Open to mid to senior level network or systems engineering roles in Tennessee or remote.
Colby
West.
Network & Systems Engineer
Engineering, not escalation.
Projects &
Case studies
A curated selection of work spanning network infrastructure, cloud architecture, and modern web applications.
Network Infrastructure
Networks I built and ran across an MSP fleet, not one site at a time.
Web Development
Applications I built for real workflows. Some shipped, some still shipping.
Systems Thinking and Architecture
Architecture decisions and design philosophies that scale beyond any single project.
Wireless Engineering
A high-availability, high-density wireless deployment across a 300,000 sq ft industrial and office facility.
Professional
Background
Five years of network engineering. MSP, healthcare, finance, industrial. Most of the work is in the design — surveys, capacity modeling, BOM, rack layout — before anyone touches hardware. Capacity over coverage. HIPAA, PCI, and GLBA controls live in the architecture, not in a binder. Tennessee. Open to remote.
How I work
Most of a network design happens before anyone touches hardware. Coverage versus capacity. Star versus daisy chain. Singlemode versus multimode. PoE budgets and the second-PSU threshold. These decisions determine whether a network holds up once it goes live.
The deliverable is a package, not a parts order. BOM, heat maps, IDF specs, cable schedule, runbook. That is where I work. Before the install, on the parts of the design nobody sees once the network is up.
What I actually think
- Capacity beats coverage.
- A coverage-driven network technically works and operationally fails. Engineer around how the network gets used.
- Severity beats sequence.
- A slow VPN from this morning does not jump in line ahead of a client that has been down for an hour.
- Ownership beats scope.
- “Not our switch, not our problem” is the laziest answer in IT. The customer does not care which vendor owns which piece.
- Teach what you know.
- If I can explain something to a junior engineer and they can take it into production, the lesson held.
Skills
Site surveys, capacity modeling, and AP placement for high-density environments. Capacity-driven over coverage-driven.
VLAN and subnet architecture for least-privilege boundaries. ACLs documented by reason, not just by rule.
HIPAA, PCI DSS, and GLBA controls implemented end-to-end. Audit-ready architecture, not paperwork-only.
Redundant uplinks, HA firewall pairs, and single-failure isolation. Built to survive component loss.
Severity-first triage and root cause analysis under SLA pressure across multi-client environments.
BOM authoring, rack layout, cable schedule. Customer sign-off before procurement, not after install.
Repeatable templates and variable inheritance across multi-site fleets. New sites inherit, not duplicate.
Repeatable provisioning and configuration management through scripts, APIs, and vendor SDKs.
Career Journey
- Owned LAN, WAN, and WLAN infrastructure across a dozen client environments. Cisco, Meraki, Fortinet, Aruba, and Ubiquiti.
- Designed enterprise wireless in Ekahau and Hamina. RF surveys, heat maps, capacity-driven design for high-density deployments.
- Standardized configuration across a 75-site Meraki fleet. New sites inherited from a single template. Per-site downtime in minutes.
- Kept branch LAN, WAN, and core banking software running under financial-operations pressure.
- Managed VoIP and remote support across multiple branches. Scripted recurring work in PowerShell and VBScript.
- Solo IT for 350+ users. Windows Server, AD, group policy, hardware lifecycle. Deployed Netgate firewalls, Dell switching, and KnowBe4 phishing simulations.
- Owned the end-user computing fleet from procurement to imaging to deployment across production, office, and warehouse.
Education
Certifications
Platforms & Ecosystems
Tools and platforms I work with day-to-day, grouped by domain.
Edge Security & Networking
Wireless & RF
Security & Endpoint
Cloud & Virtualization
OS & Directory
Monitoring & Backup
Automation & IaC
RMM / PSA / MSP
Voice / UCaaS
A representative slice. Not the full inventory.
Let's work
together
Wireless design, network architecture, and the design work that happens before anyone touches hardware. If that overlaps with what your team is doing, let’s talk.
Mid to senior network or systems engineering role. Tennessee based or remote.
I want to own infrastructure, not just monitor a screen and escalate tickets. A team small enough that the work I do matters, big enough that the work is interesting.
Comfortable with on-call rotations and customer-facing work.
Not interested in pure desktop support or Tier 1 only roles.