Brent Ponto

Experience

• 

  Prime Sports NW

  Jan 1990 - Jan 1992

  Computer Graphics Operator (Chyron)

  Built graphics library pre-game, and operated graphics for both live and recorded events including football, basketball, baseball, and swimming, working side-by side with a stats expert.

• 

  Public Broadcasting Service

  Jan 1990 - Jan 1991

  Master Control Operator

  Managed the on-air broadcast seamlessly using live satellite feeds, pre-recorded spots, and pre-recorded programming, while also recording content from multiple satellite feeds simultaneously for later use.

• 

  Washington State University

  Jan 1991 - Jan 1993

  Computer Lab Engineer, Computer Science Dept.

  Helped build the first computer network at the school interconnecting multiple buildings. The network was based on coax cabling, Novell Netware 4.x, and IBM 386 Windows workstations and Macintosh SE30 workstations. Wrote and delivered training to users and staff.

• 

  Microsoft

  Jan 1994 - Jan 2023

  Managed all aspects of network standardization of acquired facilities with a focus on security and cost optimization, and in consideration of expected site longevity. This included WAN, LAN, Wireless, VPN, Firewall, etc. Also managed the continued labs integration of some acquired companies beyond just network standardization especially for those labs supporting cloud services for telecommunications operators. Drove cost savings without compromising network security or manageability by revising designs to utilize equipment on-hand in nearby locations. Set clear requirements and accountabilities. Ensured costs were accurate and budgeted properly. Diligently tracked dependencies that affected deadlines. Voir moins Division-wide accountability for achieving and maintaining compliance across thousands of services. I optimized compliance by applying an engineering background to drive automation and tooling as well as process optimization. This improved the reliability of continuous compliance while also minimizing the human efforts needed to achieve and maintain it. I was able to replace 2/3 of our manual assessments with automation. I planned and lead a monthly compliance improvement meeting with the GM and his leadership team, and all compliance program owners (privacy, risk management, accessibility, security findings, regulatory compliance, and Internal Audit.) I drove feature requests and designs to these program owners to make it easier for all of us to achieve continuous compliance and measure it accurately and reliably. In this role I was promoted an 8th time at Microsoft to L67, one level below Partner.• Additionally I drove strategic planning for new technologies with the leadership team by coordinating and facilitating the monthly Engineering Leadership Forum.• Ensured new engineering standards were rolled out successfully across the division by facilitating feedback from engineering thought-leaders from across the division in the weekly Modern Engineering Adoption Forum (MEAF) where we considered pace, training, tooling, and communications.• Planned and executed a rapid build-out of the Federal Cloud service structure in Services Tree as well as “tenting” standards and practices.• Planned responses to major events that could pose a risk to the business as a member of the Microsoft Continuity Council. I was also the Global Readiness representative for my division. Voir moins Modernized the corporate IT manageability platform. Lead an engineering team of 39 full-time employees and 14 vendors responsible for automating infrastructure manageability including telemetry gathering, alert systems, configuration automation, big data warehousing, analytics platform, a central CMDB for corporate assets and their key attributes, and various self-service tools. The data collected enabled event correlation, automated root cause identification, automated repair, failure prediction, optimized utilization, and trend correlation to drive continuous improvement. Renegotiated a new 3 year contract with ServiceNow saving $7 million over the previous contract. Voir moins I introduced a dev-ops support model in parallel with a monumental leap forward in automation of the next-gen system. The EOP service provides information protection for business users of the cloud email services. This large-scale email security service approximately doubled in size every year, while my team was able to reduce its size year over year. I reported directly to the Engineering VP and managed a team of 20 employees, half in Redmond and half in Winnipeg. The legacy system was supported in a traditional operations model and the new system was supported in a true dev-ops model. Both maintained high service availability. My team supported both systems by handling design and build for all infrastructure including a complex DNS system, load balancing, and directory management. Voir moins Designed and built a state-of-the-art 24x7 Windows Phone Operations Center from scratch. Designed the physical space, the monitoring tools, and hired a team of 28 engineers. Authored the operational procedures which combined a traditional operations model with a dev-ops model. 