I’m Derek — software engineer, infrastructure nerd, and chronic tinkerer. 12+ years building production systems, automation, and the kind of infrastructure that has to work at 3am whether I’m awake or not. From deploying hardware across 130 locations to running local LLMs on dual 3090s — I work every layer of the stack.
When I’m not building mission-critical systems at my day job, I’m self-hosting AI inference clusters, wiring up agentic workflows, 3D printing things my wife didn’t ask for, and writing about all of it here. Topics range from code to infrastructure, AI, and whatever I broke this week.
What I Build
These three are where I go deep. Over those same 12+ years I’ve also run the system-level IT around them — POS terminals out in the field, network and security, and the end-to-end business ops that most engineers never see. I’m writing more of that side into the blog.
Payment Systems
Architected and rewrote legacy payment platforms processing millions of daily transactions. Built fraud detection systems that saved millions. Deep experience with FIS IST, MAS, CSA, and the full payments value chain from boarding through reconciliation.
Infrastructure at Scale
Deployed hardware across 130 locations. Managed network infrastructure that had to be reliable. Built automation that keeps complex systems running without human intervention. Monitored with Nagios for a decade before moving to more modern stack.
Local AI & Agentic Workflows
Self-hosted inference cluster running dual RTX 3090s, serving Qwen 3.8 27B via vLLM with tensor parallelism. 100K context window. Powers agentic coding workflows, research, documentation, and household AI with zero cloud dependency.
What I’m Looking For
Staff Engineer / Platform Architect
I’m at the point where I want to architect systems, make the technical decisions, and mentor teams through complex migrations — and I still need to write the code myself. Problems where the solution isn’t “add more engineers.” The title should match the scope — I’m not looking for senior with a different name.
Remote + Flexible
Remote is non-negotiable for family time. I want flexible schedule — I work best when I’m not clocking hours in a room I don’t need to be in. I can write my own schedule and deliver.
Companies That Care About the Work
I want to build things that actually matter to the people using them. Not dashboards for dashboards’ sake. Systems that run without me, but I’m there when they don’t work. That’s when I’m most useful.
Skills I Use
Languages
Python, Go, Bash/Shell. I write to solve the problem in front of me. I pick the right tool for the job and document it so someone else can pick it up.
Infrastructure
Proxmox, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform. I build for resilience — if something fails, I want to know why it failed and how to fix it, not just that it failed.
AI & ML
vLLM, llama.cpp, HuggingFace, PyTorch. I run local inference clusters and build agentic workflows that extend my brain rather than replace it.
Payments
FIS IST, MAS, CSA, ASN, RVS, NACHA, ISO 8583, ISO 20022. I’ve been in payments for 12+ years and can still explain the fundamentals while doing the work.
Monitoring & Ops
Nagios, Prometheus, Grafana, Cloudflare, Plausible Analytics. I build observability into every system I touch. If you can’t see it, you can’t fix it.
Soft Skills
Mentoring, technical decision-making, cross-application communication. I can own a single component and a whole migration.
Recent Work
NCR Voyix — Worldpay Payment Processing
Built mission-critical payment processing integration for Verizon’s global network. Systems that handle real money, at scale, with zero room for error.
Fraud Detection Systems
Designed real-time fraud detection that saved the company millions annually. Machine learning and rules engines working together, not either-or.
Self-Hosted AI Inference Cluster
Dual RTX 3090 inference rig running Qwen 3.8 27B via vLLM with tensor parallelism. 100K context window. Zero cloud dependency — my AI stack runs on hardware I own.