Welcome to ZeroToRoot
ZeroToRoot is where I document real-world DevOps, cloud, and homelab projects—from Kubernetes and security to automation and observability. If you're building, hardening, or experimenting, you're in the right place.
Hey — I’m Jody. I’m a DevOps Cloud Consultant at AWS with a background in software engineering, cloud infrastructure, and security. I've worked with startups, public sector clients, and federal agencies to build resilient, scalable, and secure platforms using modern DevSecOps principles.
From Developer to DevSecOps to Cloud Consultant
My career started in software engineering, but I quickly became drawn to infrastructure — how things are deployed, secured, scaled, and monitored. Over the years, I’ve worked with Kubernetes in production, helped harden IL4 environments, automated CI/CD pipelines, and built internal tools to simplify complex operations.
At Dynepic, I helped manage a Kubernetes-native microservices platform with MongoDB, Postgres, MinIO, NATS, and more — all running in the cloud. I also played a critical role in getting the platform running in air-gapped, isolated environments (more on this later). We moved fast, but we moved securely. At the U.S. Naval Research Lab, I worked on geospatial software in controlled environments where precision and compliance were non-negotiable.
Now at AWS, I help federal agencies adopt cloud-native architectures, improve their DevSecOps practices, and modernize critical systems — securely, at scale.
Why This Blog?
ZeroToRoot is my personal space to document, share, and learn in public.
This blog will cover:
- 🔧 Real-world DevOps – Kubernetes, Terraform, CI/CD, and cloud-native tooling
- 🔐 Security – Infrastructure hardening, secrets management, compliance automation
- 🧪 Homelab experiments – Proxmox, Talos Linux, WireGuard, self-hosted platforms, and more
- 🧰 Engineering projects – Python/Go tooling, scripts, side-projects, and automations
- 📊 Monitoring + Observability – Zabbix, Prometheus, Grafana, and practical tuning
- 🧠 Lessons learned – War stories from the field, cost-saving wins, architecture insights
I’ll be writing the kind of posts I wish I had when solving problems in the real world — honest, concise, and actionable.
What's Next?
Whether you're deploying your first Kubernetes cluster, tuning a game server in your homelab, or trying to reduce AWS costs across many accounts — there's going to be something here for you.
This is just the beginning. From Zero to Root, one post at a time.
Welcome aboard.
— Jody