~/experience/freelance.md
Freelance
2016 – 2025 · 10y · freelance
Independent server software, APIs and tooling for online communities.
try about, experience, projects, stack, contact, neofetch · gui or ` to switch back · Esc for vim keys
stephen@aethyriion.dev
Welcome to aethyriion.dev (10 years of uptime). Type help to see what's installed.
stephen@aethyriion.dev
# Stephen Rhodes: Senior DevOps / Platform Engineer
I'm Stephen, a platform engineer who has spent about a decade turning fragile infrastructure into something boring and reliable. I am always looking to learn and expand my skillset.
## focus
Ohio, USA · Remote · stephen@aethyriion.dev
| NAME | ROLE | SINCE | UNTIL |
|---|---|---|---|
| Balanced Media & Technology | Software Engineer (DevOps Lead) | Nov 2020 | Aug 2026 |
| SharePlay Interactive | Backend / DevOps Engineer (part-time contract) | Sep 2023 | Feb 2024 |
| Independent | Software Engineer | Jan 2020 | Oct 2020 |
| Selfscale | Lead Software Engineer | Jan 2018 | Dec 2019 |
| Freelance | Independent Software Engineer | 2016 | 2025 |
▸ Balanced Media & Technology · Ran DevOps and platform engineering for the Hewmen AI data platform: EKS, CI, IAM and developer environments.
Services 11 · EKS clusters prod + 2 staging · Engineers 12 · CI build 40m → 8m
▸ SharePlay Interactive · Part-time: redesigned a live-streaming product as Rust microservices on Kubernetes and owned its platform and CI/CD.
Streaming multi-region · Team < 5 · Onboarding ≤ 1 day
▸ Independent · Full-time independent engineering between Selfscale and Balanced Media.
▸ Selfscale · Built a truck weigh-in product end to end as its only software engineer, from RS232 scales to the cloud.
Pipeline RS232 → cloud
▸ Freelance · Independent server software, APIs and tooling for online communities.
Concurrent users 200+
details: cd experience
## featured
details: cd projects/<name> · case study: homelab
{ # tiers: daily shipped built familiar
cloud = ["AWS (EKS, EC2, S3, Lambda, IAM, ECR)" "Cloudflare Workers / R2"];
orchestration = ["Kubernetes (EKS, k3s)" "Docker" "Helm (Terraform provider, ArgoCD)" "Kustomize" "MetalLB / Traefik" "Harbor" "cert-manager"];
iac = ["Terraform / HCL" "NixOS & flakes" "agenix / sealed-secrets"];
delivery = ["CircleCI (custom runners & images)" "Docker layer caching / sccache" "GitHub Actions" "ArgoCD" "Argo Workflows / Flux"];
observability = ["Prometheus / Grafana" "Cost-anomaly detection" "Health checks & Slack escalation"];
languages = ["Rust" "Go" "TypeScript / JavaScript" "Python" "Java" "C++" "Bash" "Nix" "Lua"];
data = ["PostgreSQL" "MySQL" "DynamoDB" "Redis"];
frontend = ["Vue / Nuxt" "React" "Svelte / Tauri" "Astro / Tailwind / Vite" "Nx monorepos"];
hardware = ["RS232 / microcontrollers"];
gamedev = ["FiveM / RedM (CitizenFX)" "BeamNG.drive"];
ai = ["OpenAI API" "LLM agent platforms (hybrid cloud / on-prem data access)" "Self-hosted LLM inference (Ollama)"];
}
[contact]
email = "stephen@aethyriion.dev" # 'email' copies it
github = "github.com/aethyriion"
linkedin = "www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-e-rhodes"
resume = "/resume.pdf"
location = "Ohio, USA · Remote"
status = "open" # Open to senior and staff platform, DevOps and backend roles: remote, on-site or relocation.
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE aws 1/1 Running 0 6y cloudflare 1/1 Completed 1 — kubernetes 1/1 Running 0 6y docker 1/1 Running 0 — helm 1/1 Running 1 — kustomize 1/1 Completed 1 — metallb 1/1 Completed 1 — harbor 1/1 Completed 1 — cert-manager 1/1 Completed 1 — terraform 1/1 Running 0 6y nixos 1/1 Running 0 — agenix 1/1 Completed 1 — circleci 1/1 Running 0 6y docker 1/1 Running 1 — github 1/1 Running 1 — argocd 1/1 Running 1 — argo 1/1 Completed 1 — prometheus 1/1 Running 1 6y cost-anomaly 1/1 Running 1 — health 1/1 Running 1 — rust 1/1 Running 1 3y go 1/1 Running 1 8y typescript 1/1 Running 1 10y python 1/1 Running 1 8y java 1/1 Running 1 — c- 1/1 Running 1 8y bash 1/1 Running 0 — nix 1/1 Running 0 — lua 1/1 Running 1 6y postgresql 1/1 Running 1 — mysql 1/1 Running 1 — dynamodb 1/1 Running 1 — redis 1/1 Running 1 — vue 1/1 Running 1 8y react 1/1 Running 1 — svelte 1/1 Running 1 — astro 1/1 Completed 1 — nx 1/1 Completed 1 — rs232 1/1 Running 1 8y fivem 1/1 Running 1 9y beamng-drive 1/1 Completed 1 — openai 1/1 Running 1 — llm 1/1 Running 1 — self-hosted 1/1 Completed 1 —