The following blog post is the latest edition of Meet the Bees, a series in which we get to know the employees at CloudBees (affectionately known internally as “Bees”). In today’s post, the spotlight is on Amanda Reams, operations engineer!
Amanda, a former biologist turned operations engineer, has been working with CloudBees since August 2019. When she is not swamped with the nitty-gritty of cloud infrastructure and systems, she loves to pack her bags and explore the world. She enjoys hanging out with her family and spending quality time with her super cute almost-3-year-old.
We got to know more about Amanda and her journey at CloudBees in our recent fireside chat. Here are the excerpts from our candid chat with Amanda.
Who are you? What is your role at CloudBees?
My name is Amanda Reams and I am an operations engineer at CloudBees. I am responsible for maintaining and monitoring our cloud infrastructure, user provisioning and ensuring that our overall systems work smoothly.
What does a typical day look like for you?
No day is typical, however, my day always starts with coffee! After my morning caffeine fix, I check my team’s channel on Slack for any new messages. Since four members of my team operate in different time zones and start their workday while I am asleep, I make sure I’m up to date on every task, first thing in the morning. This is usually followed by checking emails and Jira. The operations team has a number of Jira tickets coming in every day. I prefer to address the relatively easy tickets (user provisioning, AWS access, etc.) immediately to get past them quickly and focus on core operations work. Tickets related to the Ops Portal (our user management system) or Opscore development (the operations team loves Golang) are usually more critical. More recently, I have also been working on our AWS-GCP migration project.
Do you have any advice for someone starting a career in software delivery?
Ask questions! There is so much to learn and so many knowledgeable people around to answer your queries. The Jenkins community is huge and I have come across numerous folks who are always happy to help. Also, since the community is so large, take advantage of all the resources available. There are many.
If you could eat only one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?
I would just love to eat Arroz Con Pollo, for sure. It’s a simple dish that is always satisfying and delicious.
What's your favorite sport?
Admittedly, I’m not a big sports fan. Although, if I have to choose, I’d go with (American) football. Sunday’s during football season are always big in my house. Both sides of the family come over, we eat way too much and yell at the television often. It’s always a really good time.
What is your favorite social media platform and why?
Hard question, because I’m not big on social media. If I have to go with one, I’d say Facebook just because I use it more often. However, there is often a Twitter link floating around in our various slack channels that I usually check and get distracted reading other entertaining tweets for much longer than I should.
What is your favorite TV show character? Why is this character your favorite?
For me, it’s a close tie between Greg House, from House, and Annalise Keating from How to Get Away with Murder. I have an affinity for characters with a strong, sometimes unbearable, personality but are always excellent at their jobs.
If you weren’t working in your field, what would you be doing?
If I wasn’t in tech, I would love to be a traveling food show host; think Andrew Zimmern from Bizarre Foods: Delicious Destinations. I love traveling as well as trying new food so making a career out of it would be awesome! :)
It is always inspiring to chat with one of our amazing Bees and catching up with Amanda Reams was just another cool episode in our series where we learned more about her life, in and out of CloudBees. Watch this space to meet more Bees in our upcoming blog posts.