Hello, my name is Ken Hyer and I am a

Senior Technical Leader


Software Engineering

Platform architecture, hybrid cloud, and agentic AI for enterprise-scale infrastructure

About

I am a senior technical leader and software architect at Cisco. I focus on enterprise architecture, infrastructure automation, and technical proof-of-concepts that evaluate emerging platform technologies before they reach production.

What drives me is solving real business problems with practical technology solutions. Security posture, scalability, reliability, and user experience are core to how I design and deliver systems teams can operate at scale. I work in Agile environments, lead an architectural review forum, establish organization-wide engineering standards, and provide technical direction and mentorship across multiple global teams to improve developer productivity while staying hands-on in production code.

I love tackling hard problems, whether that means troubleshooting a production incident, untangling a complex design decision, or learning a new technology as the field evolves. Staying current is part of the job, and I enjoy bringing fresh ideas back to the teams I support.

Outside of work, I serve on the Board of Directors for Habitat for Humanity Greater Raleigh, including the Nominating and Governance and Executive committees, and have led house construction crews since 2012.

This is some of what I do

Based in Durham, NC. Since 2010, I have worked at Cisco in IT, progressing from Linux systems administration to software engineering and platform architecture. I architect and operate a variety of full-stack services for internal IT and product engineering teams, including a hybrid-cloud platform for self-service provisioning and operations, elevated access management, infrastructure automation, and agentic AI workflows. I also take on a small amount of technical consulting work for select clients.
These are some of my areas of expertise

Platform Architecture

Design of hybrid-cloud platforms and enterprise applications, from self-service infrastructure APIs to globally distributed microservices on Kubernetes

Full-Stack Development

Hands-on development across Python, Go, JavaScript, React, Vue, Django, Celery, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, and Redis

Hybrid Cloud & GitOps

GitOps-driven CI/CD, Kubernetes orchestration, and automation across AWS, GCP, and on-prem infrastructure at global scale

Technical Leadership

Organization-wide engineering standards, architectural review, and mentorship across multiple global teams while staying hands-on in production code

My Projects

Just a few of the development projects I have worked on over the past few years
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Hybrid Cloud Platform

Self-service provisioning and operations across VMs, containers, storage, and network

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Linux Sudo Access Management

Enterprise Linux sudo and elevated access at scale with SOx compliance

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IaaS Automation

Lifecycle management and automation for on-prem UCS and VMware infrastructure

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Infrastructure Dashboard

Alerting, capacity, and reporting across 50,000+ devices since 2011

Agentic AI workflows screenshot

Agentic AI Workflows

RAG and agentic AI for infrastructure operations with zero-trust access controls

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Databrackets Compliance Portal

Industry compliance assessment and reporting for client

My Skills

Platform engineering, full-stack development, and hybrid-cloud operations for global enterprise IT, with hands-on work across architecture, code, and production systems.

Development


Python
100%
Go
95%
Django / Celery
95%
React
90%
PostgreSQL
90%
Vue
85%
JavaScript
85%
Redis
85%
MongoDB
80%
LangChain / MCP
80%
MySQL
80%
HTML/CSS
75%
Bash/shell
75%

Infrastructure


Kubernetes
100%
Linux - RedHat & Ubuntu
95%
Docker
90%
Amazon Web Services
90%
Terraform
85%
Ansible
85%
Kafka / RabbitMQ
85%
OpenStack
80%
ArgoCD / Argo Workflows
80%
Google Cloud Platform
75%
VMware ESXi
75%
Cisco UCS
70%

My Experience

Over 15 years designing and building enterprise platforms, from school district IT support to hybrid-cloud infrastructure at global scale.

Full Resume (PDF)

Work history, technical skills, education, and career highlights.

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2019

Technical Leader, Software Engineering

Cisco

Primary architect and engineer for hybrid-cloud platform providing self-service provisioning and operations across VMs, bare metal, containers, storage, and network. Reduced infrastructure provisioning from weeks to minutes. Lead organization-wide engineering standards, an architectural review forum, and technical mentorship across multiple global teams. Architected enterprise RAG and agentic AI workflows with zero-trust access controls. Operate 20+ Kubernetes clusters at 99.99% uptime.

2014

Senior IT Engineer, Software Developer

Cisco

Built enterprise Linux sudo and elevated access management at scale (50,000+ endpoints) with SOx compliance. Led transformation from operations to DevOps/SRE, formed a dedicated software development team, and adopted Agile practices. Automated VMware lifecycle management across 5,500+ ESXi hosts and delivered one-click bare-metal and VM deployment platforms.

2010

IT Engineer, Unix Hosting Operations

Cisco

Architected and developed the Cisco IT Infrastructure Dashboard tracking alerts, capacity, storage, scheduling, and auditing across 50,000+ devices. Built in 2011, continuously upgraded and still in production use. Managed Unix hosting operations and participated in critical incident response rotations.

2007

Systems Administrator

Rensselaer Student Union

Development of web applications used for budgeting, surveying, scheduling and recreation management. Development of point of sale desktop application for food and beverage service. Server support for multi-tenant web and database environment.

2003

Technology/Network Specialist

Plainfield Public Schools

This is where it all started. Support of network, servers and endpoints for seven-school district with 1200+ personal computers. Implementation of network stability and security devices and configurations. Operation, programming, repair and documentation of theatrical lighting and sound systems for state of the art performance venue.

Let's Talk

If you are interested in the skills I have to offer your organization, I would love to hear from you!