Nikhil
James

Experience

1. DevOps Engineer

   Ascend SC (Sumitomo Corporation)

   Houston, TX. 2026 to present Current

   • Design and maintain CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions, reducing manual deployment tasks by approximately 80%.
   • Own the company’s first Oracle Cloud deployment function from the ground up, leading end-to-end releases of Oracle Integration Cloud (OIC) integrations, ATP database updates, APEX applications, OTBI reports, and Groovy scripts, plus patching across Oracle Fusion environments, using self-built GitHub Actions automation.
   • Support deployment and optimization of containerized workloads across Kubernetes and OpenShift environments handling multiple application deployments.
   • Help manage cloud infrastructure across AWS and Oracle Cloud, supporting secure and scalable operations.
   • Implement Infrastructure as Code with Terraform and CloudFormation to improve provisioning consistency and reduce setup time.
   • Contribute to MuleSoft integration platform support and deployment automation across enterprise environments.
   • Monitor and troubleshoot cloud-native systems with CloudWatch and Dynatrace, helping maintain high availability and operational stability.
   • Work with cross-functional teams to improve deployment reliability, release efficiency, and incident response.
   • Write and maintain operational documentation, runbooks, and support procedures that streamline onboarding and production support.

2. DevOps Engineer

   Builders FirstSource

   Dallas, TX. Jan 2021 to 2026

   • Automated deployment and testing with Jenkins, cutting compile and deployment time by 35% and shipping production patches that resolved 800+ high-priority Jira tickets across 650+ releases.
   • Helped migrate repositories from Subversion and Atlassian platforms to Git and Azure DevOps ahead of SAP integration, shortening deployment prep time by 15%.
   • Built a cksum-based Bash verification script that replaced manual host logins across 10 servers, saving the DevOps team 10 hours a week.
   • Supported Git version control and dependency management across 3 active repositories, reducing minor merge issues by 10%.
   • Implemented SVN branching that reduced merge conflicts by 25% and sped up release turnaround by 20% for 15+ developers in an Agile environment.
   • Automated regression testing with a Postman API test suite, cutting testing time by 15% and post-release bug fixes by 10%.
   • Trained 5+ senior, manager, and director-level staff on deployment processes, improving efficiency by 33% and sharing responsibility across 2 teams.
   • Led release presentations and coordinated QA, BAs, and stakeholders through MS Teams, ServiceNow, Jira, and Confluence.
   • Led after-hours production triage with DBAs, NOC, QA, and field users to keep business-critical systems at 100% uptime.

3. Software Engineer

   Builders FirstSource

   Dallas, TX. Oct 2018 to Jan 2021

   • Built an internal documentation site (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, Bootstrap, IBM database) that cut resource search time by 40% for 50+ people across development, QA, and business analysis.
   • Resolved 10+ critical bugs in Informix 4GL and SQL, reducing system errors and operational costs.
   • Rebuilt a legacy general ledger report in Genero, replacing green-screen output with a readable view for managers.

Skills

DevOps and Cloud

Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, CloudFormation, OpenShift, Azure Services, AWS, REST API

Oracle Cloud

OCI, Oracle Integration Cloud (OIC), ATP, APEX, OTBI, Oracle Fusion

Scripting and Automation

Python, Bash/KSH, Groovy, SQL, Unix (AIX), Linux (RHEL, Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch)

CI/CD and Tools

Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Git, Azure DevOps, Jira, ServiceNow, Cherwell, Confluence, Release Management

Monitoring and Integration

CloudWatch, Dynatrace, MuleSoft, Postman

Database and Query

MySQL, IBM Database

Frontend and Backend

HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Informix-4GL, Java

Project Support

Project Management, MS Teams