Michael Rice
Jewett, Texas
210-764-9779
michael (at) michaelrice (dot) org

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

Principal Systems Engineer with 15+ years of experience spanning infrastructure automation, VMware ecosystems, cloud computing, and AI-powered developer tooling. Combines deep systems expertise with software engineering to architect and deliver enterprise-scale automation platforms, open source libraries, and LLM-driven engineering workflows. Active open source contributor since 2005 with a track record of building tools adopted by the global infrastructure community.

RELEVANT EXPERIENCE

RackN

Principal Systems Engineer June 2019 -- Present

  • Architected and shipped multiple versions of the RackN VMware integration, including a VIB-free agent approach that eliminated VMware partner certification requirements while significantly improving deployment portability across enterprise environments
  • Designed and implemented Infrastructure as Code (IaC) workflows and pipelines, enabling customers to build highly customizable and repeatable infrastructure at scale
  • Developed and published the Digital Rebar Python library, providing customers a supported, programmatic interface to the RackN platform and accelerating workflow automation
  • Built and maintain internal MCP servers — including ZenDesk and vCenter integrations — enabling the support organization to resolve tickets faster and engineers to rapidly iterate on vSphere-based content
  • Developed reusable Skills for Claude and other LLMs, creating AI-powered engineering workflows that improve team velocity and reduce repetitive operational overhead
  • Developed a Python-based agent for executing workflows on ESXi systems, driving product adoption among large enterprise customers seeking infrastructure automation
  • Established a structured support process using ZenDesk, replacing a fragmented email-only system and significantly improving response times and ticket visibility
  • Integrated PagerDuty with ZenDesk to deliver 24/7 support coverage with efficient on-call rotation management
  • Enhanced the GoLang-based CLI tool to enable customers to gather comprehensive system diagnostics with a single command, reducing support resolution time
  • Developed and published a Python SDK to PyPI, providing a reliable distribution channel for programmatic platform access
  • Created Nagios integration to automate product deployment and configuration
  • Configured OKTA SSO and resolved SAML authentication issues for customers and internal teams

Rackspace

Software Developer -- OpenStack Private Cloud Solutions R&D May 2015 -- Feb 2019

  • Collaborated directly with customers to gather requirements and deliver custom solutions for OpenStack-powered private clouds
  • Built custom solutions enabling customers to integrate external identity providers with Keystone Federation for SSO to OpenStack private clouds
  • Developed custom Horizon dashboards, panels, and plugins to extend the OpenStack management interface
  • Authored custom OpenStack Ansible roles and playbooks to extend Rackspace Private Cloud functionality
  • Automated Ubuntu pre-configuration and Rackspace Private Cloud installation using Ansible playbooks

Software Developer -- VMWare Practice Aug 2012 - May 2015

  • Collaborated with the development team to redesign the application stack for horizontal scalability using RabbitMQ
  • Built HostSystem automation leveraging Grails, RabbitMQ, and SSH
  • Maintained and enhanced a web-based operations tool used by the VMware practice
  • Onboarded new developers, guiding them through the application stack and Git workflows
  • Partnered with the scrum master to write actionable stories for junior developers
  • Worked with the DevOps team to build Jenkins jobs for automated Grails application deployments
  • Developed a Python application to collect billing data from vCloud Usage Meter on a scheduled basis
  • Built an automated decommission process for HostSystems and VirtualMachines, eliminating a significant volume of non-value-add tickets from the Operations queue
  • Partnered with product owners on next-generation VMware product design and automated provisioning tooling
  • Served as subject matter expert for Git and the vSphere API

Virtualization Engineer Sep 2011 - Aug 2012

  • Installed and configured OpenStack using early versions of the Rackspace Private Cloud
    • Worked with the development team to enhance the quality of the installer
    • Debug django based installer when it failed
    • Trouble shoot puppet manifests that were part of the install process
  • Created v1 of the current automated provisioning system used by the Managed Virtualization powered by VMware product
    • Used Grails to create a series of applications that tied the CMDB into vSphere using REST
  • Created web application for VMware Operations team that reduced manual work
  • Created automation to handle several large volume tickets that were deemed as Non Value Add tickets
  • Created web based DeClone tool using Grails, Perl, and the VMware VIX library

