Karl J. Haworth

karlhaworth.com
me ( at ) karlhaworth.com

About
Highly motivated, leadership driven, team player, and quick learner with extensive experience in application and cloud architecture as well as software delivery. Creative thinker and problem solver with exceptional planning and analytical abilities.

Education
, Albion, Michigan
Bachelor of Arts
Major: Economics and Management
Minor: Statistics
August 2010 - May 2014

Experience
Architect - Developer Accelerator Product Group (DevOps/DevEx), Product Agility
American Airlines
March 2023 - Present
Worked in the Product Agility organization supporting the solutioning, strategy, and planning of technical implementations
  • Responsible for strategy and technical direction for Developer Accelerator working with other Archigeers in Technology and Transformation
  • Worked closely with Product Technical Leads and Technical Delivery Managers to determine technical strategy, direction and technical skills needed to the strategies
  • Aligned product group strategies to enterprise strategies and principals
  • Supported Product Technical Leads and engineers to select solutions meeting our business needs and long-term strategies
  • Supported neighboring organizations with networking design considerations
  • Worked with Engineering staff to reduce time and complexity to redeploy and configure major infrastructure by over 300% leading to an increase in overall SLAs and KPIs along with elevation in platform criticality
  • Supports Product Technical Leads to ensure backlog reflects the right technical solutions to meet product objectives and priorities
  • Responsible for finops practices within an organization where financial savings were found and improvements to budgets were made
  • Architected solution for layered security with secrets management team and platform to ensure security in dynamic environments
  • Identified need, worked with vulnerability management team, and idenfitied proper mechanisms to implement secure base images for the enterprise
  • Strived towards improvements in CI/CD pipelines and worked with outside teams to ensure success while reducing time to complete
  • Contributed to open source through helm chart updates, Backstage plugins capability enhancements, security fixes, and Dockerfile security improvements
  • Launched and Supported multiple proof of concepts (POC) as well as beta programs to introduce various services and products to the enterprise
  • Implemented Sigstore to attest to artifacts produced in CI/CD processes along with SLSA provenece and signing
Senior Principal Developer, Product Technical Lead - Developer Experience, Product Agility
American Airlines
June 2022 - March 2023
Worked in the Delivery Transformation organization architecting solutions for automation using DevOps methodologies
  • Developed overall strategic technical plans and created architecture strategy for shared Kubernetes clusters for enterprise use
  • Mentored, guided, and supported developers across American Airlines IT
  • Developed the overall automation strategy and managed complex integrations between multiple teams
  • Served as a subject matter expert in automation architecture
Principal Programmer, Product Technical Lead - Developer Experience, IT DevOps/Applications
American Airlines
January 2021 - June 2022
Worked in the Delivery Transformation organization architecting solutions for automation using DevOps methodologies
  • Developed overall strategic technical plans and created architecture strategy for a developer portal used across all American Airlines information technology
  • Mentored numerous developers in their journey from infrastructure engineering to software development
  • Served as a subject matter expert in automation architecture
Principal Engineer, IT DevOps
American Airlines
June 2020 - January 2021
Worked in the Delivery Transformation organization contributing to the creation of solutions for automation using devops methodologies
  • Created architecture proposals based on identified solution gaps
  • Contributed to the overall strategy and managed complex issues within functional area of expertise
  • Worked with developers across the company to implement their solutions into an InnerSourced framework
Network Automation Engineer
American Airlines
June 2019 - June 2020
Worked in the Enterprise Network automation organization architecting solutions for automation using devops methodologies
  • Developed overall strategic technical plans and created architecture proposals related to a networking automation portal
  • Contributed to the overall strategy and managed complex issues within networking automation
  • Served as a subject matter expert in network automation architecture
Senior IT Infrastructure Engineer
American Airlines
January 2018 - June 2019
Worked in the Enterprise Network Services department deploying, optimizing, and creating engineering toolsets
  • Planned, created, and documented processes for new platforms
  • Evaluated and corrected the integrity of existing systems
  • Maintained and administered multiple platforms including products from Riverbed, CA Technologies, Infoblox, and Gigamon
  • Implemented data monitoring and collection equipment based on diagrams and run-books provided by architect
IT Infrastructure Engineer
American Airlines
June 2016 - January 2018
Worked in the Enterprise Network Services department with network and application performance monitoring toolsets
  • Implemented data monitoring and collection equipment based on diagrams and run-books provided by architect
  • Planned, created, and documented processes for existing platforms
  • Maintained and administered multiple platforms including products from Riverbed and CA Technologies
  • Troubleshot common network and network device issues with routing and administration
Associate IT Infrastructure Engineer (ADEPT)
American Airlines
June 2014 - June 2016
The American Airlines Development Program for Technology (ADEPT) is a college recruiting program created to develop a technical talent pipeline for Information Technology(IT).
  • Configured, installed, and deployed various network devices and services for functional networks
  • Maintained complete technical documentation
  • Resolved issues that tiers of support have escalated
  • Performed network maintenance and system upgrades
Statistical Analyst Intern
US Airways
July 2012 - June 2014
Assisted the Systems Engineering & Operations staff with support, analysis, and reporting.
  • Created of performance metrics
  • System performance and capacity planning analysis
  • System troubleshooting and documentation of complex processes
  • Engagement of software vendors and internal development staff to resolve problems as necessary

