Hi Platte River team,
I call myself a technomancer. Technology has felt like magic to me since I was a kid, and I still enjoy figuring out how to make it useful for people. Some of the most satisfying work is making the complicated parts dependable enough that someone else can simply get on with their day.
That is what drew me to your Senior Network Engineer opening. Platte River serves four communities that rely on it for something essential, and your network team has to improve its infrastructure while remaining responsible for the systems people use today. Your emphasis on durable fixes, clear documentation and working closely with the service desk and cybersecurity team describes the kind of engineering responsibility I value.
At Front Range Internet Inc., I worked from 2015 to 2020, ran the NOC and was a lead engineer through a company purchase. Later, after the senior engineer above me left, I held sole systems-engineering responsibility for about a year. The NOC still handled first-line calls and escalated the problems it could not resolve to me. I had to understand the environment, stay available and follow an issue through, with other people depending on the next decision.
My work there included migrating workloads from Hyper-V and VMware ESXi into Docker and Kubernetes, upgrading server and firewall infrastructure, and working on monitoring and recovery verification. I also ran the SOC 1 and SOC 2 audits and translated technical controls into operating procedures and evidence an auditor could follow. That combination of practical engineering and explaining how a system is operated would be useful in a role that asks for both modernization and careful change management.
Through Technomancy IT, I have also taken responsibility for networks from the client's side. Excell Services LLC was my largest client while I lived and operated in Wray. I replaced or rebuilt legacy servers and employee computers, upgraded the network, helped launch a satellite location, and implemented VPN connectivity with Windows Server and Active Directory so corporate users could reach what they needed. Investigating wasted network costs also led to a one-time $15,000 refund from CenturyLink. I like following a problem far enough to understand both the technical issue and its consequences for the business.
My completed client contribution to ProofMark adds another perspective on security-sensitive work. I designed a document-signing workflow that connected identity, PDF fields, routing, audit history and verification, with explicit handling of sensitive state and fallback paths. It was application engineering, and it taught me to keep the record of an action connected to the action itself. At Platte River, I would bring that care to working with your cybersecurity and information-governance colleagues while learning your particular network standards.
Earlier enterprise work at IBM involved coordinating changes and escalations across application, infrastructure, vendor and business teams. At PlumChoice / Everon, I engineered client networks and systems, built diagnostic tooling and provided on-call support. Those experiences taught me to explain what I know, listen to the people affected and make the next step clear. I would bring the same approach to supporting your engineers and service desk.
I am based in Milliken and available for on-call work. I would welcome a conversation about your current network refresh priorities and where an experienced hands-on engineer could help most. Supporting the people behind reliable public power would give that work a purpose close to home.
Chad