I am a seasoned Linux systems professional with extensive experience in server administration, security, and performance tuning. My career spans diverse environments—from medical imaging and mobile fraud detection to financial systems and eCommerce—where I’ve built and maintained robust, scalable infrastructures. I enjoy solving complex problems, automating operations, and delivering reliable platforms that teams can depend on. In my roles, I combine hands-on technical work with mentoring and customer-focused support. I leverage automation (Ansible), cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure), and container technologies to improve reliability and performance, while maintaining a strong focus on security and operational excellence. I’m passionate about continuous learning and helping teams achieve high availability and efficient, secure systems.

Steve Holdoway

I am a seasoned Linux systems professional with extensive experience in server administration, security, and performance tuning. My career spans diverse environments—from medical imaging and mobile fraud detection to financial systems and eCommerce—where I’ve built and maintained robust, scalable infrastructures. I enjoy solving complex problems, automating operations, and delivering reliable platforms that teams can depend on. In my roles, I combine hands-on technical work with mentoring and customer-focused support. I leverage automation (Ansible), cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure), and container technologies to improve reliability and performance, while maintaining a strong focus on security and operational excellence. I’m passionate about continuous learning and helping teams achieve high availability and efficient, secure systems.

Available to hire

I am a seasoned Linux systems professional with extensive experience in server administration, security, and performance tuning. My career spans diverse environments—from medical imaging and mobile fraud detection to financial systems and eCommerce—where I’ve built and maintained robust, scalable infrastructures. I enjoy solving complex problems, automating operations, and delivering reliable platforms that teams can depend on.

In my roles, I combine hands-on technical work with mentoring and customer-focused support. I leverage automation (Ansible), cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure), and container technologies to improve reliability and performance, while maintaining a strong focus on security and operational excellence. I’m passionate about continuous learning and helping teams achieve high availability and efficient, secure systems.

See more

Experience Level

Expert
Expert
Expert
Expert
Intermediate
Intermediate

Language

English
Fluent

Work Experience

Senior Systems Administrator at Mega Ltd.
April 1, 2024 - June 1, 2025
Back to oldschool Systems Administration of globally located physical servers. A very secure outlook for all operations, primarily focused on delivering secure file storage. Project work includes implementation of a global VPN service and delivering sandboxed test environments via Ansible. Tools used include KVM, WireGuard, MySQL, Nginx, Bind DNS, Unbound, Debian Linux.
Senior Site Reliability Engineer at Datacom Ltd.
March 1, 2022 - March 1, 2024
Involved with the implementation and support of a standard monitoring package across the company and customer sites. Server monitoring uses ScienceLogic to implement a ‘Single Pane of Glass’ solution for both Linux and Windows servers and services, and the xMatters ticketing system is used to manage on call support. Linux support and tuning, Python development.
Senior Customer Success Engineer at platform.sh
August 1, 2017 - March 1, 2022
Guerilla Systems Administrator – driven by customer tickets, we analyse and address problems with sites, including performance, resource, or service issues. Two technology stacks: container-based and an Enterprise High Availability Debian cluster, underpinned by cloud resources (AWS EC2, Azure, GCP, OVH). Heavily PHP oriented (Drupal, Magento). Mentored colleagues; earned 1000 kudos points.
Lead developer / administrator at Biketobody
August 1, 2012 - August 1, 2017
Designed and implemented a backend API-driven interface to convert body measurements into bike size recommendations and to deliver correctly sized Frame/stem combinations, protecting IP and data while enabling accurate customer fulfillment.

Education

Bachelor of Science(Hons) Geology at University of Nottingham, UK
January 11, 2030 - December 16, 2025

Qualifications

Member of the NZ Institute of IT Professionals
January 1, 2010 - January 1, 2025

Industry Experience

Software & Internet, Professional Services, Media & Entertainment, Other