Technical Skills
Agile methodology Process Automation Kubernetes Cloud Environments Terraform/IAC Object Oriented Programming Unit Testing TypeScript React Express Python CI/CD Docker git Rest APIs Relational Databases Networking

Recognition
Talk about dropping all other responsibilities to help [name] and I. Talk about thinking about the bigger picture. Talk about #selflessness. Talk about #allyship. Talk about true team work. This is the culture we want to cultivate. We reap what we sow. This means we cannot stop helping each other out and being there for each other, for Runway. We are here for each other. We believe the work we do makes a difference.
- Sr Developer, IT Applications
March 21, 2024
Your persistence in finding the root cause of our incident shows your #accountability to securing AA's data and applications. Thank you for continuing to collaborate with others and get the problem fixed.
- Manager, IT Agile and DevOps
Feb 23, 2024
thank you all for living up to our corporate standards in reliability. I really appreciate you helping to troubleshoot the [platform] incident. Without your help we would not have gotten as far as we have. Thank you!!! #accountable
- Manager, IT Agile and DevOps
Feb 9, 2024

Projects
Global Traffic Manager (GTM) for PCI workloads
March 2023 - July 2023
Problem
Our current GTM solutions is for external workloads however certain sensitive workloads need internal traffic resolution and routing
Solution
A collaborative effort between the Networking organizations and the Developer Accelerator group to deliver a working solution for internal Global Traffic Management self-service services
Kubernetes GitHub Actions FastAPI Python Operator Infoblox Global Traffic Manager(GTM)
  • Planned, architected, and managed a team developing internal Global Traffic Management self-service solutions
  • Performed requirements analysis and solution architecture design
  • Communicated with other stakeholders and end users in the software development lifecycle
  • Lead team in parallel programming and design strategies to accomplish task in a reduced timeframe
  • Worked with squad members to mentor and develop skillsets towards DNS and GTM resolution along with network routing
Kubernetes Operator for Automation and Abstraction
July 2021 - March 2023
Problem
Kubernetes can be extremely difficult for application teams to utilize and the number of required resource manifests can be overwhelming
Solution
A Kubneretes operator was developed to abstract away the complexities of the native Kuberentes manifests while bringing along the company's best practices. Through templates in the developer experience portal, the reduced yaml spec is easily setup for users and deployed to the clusters using a GitOps approach.
Kubernetes Kubernetes Operators GitHub Actions Argo CD Terraform Helm Azure Ingress Controller Service Mesh Python
  • Planned, architected, implemented, automated, and managed a Kubernetes Operator being used by customer facing systems
  • Communicated with other stakeholders and end users in the software development lifecycle
  • Worked with squad members to mentor and develop skillsets to run a successful operator supporting vital business functions
  • Architected and implemented a method for automatically updating production deployment based on GitHub releases
  • Architected and implemented a method for automatically creating ephemeral environments based on GitHub Pull Requests
Developer Experience Platform - Runway
June 2020 - Present
Problem
Launching applications to the cloud is extremely difficult and time consuming for teams while requiring knowledge in multiple technology disciplies.
Solution
An InnerSourced developer platform along with an automated Kubernetes ecosystem was created for handling onboarding to our cloud environment with click to deploy reducing the time to deliver from months to minutes eliminating manual processes.
Kubernetes Backstage.io React Typescript GitHub Actions Argo CD Terraform Helm REST APIs Postgres Redis Azure Artifactory
  • Planned, architected, implemented, and managed an InnerSourced developer platform
  • Served as the technical lead to a team of developers
  • Followed and maintained agile best practices
  • Abstracted complex designs and implementations through a simple developer portal using various backend services
  • Communicated with other stakeholders and end users in the software development lifecycle
Enterprise Kubernetes Strategy
April 2021 - March 2022
Problem
Many teams operate their own clusters which poses security and maintainability problems along with a duplication of efforts.
Solution
