Justin Leopold
Lakewood
Summary
Technology professional with 10+ years of experience designing, automating, and operating technology platforms. Key member of an award-winning automation program with over 8 million dollars in employee time savings. Experienced across the entire technology stack from networking and data center design to DevOps practices and software delivery. Passionate about reliability, observability, and automation that makes the right path the easy path.
Overview
1
1
Certification
17
17
years of professional experience
Work History
Automation Architect & Data Center Architect
City and County of Denver
Denver, CO
10.2021 - Current
- Worked as part of an automation program that saved 7+ million dollars in time savings and was the winner of a CIO 100 award (2024), Colorado Technology Association APEX award (2024), and was instrumental in a vendor receiving a Red Hat Ecosystem Innovator award in 2026.
- Lead infrastructure automation initiatives using Ansible Automation Platform 2.x and Terraform, reducing manual toil and improving platform reliability across on-premises and cloud environments.
- Implemented and standardized GitOps-aligned Infrastructure as Code practices and defined reusable Terraform modules adopted org-wide.
- Drove large-scale data migration from on-premises block storage to S3-backed Nasuni storage, ensuring data integrity and zero-downtime cutover.
- Built a custom multi-threaded Python application to continuously monitor S3 endpoint availability, providing real-time observability for election-critical infrastructure.
- Developed standardized PowerShell modules and Python tooling deployed via CI/CD pipelines, reducing configuration drift and promoting engineering consistency.
- Earned AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate and VMware VCP-DCV (vSphere 7 +8) certifications.
- Started a working group to spread automation to other technology professionals in the organization as well as extending these tools to agencies.
Senior Linux Systems Architect
Denver Public Schools
Denver, CO
04.2018 - 10.2021
- Architected and deployed a production Kubernetes cluster using Rancher, Longhorn, Harbor, and GitLab enabling containerized workloads on premises with full CI/CD integration.
- Deployed an OKD (Openshift upstream) cluster for the development team to utilize in their software lifecycle as part of a container initiative.
- Managed GitOps-driven delivery pipelines in GitLab deploying to both VM and container-based targets.
- Selected as solution architect for an AWS build-out supporting new data initiatives. Designed VPCs, IAM policies, security groups, and compute infrastructure.
- Deployed VMware NSX-T micro-segmentation across two datacenters, implementing zero-trust network security with east-west traffic controls.
- Maintained and administered Linux-based observability stack using Graylog for centralized logging and operational visibility.
- Implemented Zerto replication for Tier 1 application disaster recovery. Managed multi-site UCS infrastructure with SDN overlay. Performed quarterly DR tests with a 100% success rate.
- Automated server configuration across Windows and Linux fleets using Ansible.
Deployment Engineer
Denver Public Schools
Denver, CO
03.2017 - 04.2018
- Designed and implemented an internal PKI/certificate authority infrastructure, securing internal service communication.
- Built and deployed PowerShell modules via CI/CD pipelines to enable faster work within my team.
- Built and maintained a large scale SolarWinds monitoring environment for cross-team observability.
Network Administrator III
Denver Public Schools
Denver, CO
09.2014 - 03.2017
- Managed network and telecom infrastructure across 20+ locations.
- Used SolarWinds automation and compliance reports to drive standardization.
Team Lead
Live Consulting LLC
Denver, CO
10.2013 - 09.2014
- Managed ~30 client environments across different industries.
- Lead a team of 2 across multiple clients and technologies.
- Managed client relationships and helped onboard new clients.
Technical Analyst - Networking
Hospital Sisters Health System
Springfield, IL
08.2009 - 10.2013
- Supported networking devices across 13 data centers and hundreds of clinics.
- Performed wireless site survey, architected deployment plans, and performed large scale cutovers of wireless and networking gear.
- Was part of the team to set up a new datacenter for the initial implementation of VMware technologies.
Education
BAS - Computer Information Systems
Robert Morris University
01-2009
Skills
- CI/CD Pipelines: Gitlab CI and Azure Devops Pipelines
- Infrastructure as Code: Ansible and Terraform
- Containerization & orchestration; Docker, Podman, and Kubernetes
- Linux, Windows, and Virtualization administration
- Secrets Management and Vulnerability Scanning: Sonarqube, Trivy, Delinea
- AWS including EC2, IAM, VPCs, API Gateway, SQS, and EKS
- AI Tools: AWS Bedrock, Github Copilot, Claude Code
- Cross functional collaboration across technical and non-technical teams
Certification
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate (Expired May 2025)
- VMware Certified Professional, Data Center Virtualization (VCP-DCV) – vSphere 7 & 8
Timeline
Automation Architect & Data Center Architect
City and County of Denver
10.2021 - Current
Senior Linux Systems Architect
Denver Public Schools
04.2018 - 10.2021
Deployment Engineer
Denver Public Schools
03.2017 - 04.2018
Network Administrator III
Denver Public Schools
09.2014 - 03.2017
Team Lead
Live Consulting LLC
10.2013 - 09.2014
Technical Analyst - Networking
Hospital Sisters Health System
08.2009 - 10.2013
BAS - Computer Information Systems
Robert Morris University