Christopher Rothmeier

Infrastructure & Systems Engineer

13 years in enterprise IT — from Windows, Active Directory, and virtualization to high-availability Kubernetes and a self-hosted GPU datacenter. I operate and improve production-grade infrastructure with an emphasis on reliability, recovery, observability, and change safety. This site is my technical portfolio and lab notebook.

Enterprise Production Experience: Windows/VMware estates, Active Directory, Microsoft 365, Azure hybrid identity, Veeam backup/recovery, endpoint security (Intune, CrowdStrike, Defender).
Self-Hosted Datacenter: High-availability K3s Kubernetes cluster, a heterogeneous multi-GPU NVIDIA compute fleet, 10/25GbE networking, ZFS storage, Prometheus/Grafana observability.
Automation & Reliability: Terraform, Ansible, PowerShell, Python — focused on repeatability, drift control, incident recovery, and change safety.

Seeking full-time W-2 roles in infrastructure engineering, systems engineering, or systems administration — Philadelphia area or remote.

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About Me

I'm an operations-first infrastructure engineer. My background spans 13 years of finance-grade enterprise environments (Windows/VMware with strict uptime requirements) through to a self-hosted Kubernetes and GPU datacenter where I validate technologies against real constraints before recommending them.

My foundation is enterprise Microsoft and virtualization — Windows Server, Active Directory, Exchange, Microsoft 365, and VMware — extended over the last several years into Linux, high-availability Kubernetes, infrastructure automation, and GPU compute infrastructure. I'm looking for W-2 infrastructure or systems engineering roles (Philadelphia or remote) on teams that value reliability, recovery, observability, and hands-on troubleshooting.

Not available for freelance or contract work. W-2 employment only.

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Core Competencies

13 years of hands-on experience across enterprise infrastructure and systems engineering

Microsoft & Identity Infrastructure

Active Directory, Entra ID, Azure AD Connect, Conditional Access, Exchange Online, SharePoint/OneDrive, Intune.

Kubernetes & Automation

High-availability K3s with kube-vip, Terraform/Ansible provisioning, GitOps, and a drift-controlled, repeatable approach to infrastructure.

Endpoint Security & Compliance

Intune baselines, CrowdStrike, Defender for Endpoint, CIS benchmarks, audit-friendly controls including HIPAA contexts.

Data Protection & Recovery

Veeam, Proxmox Backup Server, restore validation, RPO/RTO planning, and operational runbooks.

Virtualization & Storage

VMware vSphere/ESXi, Proxmox/KVM, GPU passthrough, ZFS-backed storage, backup/recovery patterns.

GPU & Compute Infrastructure

A heterogeneous multi-GPU NVIDIA fleet supporting local inference and retrieval workloads — owning the platform layer: scheduling, monitoring, and data-layer durability.

What I Bring

A combination of enterprise operations depth, hands-on lab validation, and a focus on reliability and change safety.

Enterprise Operations

Managed Windows/VMware estates for finance and trading environments with strict uptime requirements.
Planned and executed hybrid Azure migrations including Azure AD Connect, Conditional Access, and M365 tenant configurations.
Implemented endpoint security baselines, backup/recovery strategies, and compliance controls.
Strong change control, incident response, and stakeholder communication across varied team sizes.

Self-Hosted Datacenter

Production-grade K3s Kubernetes cluster for validating high-availability and recovery patterns — not a toy setup.
Recovered a cluster-wide P1 boot incident with zero data loss; documented root cause and follow-up controls.
Cluster-independent, restore-validated backups; ZFS storage; 10/25GbE networking; GPU passthrough for inference workloads.
Full observability stack: Prometheus, Grafana, alerting wired to real failure modes.

Technical Writing

Featured

Securing Healthcare LLMs: On-Prem Deployment Architecture for PHI Protection

May 14, 2025

Deployment patterns for running LLMs in HIPAA-regulated environments — architecture decisions around isolation, encryption, and audit controls.

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Migration

The Great Escape: VMware to Proxmox/KVM

May 10, 2025

Migration planning for virtualization estates in the wake of Broadcom's VMware acquisition, including GPU-aware workloads.

AI Infrastructure

Building an AEI Chatbot

April 12, 2025

Architecture notes on building an emotionally-aware chatbot with real-time emotion detection and adaptive responses.

GPU Ops

GPU Lab Build Notes

April 11, 2025

Hardware and operational lessons learned building a small GPU lab for testing inference workloads and monitoring patterns.

Data Protection

The Microsoft 365 Backup Reality

June 20, 2025

Retention is not backup. Design notes for third-party M365 protection, restore testing, and operational monitoring.

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Let's Connect

Seeking full-time W-2 roles in infrastructure engineering, systems engineering, or systems administration.

Philadelphia, PA or remote. Not available for freelance or contract work.

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