82% of all actionable alarms were resolved without escalating. Consistently exceeded 99.9% service availability. Centralized asset management to maximize asset utilization and ensure complete monitoring coverage. Planned and executed migration of all WPS Services to an Azure-based manageability platform. Improved service availability by creating a Problem Management program. Planned and executed the full shutdown of legacy services (Windows Mobile 6.5, KIN, Sidekick, Telstra, MyPhone) in compliance with contractual agreements, and closed the Palo Alto office. Voir moins Accountable for the support of all *.MSN.com sites (approximately 1000 DNS names) running from over 3000 servers in 5 datacenters around the globe. Responsible for all operational functions: release planning, change management, incident management, maintenance, security, and systems optimization, as well as managing capex and opex budgets. Managed a team of 34 full time employees and 49 vendors, consisting of PMs, SEs, DBAs, and developers. • Managed the transition of multiple MSN sites which were created independently onto a single unified standard platform resulting in significant savings and risk reduction.• Awarded for the development of the Follow The Sun support program for MSN sites.• Diligently coordinated with sister teams in London and Tokyo to provide seamless 24x7 support for this critical line of business.• Automated the most repeated operational tasks resulting in cost savings and the elimination of human error.• Saved $1.2 MM in vendor budget by restructuring the contractor/vendor model for MSN Ops and renegotiating new contracts with fewer agencies.• Improved the mean time to resolve an incident by 88% saving 75,000 hours of Incident duration and reducing alerts by 26%, by building a customized Tier 1 model.• Negotiated with 8 Product Unit Managers to establish an SLA worked for the entire MSN division (before it was consolidated) resulting in standard KPIs, terminology, and procedures.Presented to the VP and his directs monthly on KPIs, assets, costs, budgets, and risks.• As a manager I achieved a workplace health index (WHI) consistently higher than the company average. Voir moins Managed 20 full time employees responsible for multiple systems and working with multiple development teams. Advertising Delivery System, User Profile Store, Online Chat, MSN Groups and Photos, Link Redirection and Tracking, Page Tagging and Tracking, Personal Domains, and more. Pioneered geo-distribution across multiple datacenters, and use of hardware load balancing. Ran the daily cross-team “war room” meeting improving coordination and resiliency between interdependent systems. Created a standardized engineering proficiencies and training program for the entire GFS group. Awarded Gold Star Stock Award for a 2nd and 3rd time. Voir moins One of two SEs responsible for all operational aspects of Microsoft’s first online advertising delivery system critical to the revenue stream. Adopted the use of new technologies for monitoring and administration. Coordinated gigabit LAN upgrade and Y2K readiness. Managed system growth from 38 servers serving 40 million ads per day to a system serving over 1 billon ads per day. • Managed the transition to using SOC (Tier 1) services for 24x7 monitoring and alerting. Performed deep systems analysis and identified opportunities for optimization/stabilization. VP Awards: Gold Star Stock Award. Certificate of Appreciation. Voir moins Technical writing and course delivery: Specialized in Internet Technologies. Worked closely with product teams as they developed new products while I wrote the technical support documentation, courseware, and lab materials. Delivered Train-the-Trainer classes at Microsoft Offices across the globe prior to product shipping. Also delivered training externally at the Microsoft Global Summit, Microsoft Technical Briefing, and Office Airlift.Internal Technical Training authored: Internet Explorer 4.0 (1997), Internet Explorer 5.0 (1998) Upgrade and New to Product, Site Server 3.0 (1998), Internet Protocols (1998), Internet Information Server 4.0 (1998) Contributed to the Windows 95 Resource Kit (IE section) Voir moins • NT 4.0 Workstation Automated Installation Specialist: Worked on-site with large corporate customers to automate enterprise-wide OS upgrades.• Network Support Engineer: Original member of the first Network Support team supporting Windows connectivity. (Novell Netware 4.11, Microsoft LAN Manager 2.2, Banyan Vines, IPX/SPX, TCP/IP, NetBEUI. • Vendor Program Lead: Prepared for the post-launch Windows 95 support bubble by hiring and training 60 vendors, then continually right-sized the team as call volumes diminished by dismissal or full-time conversion.• Awarded NT Support Hero Award, and PSS Excellence Award. Voir moins

  • Principal Technical Program Manager - Venture Integration

    Nov 2022 - Jan 2023

  • Principal Software Engineer, Compliance and Standards

    Oct 2017 - Nov 2022

  • Principal Software Engineering Manager, Enterprise Infrastructure Services

    Jan 2015 - Oct 2017

  • Director of Service Engineering, Exchange Online Protection Services, O365

    Jan 2012 - Jan 2015

  • Director of Service Engineering, Windows Phone Services

    Jan 2010 - Jan 2012

  • Group Manager, MSN Operations

    Jan 2004 - Jan 2010

  • Lead Systems Engineer, MSN Operations

    Jan 2004 - Jan 2005

  • Lead Operations Program Manager, MSN Advertising Systems

    Jan 2001 - Jan 2004

  • Systems Engineer, MSN Advertising

    Jan 1999 - Jan 2001

  • Technical Development Specialist, Enterprise Training

    Jan 1996 - Jan 1999

  • Lead Support Engineer, PSS Personal Operating Systems

    Jan 1994 - Jan 1996