GitHub Actions was selected to run Terraform to standup new clusters along with full bootstrapping of all cluster components. Reduced the time to standup clusters from months to 40 minutes. Handed off to the work to the newly created Enterprise Kubernetes team to continue.
Kubernetes Kubernetes Operators GitHub Actions Argo CD Terraform Helm Azure Nginx Kuma Datadog Artifactory Certificates
  • Planned, architected, implemented, automated, and managed a Kubernetes ecosystem being used by customer facing systems
  • Communicated with other stakeholders and end users in the platform development lifecycle
  • Worked with Enterprise to consolidate clusters and create standards
  • Worked with customers to troubleshoot problems within their application deployment
Networking and Firewall Orchestration Platform
April 2018 - June 2020
Problem
All requests for networking are recorded manually and then multiple administrators perform the required task hours or days later in multiple platforms creating a lag in the time to delivery.
Solution
An orchestration platform for networking requests was created that is secure with enterprise authentication, fully logged, provided an attractive and easy to use interface, and reduces the time to delivery through APIs and automation while standardizing and creating relationships among infrastructure objects.
Kubernetes HTML CSS Python REST APIs Websockets MySql Linux Jenkins CI/CD Active Directory Regular Expressions SNMP Redis RabbitMQ Cisco Plug-n-Play Nginx
  • Defined, implemented, and managed the development architecture and supporting toolsets required to build and test complex applications in an efficient and rapid manner
  • Worked within a project management/agile delivery methodology in a leading role
  • Documented solutions though data models, configurations, and setup within enterprise code management platforms
  • Ensured that platforms and data solutions can be deployed and operated in a highly repeatable and predictable manner
H3C Firmware Upgrade Automation
February 2019
Problem
Engineers have to manually upgrade the firmware on H3C devices as they are unsupported by all enterprise tools.
Solution
Create Perl script inside of CA Spectrum to push firmware with the expect module for an interactive automated session.
CA Spectrum Perl Scripting Expect Scripting Regular Expressions Comware OS (H3C)
  • Set out the integration strategy
  • Defined technical designs
  • Communicated with other stakeholders/end users in the software development lifecycle
  • Requirements Analysis and Solution Architecture Design
Network Device insourcing Automation
March 2016 - June 2016
Problem
Migrate thousands of devices from an outsourced vendor to insourced.
Solution
Created a plan of migrating devices via SNMP TRAP and using SNMP to rapidly rewrite device configurations in bulk.
CA Spectrum Perl Scripting SNMP Comware OS (H3C) SSH
  • Defined technical requirements
  • Automated migration workflow
  • Optimized communication by implementing SNMP over SSH to reduce time to configure and reduce implementation failures
  • Developed new capabilities in existing toolsets to communicate with newly acquired unsupported devices
  • Worked with platform administrators and engineering teams to implement and validate solutions

Volunteering
Mentor - Engineering Academy
Oct 1, 2021 - Present
Oct 1, 2021 - Present

Community Engagements
Jan 26, 2024
Ecosystem Panel - Analyst Event - KubeCon - CloudNativeCon
Nov 7, 2023
Nov 6, 2023
Backstage at the world's largest airline - The Journey to the Internal Developer Portal
Oct 4, 2023
May 25, 2023
Happy Developers - DevOps Strategies at Scale - American Airlines - Unconference
Apr 20, 2023
Implementing a developer portal - The Engineering Enablement Podcast - DX
Apr 5, 2023
Runway - The Developer Experience Product - American Airlines Tech Blog
Dec 21, 2021
Karl Haworth Karl Haworth is from Traverse City in northern Michigan and attended Traverse City Central High School. During his time in high school, Karl found the Engineering Academy (formerly Manufacturing Technology Academy), a national and state award-winning STEM academy where he participated in the National Robotics Challenge (NRC). Karl later attended Albion College in Albion Michigan where he studied Economics, Management, and Statistics. During his studies at Albion, Karl discovered an internship with US Airways in Tempe Arizona where he performed studies of various IT applications and groups for process improvement. After graduation, Karl was given the opportunity to join the American Airlines Development Program for Technology (ADEPT), a college recruiting program created to develop a technical talent pipeline for Information Technology (IT) and continued on with American Airlines for permanent employment.
me ( at ) karlhaworth.com