Technical Support Engineer
Resume:
Aliza R. Panitz
Senior Technical Support Engineer
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alizapanitz/
Santa Clara, CA, USA
*****.******.****+*****@*****.***
Seasoned enterprise escalation engineer, helping B2B customers effectively use complex Linux-based server software. I build strong relationships with at-risk customers, write and improve documentation to both improve my team's internal processes and increase customer satisfaction, and work with Engineering to characterize product issues. As a former software developer and Linux administrator, I readily understand and troubleshoot product internals and network problems, and file actionable bug reports. Skills
• Core skills: Linux software and network troubleshooting, internal and external documentation, explaining technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders, bug discovery, and root cause analysis
• Operating Systems: Linux (RHEL, OEL, CentOS, Ubuntu), Windows, OS X (Mac), BSD Unix
• Scripting: Bash, Python, REST API, JSON
• Configuration Management: Puppet
• Security: Zero Trust Security, network security, spam filtering, log analysis
• Tools: Splunk, Observe, VMware, Git/GitLab, Perforce, JIRA, Confluence, SFDC, full SDLC
• Databases: SQL (MySQL, Oracle), Redis
• Networking: TCP/IP, SSL/TLS, Wireshark, DNS, LDAP, FTP, Active Directory, SMTP
• Soft Skills: Customer advocacy and communications, training and mentoring, bug triage and prioritization
Experience
Technical Support Escalation Engineer Illumio Sunnyvale, CA 11/2021 - 09/2024
• Provided enterprise support of Cloud-based SaaS and on-premises Zero Trust micro-segmentation cloud, server, container, and endpoint cybersecurity solutions, with a 4.9/5.0 CSAT rating.
• Troubleshot and helped customers resolve complex issues on Linux, Windows, and Mac systems, often working with Engineering to diagnose problems
• Top 10% of Knowledge Base article authors and revisers, regularly called upon for complex tasks
• Filed hundreds of detailed bug reports on software and documentation, more than half of cases.
• Collected HAR files for Web services and API troubleshooting
• Critiqued AI-driven product information
• Analyzed logs in Splunk and Observe to track performance issues and trace REST API calls
• First in my team to obtain expert certification in product internals and usage Senior Linux Systems Engineer (Contract work, various) Sunnyvale, CA 08/2014 - 09/2019
• Provided Linux sysadmin services for multiple companies (See LinkedIn for details)
• Designed and wrote Bash and Python scripts to discover and remediate unproductive cloud computing hosts, and flag discrepancies between master SQL database and host configs
• Monitored and enforced compliance with GitHub policies
• Standardized and automated account provisioning and de-provisioning; wrote Python scripts to cross- reference multiple databases to discover obsolete accounts Operations Systems Engineer Apple Cupertino, CA 4/2013 - 07/2014
• Provided Operations support for the Siri back end servers (VMware and Mesos virtualization)
• Configuration management and deployment of Linux systems at scale
• Designed and wrote scripts to automate and log maintenance of large VMware installation
• Trained NOC team to take over monitoring and maintenance tasks from Operations team
• Product changes and automation tools to support operational improvements
• Introduced use of jq to parse JSON files in scripts
• Debugging and mitigation of failures due to code, network, infrastructure, and data issues
• Log analysis to discover, monitor, and automatically resolve problems; filed hundreds of bug reports based on errors discovered this way, many pinpointing specific Javascript lines
• Built custom Puppet modules and RPMs to standardize deployment and maintenance tasks
• Worked with a CI/CD environment with separate production, QA, dev, and beta deployments Security Product Expert Mirapoint Software/Critical Path Sunnyvale, CA 9/2008 - 11/2012
• Designed and produced patches adding anti-spam features to BSD- and Linux-based mail servers
• Developed standard system and network configurations to reduce inbound and outbound spam
• Worked with vendors and customers to mitigate email spam attacks, including discovery and data analysis of new malware patterns
• Found a reproducible test case for a high profile issue that had eluded Engineering for over 4 years; submitted a bug report with a fix for the incorrect line of C code.
• Worked with customers to reduce the impact of compromised accounts
• Ran weekly Critical Accounts meetings for bug and feature request triage and prioritization Senior Technical Support Engineer Mirapoint Software Sunnyvale, CA 6/2005 - 9/2008
• Provided level 3/4 Enterprise support for administrators of standards-based email and calendar server appliances (web interface and email client access)
• Email troubleshooting including SMTP log analysis, Unix process tracing, hardware issues
• Analyzed issues with communication to Exchange servers and Outlook plugin
• Travelled to India to train Level 1/2 support team
• Filed 300 bug reports a year, many with suggested source fixes or QA process changes
• Wrote and edited knowledge base (KCS) articles, best practices white papers, product release notes and online help, reducing support calls and increasing customer satisfaction
• Subject matter expert (SME) for NDMP, NAS, SAN, and legacy backup/restore systems; discovered and documented incompatibility with Veritas Windows NDMP server, leading to a product fix. Education
Computer Science (incomplete) University of Maryland Miscellaneous
• US citizen
• Co-author of RFC 2606, Reserved Top Level DNS Names
• Open Directory (dmoz.org) meta-editor (2000-2006) – volunteer SEO leadership position : peer mentorship, consensus-building on taxonomy issues, conflict resolution, and fraud/spam control
• Rules copy editor / proofreader for several strategy board games (Poseidon, 18West, 18NY, more)
• Wrote Python modules to control color LED light sequences for the “Magnus Flora” art installation
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