Joe Thom CV V13

Experience

Infrastructure & System Architecture

Sykes Seafood – IT Infrastructure Lead

Jan 2022-Present

Joining the company as Infrastructure engineer, I was tasked with bringing the current outsourced IT inhouse, alongside merging and consolidation the systems of 3 acquisitions. After 12 months I moved to my current position overseeing the IT estate for Sykes UK which widened to include Klaas Puul across the EU & Morocco.

Responsibilities:

  • Design, deploy and maintain backend infrastructure including VMware and Hyper-V clusters, SQL servers, RDS, Containerised apps & cloud systems.
  • Configure, implement and support internal networks, Fortinet SD-WAN and site connectivity.
  • Respond to alerts and faults generated by monitoring systems and cyber security platforms such as PRTG, SentinelOne, Mimecast and Veeam
  • Work with internal development and BI teams as well as 3rd party support providers to maintain business applications
  • Plan future projects, identifying areas of improvement and assigning priority.
  • Oversee and provide escalation support to the internal helpdesk team.
  • Manage 3rd party service providers and contracts.

Key Projects:

  • Total migration of Ruskim Seafoods over to the Sykes network, this included migrating Active Directory, on-prem Exchange to O365, MPLS consolidation and bringing on-prem some 3rd party SAAS apps.
  • Server, Network and Firewall refresh at our Netherlands based subsidiary, this included a migration from Hyper-V over to VMware vSphere to facilitate hosting SAP back in-house, alongside a total replacement of the switching and firewalls.
  • Multi-site relocation to a brand-new head office / central distribution unit. Spanning several months, I was responsible for Internal fiber networks, comms room fit out, incoming comms via fiber and radio, Wi-Fi to cover 15,000sqm, infrastructure cabling and the actual Migration.
  • Backup and DR overhaul to focus on utilizing the various locations for offsite storage alongside cloud based immutable recovery points.
  • MPLS carrier migration, moving from the existing MPLS provider to FortiGate SD-WAN.
  • MFA enrollment across the group leveraging azure conditional access and Intune.
  • Initial rollout of CoPilot alongside the trialing of an internally hosted general purpose LLM.

Peninsula – Infrastructure Engineer

April 2021-December 2021

Providing 3rd line escalation to the inhouse support team alongside key improvement projects and BAU system maintenance as part of the infrastructure team.

Key Projects:

  • Technical lead on Intune for Windows, Mac and iOS devices - project to replace SCCM and AirWatch
  • Microsoft 365 DLP deployment to replace Digital Guardian for sensitive document protection
  • Salesforce auth migration to Azure SSO

CarFinance 247 – Infrastructure Manager (Hands-On)

March 2015-April 2021

Leading the internal infrastructure team I was responsible for the conception, design, installation, maintenance and support of all internal IT network systems both onsite and in the datacenter.

Key Projects:

  • Initially brought in as Systems Administrator I was tasked to redesign and completely overhaul the internal IT infrastructure, putting in HA storage and networking, replacing the existing windows domain and putting in resilient WAN connectivity.
  • Designed and deployed resilient VMware clusters into multiple datacenters to support a new microservices development strategy as part of a transition away from Rackspace hosted VMs. This included compute, storage, networking to be highly available.
  • Recruited and managed a small desktop support team as the company grew exponentially from 80 to 500 staff over 4 years.
  • Designed and implemented the consolidation of IT infrastructure as the company moved from 3 physical locations into 1 head office.
  • Rapidly transitioned from the on-prem infrastructure into Office365 and hybrid azure to enable the expansion of home working.

Lima Networks – Managed Services Engineer (MSP)

October 2014 – March 2015

As managed services engineer my focus was providing escalation support to existing MSE clients as well as onsite project resource for their predominately on-premise infrastructure.

General Duties:

  • Build and Maintain VMWare ESXi 4.x/5.x Servers, including vCentre Deployments.
  • Supporting and maintaining IP-Cortex systems.
  • Maintain, Support and expand customer XenDesktop and XenApp deployments.
  • Support and Maintain Internal VMWare datacenter infrastructure.
  • Support and Maintain Netapp and HP Storage Clusters.
  • Build and Maintain internal business services.

ConvergeOne/CommunicateBetter – IT Engineer (MSP)

June 2013-October 2014

Joining as an apprentice I was responsible for providing remote support to various externals SME client as well as large enterprise class customers, acting as either their internal IT or as an escalation point from onsite IT, alongside a mixed team of level 2 and 3 engineers.

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