McClelland & Hine

Systems Administrator Jan 2007 - Aug 2011

  • Replaced Cisco routers with OpenSource FreeBSD solution using quagga. Routing protocols used: OSPF
  • Replaced InterTel PBX with OpenSource solution using Asterisk and a custom version of FreePBX
  • Replaced legacy FreeBSD systems with updated Linux servers to provide company DNS, and file servers using SAMBA with minimal down time
  • Implemented SQUID for caching and web filtering
  • Implemented a VMware solution to reduce server foot print in datacenters using vSphere 3.5 and later updating to 4.1
    • This reduced physical server foot print from close to 100 servers between 3 locations to 9 physical servers
  • Implemented various monitoring systems including Nagios (later updated to Icinga), SmokePing, and Munin
  • Responsible for keeping Falconstor IPstor SAN updated with latest patches and doing SAN provisioning
  • Replaced legacy firewalls with PFSense powered firewalls
  • Implemented F5 Firepass VPN
  • Provided exceptional end user support to 120+ employees on printers, faxes, Windows desktop issues, and email
  • Managed company DNS servers running BIND & Email using Kerio
  • Implemented puppet to allow for centralized configuration management
  • Created various automated tools using PERL, PHP, and Python that integrated with VMware and Asterisk

OPENSOURCE PROJECTS

Very active member of the OpenSource community since 2005.

  • simdeplower -- Python tool to deploy a vCenter Server Appliance into Fusion or Workstation
  • Thunderhead -- Python SDK for VMware vCloud Usage Meter
  • YAVIJAVA -- Fork of VIJAVA the Java bindings for vSphere
  • pyVmomi -- Python SDK for VMware vSphere
  • pyVmomi-community-samples -- Python scripts to demonstrate how to use pyVmomi
    • Source
    • Role: Active Contributor
  • grails-weakSSL -- Grails plugin to deliberately break SSL for you by accepting any SSL certificate
  • grails-jsch-ssh2 -- Grails plugin that provides ssh client using jsch-ssh2 library

PUBLIC SPEAKING

  • vCenter Simulator For Functional Testing #1 Sept 2015 -- VMWorld US 2015
  • Quick Introduction To pyVmomi Sept 2015 -- VMWorld US 2015
  • YAVIJAVA An Alternative Java SDK For vSphere Sept 2015 -- VMWorld US 2015
  • Quick Deep Dive Into vCenter Simulator Configuration Sept 2015 -- VMWorld 2015
  • Introduction to vSphere APIs Using pyVmomi March 2015 -- San Antonio VMWare User Group
  • Paths to VOIP March 2008 -- American Association of Managing General Agents Automation Conference

TECHNICAL SKILLS

  • Operating Systems: Red Hat, CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu, FreeBSD, macOS, Windows
  • VMware: vSphere, ESX, ESXi, Fusion, Workstation, pyVmomi, VIJAVA, YAVIJAVA, vCloud Usage Meter, vCloud Director
  • Programming Languages: Python, Go, Groovy, Java, Bash, Perl, PHP
  • AI / LLM: Claude, Model Context Protocol (MCP), LLM Skill Development, Prompt Engineering
  • Web Frameworks: Flask, Grails, Django
  • Databases: MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite
  • Containers: Docker
  • SCM: Git, GitLab, GitHub, GitHub Enterprise
  • Monitoring: Nagios, Icinga, Munin, SmokePing
  • Config Management: Ansible, Chef, Puppet, SaltStack
  • Other: Jenkins, Vagrant, Jira, Apache httpd, Apache Tomcat, BIND, PagerDuty, ZenDesk, OKTA, SAML, vcrpy, OmniGraffle
 
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