David Hiemer

Email: Hiemer.David@gmail.com

Phone: (719) 661-2614

Location: Denver, CO

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/david-hiemer

GitHub: github.com/dhiemer

Summary

Driven and deeply technical Senior DevOps Engineer with 15 years of experience designing, building, scaling and maintaining secure infrastructure in complex, high-stakes environments. Proven track record in cloud architecture, infrastructure as code, CI/CD automation, and operational excellence—with hands-on leadership across large-scale AWS ecosystems, hybrid domains, and cross-functional incident response. Recognized for taking full ownership of systems, driving initiatives from concept to delivery, and consistently achieving impactful results. Highly adaptable and quick to adopt emerging technologies, with a passion for simplifying complexity, enforcing security best practices, and optimizing performance and cost. A trusted partner to both engineering and business teams, focused on enabling agility and resilience in mission-critical environments.

Certifications and Education

• AWS Solutions Architect Associate - February 2025
• AWS SysOps Administrator - December 2023
• MCSA Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate - October 2014
• MCP Microsoft Certified Professional - October 2014
• CCENT Cisco Certified Entry Network Technician - May 2014
• CompTIA Network+ - December 2013
• University of Colorado – BS in Applied Mathematics - December 2010

Professional Experience

Vertafore - Denver, CO (September 2020–Present)

• Architect and lead the migration of on-premises applications and datacenter infrastructure to AWS, delivering scalable, secure, and cost-efficient solutions using Infrastructure as Code for complex, multitenant SaaS environments.
• Develop and maintain scalable Infrastructure as Code (IaC) solutions using Terraform and CloudFormation to support multi-tenant SaaS platforms.
• Design and optimize GitLab CI/CD pipelines for both application and infrastructure deployments, accelerating delivery while reducing deployment risk.
• Automate workflows and operational tasks using Python, PowerShell, Bash, Ansible, and Jinja2—empowering teams to move faster with fewer errors.
• Lead infrastructure security and compliance across a large-scale, multi-account AWS environment—mitigating CrowdStrike findings, enforcing CIS Benchmarks, and addressing SOC 2 control gaps to ensure secure and compliant cloud operations at scale.
• Forecast and manage infrastructure capacity, aligning resource provisioning with usage trends to avoid bottlenecks and control cloud spend.
• Drive incident response and root cause analysis for production issues, maintaining high system availability and minimizing downtime.
• Collaborate closely with engineering teams to enhance performance, reliability, and observability of cloudnative applications.
• Serve as a liaison between architecture, development, and operations to ensure alignment on system design, scalability, and compliance goals.

Accenture - Denver, CO (June 2015–September 2020)

• Managed daily operations of a large-scale server infrastructure supporting enterprise SaaS workloads, with a focus on uptime, system stability, and performance tuning.
• Led the migration of flagship applications and infrastructure workloads to Microsoft Azure, improving scalability and reducing datacenter dependencies.
• Provided technical leadership and mentorship to engineers, resolving escalations, conducting peer reviews, and fostering team development.
• Administered and optimized Citrix infrastructure, including Provisioning Server, XenApp DDCs, StoreFront, and XenApp servers.
• Oversaw thousands of SQL Server databases, handling high availability, encryption, backup/restore operations, and automation via scripting.
• Designed and deployed System Center Orchestrator to automate operations using PowerShell and C#.
• Developed pipelines to automate deployments, reduce release time and increase consistency.
• Engineered Disaster Recovery automation to streamline failover operations and reduce RTO.
• Recognized as a subject matter expert in systems automation, configuration management, operating system delivery, and disaster recovery architecture.

Crowe Horwath - Denver, CO (March 2014–June 2015)

• Held broad responsibility for IT infrastructure operations, overseeing systems administration, networking, and service reliability across the organization.
• Administered core services including Active Directory, Group Policy, Exchange, DNS, imaging, patching, and backups, ensuring secure and consistent system performance.
• Designed and deployed System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2012 to automate patching, operating system deployment, asset tracking, and software delivery.
• Re-architected network infrastructure to enhance reliability, security, and performance, including upgrading Layer 2/3 switching and replacing Cisco ASA firewalls with Palo Alto Networks appliances.

Lockheed Martin - Denver, CO (Sept 2013–March 2014)

• Led Windows Server 2012 migration, upgrading systems to modern infrastructure standards.
• Administered enterprise virtualization environments, performing VM provisioning, workload migration, and hypervisor lifecycle management to maintain performance and scalability.
• Configured and maintained Active Directory, Group Policy, and Exchange to support secure authentication, access control policies, and enterprise messaging infrastructure.
• Performed routine maintenance on production systems, including scheduled backups, patch deployment, and disaster recovery testing to ensure operational continuity.
• Engineered improvements to Cisco-based networking infrastructure, enhancing security, redundancy, and overall network resilience.

US Department of Energy - Golden, CO (May 2011–Sept 2013)

• Provided Tier 1/2 support using VMware Horizon View, vSphere, and other remote management tools across a diverse enterprise user base.
• Led the virtualization and migration of hundreds of physical desktops to Wyse Thin Clients, improving system manageability and performance.
• Served as technical lead for mobile device management and the Emergency Operations Center, supporting critical infrastructure during drills and real-world events.

University of Colorado - Colorado Springs (2007–2010)

• Provided helpdesk support, Active Directory administration, and OS imaging for students and faculty.