administrator. He was among the best on a team of administrators supporting UNIX, Linux, and Windows. Fred was also very knowledgeable and indispensable with network and systems security."

Tony Chang

Tony Chang

Senior Systems Engineer

LinkedIn

"Fred is a very friendly guy, professional, utterly dependable, always willing to help out. Whenever my technical knowledge fell short, and I asked for his advice or magic intervention, Fred gave a prompt and effective response."

Erik Zachte

Erik Zachte

Data Analyst at Wikimedia Foundation

LinkedIn

"Fred is a wonderful resource for system and security issues and questions. He is a pleasure to know and to work with. I can't recommend him highly enough."

Tina Alonso

Tina Alonso

Lead Member of Technical Staff at Salesforce

LinkedIn

Case Studies

Security Automation at Scale

Python Security AWS

Challenge

Implementing security scanning across 1000+ production servers with minimal performance impact.

Solution

Developed a distributed security scanning system that balanced workloads and prioritized scans based on risk profiles.

Results

  • Reduced scan time by 78% while improving coverage by 15%
  • Automated remediation for 60% of common vulnerabilities
  • Improved mean time to resolution by 3.5 days
Security Dashboard

The automated security scanning system has transformed how we approach vulnerability management.

Large-Scale Infrastructure Migration

Infrastructure Terraform Ansible

Challenge

Migrating 200+ applications from on-premise data centers to cloud infrastructure with zero downtime.

Solution

Created automated migration pipelines with infrastructure as code and comprehensive testing stages.

Results

  • Completed migration 2 months ahead of schedule
  • Reduced infrastructure costs by 35%
  • Achieved 99.999% uptime during transition
Migration Architecture

The migration strategy Fred designed was both elegant and effective, minimizing risks while maximizing efficiency.

Monitoring System Redesign

Observability Grafana Prometheus

Challenge

Legacy monitoring system was causing alert fatigue and missing critical issues.

Solution

Implemented a modern observability stack with intelligent alerting based on service-level objectives.

Results

  • Reduced false positive alerts by 82%
  • Improved mean time to detection by 76%
  • Created comprehensive dashboards used by 100+ engineers
Monitoring Dashboard

The new monitoring system has completely transformed our ability to detect and respond to issues.

My Workspace & Tools

How I Work

I believe in creating efficient, secure, and scalable systems. My approach combines deep technical expertise with practical automation to solve complex problems.

Favorite Tools

Python
AWS
Bash
Docker
Git
Security Tools

Work Philosophy

  • Automate everything that can be automated
  • Security is a process, not a destination
  • Document thoroughly for future maintainers
  • Test early, test often, test automatically
  • Continuously learn and adapt to new technologies
Fred's Workspace
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Years Experience
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Systems Managed
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Projects Delivered
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Technologies Mastered

Resources & Recommendations

Contact

Get In Touch

Feel free to reach out for inquiries, collaborations, or just to say hello.

Download Resume

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Download PDF

Certifications & Licenses