# John Ashton > Senior Infrastructure Engineer | Platform & GitOps Specialist | Kubernetes, Terraform, AWS/GCP | Building Scalable, Self-Service Infrastructure Location: Washington, District of Columbia, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/johnashton am a Senior Operations Engineer with 9 years of experience specialized in building "self-service" platforms that enable engineering teams to deploy safely, independently, and at scale. My career has been defined by a transition from traditional operations to modern Platform Engineering, where the focus is on developer velocity and infrastructure as a product. At HUMAN Security, I spearheaded the strategic shift from bespoke, proprietary tooling to standardized, open-source ecosystems. I led the decommissioning of our in-house CD tools in favor of a declarative GitOps workflow using ArgoCD, and I authored the internal Helm chart libraries and GitLab repository frameworks that now serve as the "golden path" for our service deployments. With a BSc in Mathematics, I approach infrastructure through a lens of analytical rigor and FinOps. I believe platform engineering is a cost-optimization engine, and I have a proven track record of driving measurable ROI—including a 98% reduction in operational overspend at MVF Global and the successful decomposition of high-scale monolithic architectures into microservices processing over 3 million daily events. I thrive in the intersection of complex technical problems and strategic roadmap planning. Based in Washington, D.C., I am a firm advocate for the "invisible infrastructure" model—where the best platform is the one that allows developers to ship code without ever having to ask for help. Outside of the terminal, I am a dedicated home cook, a consistent gym-goer, and a retired amateur league rugby player. I am currently pursuing a personal "Spectator Slam," having attended the Australian Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open in person, with only Roland-Garros remaining. ## Work Experience ### Senior Operations Engineer @ HUMAN Jan 2019 – Present | Washington, District of Columbia, United States HUMAN Security | Senior Operations Engineer Platform Modernization: Spearheaded the transition from proprietary, bespoke tooling to a standardized, open-source GitOps ecosystem using ArgoCD and GitHub Actions. Developer Empowerment: Engineered standardized GitLab repository frameworks and in-house Helm charts to automate the path from code to production, enabling "self-service" for application teams. Infrastructure as Code: Managed multi-regional Kubernetes clusters and Terraform modules across AWS and GCP, ensuring high availability and consistent security postures. Economic Impact: Leveraged a BSc in Mathematics to integrate FinOps principles into the operations lifecycle, reducing cloud overhead through automated resource rightsizing. ### Software Engineer @ HUMAN Jan 2019 – Jan 2023 | Greater New York City Area Golang, JavaScript, SQL, Docker, AWS(SQS, S3, SNS, IAM, EC2, ELB), Etcd, Kubernetes, Terraform, CI/CD ### Software Engineer @ MVF - 2nd in the Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For Jan 2018 – Jan 2019 | London, United Kingdom Worked in an agile development team to build a new internal web app used to scale lead generation marketing campaigns across digital channels worldwide. As the project grew, we separated out the application from a monolithic architecture into a suite of microservices which are now processing over 3 million event messages a day. I developed across the whole stack using PHP, Laravel, React/Redux, Go, MySQL, GraphQL, Docker, & AWS to become a versatile developer Contributed to future business architectural designs by deconstructing a monolith into a service-oriented architecture using AWS SNS and SQS for system to system messaging Improved reliability of legacy systems by splitting out code into object oriented structures, improving testing & dockerizing systems Automated manual processes and contributed to reducing overspend in the company by 98% by integrating external APIs and SDKs including Facebook, Google & Linkedin Helped break down complex business problems within the company with non-technical stakeholders, identifying where automation by technology could be used Actively led stand-ups, retrospectives and contributed to architecture meetings to improve processes Used tools such as JIRA, CircleCI, Jenkins & DataDog ### Software Developer @ Ladbrokes Coral Group Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 Part of a development team tasked with building and delivering a Greenfield Project in an Agile consultancy team. Web application built in a suite of integrated microservices using ReactJs and Redux on the front end and Java8 Spring Boot on the back end that consumes Kafka streams and persists data to a Postgres database. ### Software Consultant @ Makers Academy Jan 2017 – Jan 2018 Working with the team to develop the vision of the consultancy, with regular feedback and suggestions to shape the future and learn about the progress of the business. ### Software Engineering @ Makers Academy Jan 2016 – Jan 2017 | London, United Kingdom A highly selective 16-week intensive software development bootcamp focusing on: • Ruby, Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, ReactJS, TDD, Agile methodologies, OOP • Pair programming, independent learning and critical thinking ### Business Development Manager @ Richard Hough Ltd Jan 2014 – Jan 2016 Manufacture Calender rolls | Supercalender rolls | De-watering rolls | Squeezing rolls | Automotive blank washer rolls | Mill rolls | Experts in design and build of all types of rolls. Engineering solutions for rollers of all types. World leaders in pressed fibre rolls. Richard Hough Ltd is a leading Manufacturer of pressed fibre rollers for the Paper Industry, Textile Industry, Automotive and Metal industry. This includes supercalender rolls for the Paper Industry, calender rolls and squeezing / de-watering rolls for the Textile Industry and Viscose industry, Blank Washer rolls for the Automotive Industry Blank Washers on the press Line, and Mill rolls for Coiling and De-coiling lines, Galvanising lines, Colour Coating Lines, Blanking Lines, leveling lines, Sendzimir mills, and generally the Flat Rolled Steel and Metal industry. The company regularly supplies new and recovered rolls to its customers in over 40 countries Worldwide and offers a high level of Technical support on all aspects of roll use, from specification through to maintenance. ## Education ### Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Mathematics University of Sussex Jan 2011 – Jan 2014 ### A Levels in Mathematics, Media Studies, History Runshaw College Jan 2008 – Jan 2010 ### Bridgewater School ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/john-ashton-890654106 --- Source: https://flows.cv/johnashton JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/johnashton/resume.json Last updated: 2026-03-22