Jace Hickman

Platform Engineer for the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) maintaining the IT systems needed to achieve missile defense objectives.

• Modernized enterprise automation by replacing VM-based Ansible installations with Ansible Execution Environments, enabling consistent execution, dependency isolation, and repeatable deployments.
• Built a new enclave from the ground up, deploying Nutanix infrastructure, bootstrapping Kubernetes, and establishing core platform services such as Nexus, GitLab, and collaboration tools.
• Led recovery from a major network outage, restoring critical services and Nutanix cluster availability, including reimaging and rejoining a failed node.
• Migrated GitLab CI workloads to Kubernetes runners and standardized resource limits, non-root execution, workspace permissions, environment settings, and internal CA trust.
• Migrated Nexus 2 to Nexus 3 HA and relocated Nexus across Kubernetes clusters with zero downtime.
• Engineered Red Hat OpenShift capabilities, including ACM provisioning, LDAPS integration, NetApp Trident operator deployment for dynamic storage provisioning, and cluster observability.
• Built a multi-source Grafana platform integrating OpenShift Thanos, Prometheus, Elastic, and external VM telemetry.
• Automated VM monitoring with Ansible and NetBox, deploying node_exporter and dynamically generating Prometheus targets.
• Served as Scrum Master for a 6-person team, facilitating sprint planning and aligning engineering efforts with mission objectives.

• Designed and implemented CI/CD pipelines integrated with Ansible to automate provisioning and lifecycle management of Windows VM pools, reducing deployment time and eliminating configuration drift.
• Deployed and configured Mattermost on Kubernetes using Helm and an internal Nexus registry.
• Maintained Omnissa Horizon infrastructure supporting reliable remote access to virtual desktops across multiple environments.

• Developed an Ansible playbook to automate domain user creation, disabling, and deletion across a multi-domain enterprise, with Jira integration for task tracking, reducing manual effort and ensuring consistency.
• Designed a real-time NFS monitoring tool using GitLab CI/CD pipelines, automating storage tracking across multiple hosts.
• Enhanced existing Ansible playbooks by resolving bugs, improving functionality, and optimizing performance.

• Ensured access to data, enabling cross-functional teams with insights to develop applications and intelligence.
• Diagnosed and resolved system issues, ensuring minimal downtime and optimizing performance.

Provided IT support for the US Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID), enabling users with near real-time biometric information.

Analyst for the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) Operations Unit (NOU).

Installed and maintained communications equipment supporting operations.