About Me

Hi, I'm Alex Chen, a Senior Software Engineer at CloudTech Inc. with over 8 years of experience building scalable distributed systems and cloud infrastructure.

Current Role

I lead the platform engineering team at CloudTech, where we serve over 50 million API requests daily across a microservices architecture running on Kubernetes. Our stack includes Go, Python, PostgreSQL, Redis, and a heavy dose of AWS services.

Background

Before CloudTech, I spent three years at StartupXYZ scaling their monolith into microservices, and two years at BigCorp working on high-frequency trading systems where latency measured in microseconds mattered.

Technical Interests

• Distributed Systems: Building systems that scale horizontally and gracefully handle failures
• Cloud Architecture: Designing cost-effective, resilient cloud infrastructure
• Developer Experience: Creating tools and platforms that make developers more productive
• Site Reliability: Implementing monitoring, alerting, and incident response practices

Technologies I Work With

Writing

I write about the challenges and solutions I encounter while building and operating large-scale systems. My posts focus on practical lessons learned rather than theoretical concepts.

Topics I frequently cover include microservices architecture, Kubernetes operations, database scaling, monitoring strategies, and team leadership in technical organizations.

Speaking

I occasionally speak at tech conferences and meetups about cloud architecture and engineering management. Recent talks include:

• "Scaling Engineering Teams and Systems" - CloudConf 2024
• "Kubernetes Cost Optimization at Scale" - KubeCon 2024
• "From Monolith to Microservices: A Migration Story" - DevOps Days 2023

Outside of Work

When I'm not debugging distributed systems, you'll find me hiking in the Pacific Northwest, experimenting with new coffee brewing methods, or contributing to open-source projects.

I'm particularly interested in developer productivity tools and have contributed to several Kubernetes operators and CLI tools that help teams manage complex deployments.

Contact

The best way to reach me is through the contact page or connect with me on professional networks. I'm always happy to discuss system architecture, career advice, or interesting technical challenges.