Ian Montgomery

Ian Montgomery

Infrastructure Engineer

Infrastructure engineer with a non-linear career path. I started in web development, spent six years running a multi-million-dollar retail operation, then came back to engineering. That time managing teams, handling competing priorities, and keeping operations running smoothly shaped how I approach building reliable platforms today. As the industry shifts toward agentic workflows, this background gives me a practical edge. I know how to break down complex problems, manage concurrent workstreams, and coordinate both people and AI agents to get things done.

Location

New Zealand

Job status

Currently employed

Skills

Technologies

Docker
.NET
Kotlin
Kubernetes
Terraform
TypeScript

Cloud & DevOps

AWS
Azure
GitHub Actions
Octopus Deploy

Work

Engineer - Infrastructure

December 2023 - Current
Employment type

Full-time

Work model

Hybrid

Location

Wellington

  • Build CI/CD automation and reproducible testing environments using Docker, Helm, and Kubernetes on AWS.
  • Lead incident response and on-call support, working with Grafana, New Relic, and Sumo Logic.
  • Implement synthetic monitoring to catch pipeline issues before they reach product teams.

DevOps Engineer

November 2021 - November 2023
Employment type

Full-time

Work model

Hybrid

Location

Wellington

  • Lifecycle Lead for multiple .NET SaaS products, owning operations across development and production.
  • Built CI/CD pipelines and managed Azure and AWS infrastructure using Terraform.
  • Authored security policies and configured access controls supporting ISO 27001 certification.

Operations Manager & Junior Full-Stack Developer

March 2021 - November 2021
Employment type

Full-time

Work model

On-site

Location

Wellington

  • Led a team of 4 developers and 2 designers while contributing as a developer.
  • Led delivery of an interactive dashboard for the University of Chicago’s Center on Democracy, helping their researchers explore global democracy data.
  • Managed hiring, performance reviews, and operational strategy with company directors.
Related skills:
Leadership
Project Management
Data Visualization

Manager / Assistant Manager

July 2014 - August 2020
Employment type

Full-time

Work model

On-site

Location

Wellington

  • Managed a flagship supermarket and online delivery service across 5 departments, leading a team of 40.
  • Owned multi-million dollar P&L and consistently met head office targets.
  • Scaled online delivery 10x during the pandemic.
Related skills:
Leadership
Project Management
Sales

Webmaster

August 2009 - November 2012
Employment type

Full-time

Work model

On-site

Location

Racine, Wisconsin - USA

  • Designed and built corporate websites using WordPress, PHP, HTML, CSS, and MySQL.
  • Launched the company’s social media marketing strategy and managed content across multiple platforms.
  • Produced marketing and training videos for customers, including on-site shoots for enterprise clients like Southwest Airlines.
Related skills:

Education

Bachelor of Arts in English

September 2004 - June 2009
Mode

Full-time

Minor

Film Studies

College Programming Director at the university radio station, KUMD, where I also worked as a Radio DJ. Treasurer of the Art Guild and member of the Literary Guild.


Full Stack Web Development

September 2020 - December 2020
Mode

Full-time

Qualification

80 Credits NZQA Level 6

Intensive full-stack bootcamp covering JavaScript, Handlebars, React, Redux, and Node.js, with practical grounding in TDD and Agile. Marked my transition from operations management back into software development.

Related skills: