Building Calm,
Resilient Systems for
Ambitious Product Teams
I lead Cloud and Data Infrastructure at Houzz, shaping the operating model behind reliability, platform security, and cost discipline across AWS, Kubernetes, and analytics systems.
About Me
A Steadier Way to Run Infrastructure
This direction treats the site less like a generic startup landing page and more like an executive profile: editorial typography, warmer materials, and tighter narrative framing.
My mission is to build and evolve a secure, scalable, and cost-effective Cloud and Data infrastructure that supports Houzz products and analytics at scale. I lead 3 teams of 12 Core and Data Infrastructure Engineers, setting clear goals and providing strategic guidance to align our work with company-wide priorities.
Key achievements include a company-wide migration from Kops to AWS EKS, standardized with Terraform, ArgoCD, Karpenter, and Istio, delivering a 35% annual AWS cost reduction through RI optimization, Spot and Graviton adoption, GP3 conversion, and autoscaling, while sustaining more than 99.9% availability.
I implemented rate limiting and tarpitting at the CDN and Istio layers using client fingerprints — IP, JA3, JA4, and ASN — to mitigate DDoS attacks and aggressive crawlers. I also led the modernization of MySQL clusters from self-hosted 5.7 to Aurora RDS 8.4, and drove AI-assisted engineering workflow adoption (OpenCode) across the organization.
I established and lead strategic partnerships with technology vendors including AWS, Fastly, HashiCorp, Snowflake, MonteCarlo, and IBM, aligning roadmaps through regular technical syncs.
My leadership approach is simple: assign outcomes, not tasks. I optimize for low-maintenance systems, transparent cross-team execution, and tech leads who can own architecture end to end.
Career at Houzz: Sr. & Staff Software Engineer / Tech Lead (2016) → Engineering Manager (2020) → Sr. Engineering Manager (2024)
Portfolio
Selected Products and Experiments
Recent work is surfaced first. Older projects stay visible as range and continuity, not filler.
Featured
Alexis Autonomy
A public build-log site for AI execution workflows, monetization experiments, and operator systems.
Claw Persona Hub
A persona marketplace for OpenClaw with conversion-focused packs, templates, and upcoming knowledge products.
eng-ai-committee
An AI-assisted engineering committee web app plus CLI for design-review quality gates, debate flows, judge verdicts, and iterative refinement reports.
Legacy (10+ Years)
Now You (Don't) See Me
A Chrome extension for hiding sensitive content on screen during presentations.
LinkedIn Endorser
A Chrome extension that automates LinkedIn skill endorsements to help your network.
Contact
Open to Substantive Conversations
For infrastructure leadership, platform strategy, or project discussions, these are the best entry points.
Support
Support the Independent Projects.
If one of the apps, experiments, or writing projects here has been useful, support helps me keep building outside of my day job without turning everything into a generic product funnel.
@swissashley on Venmo