Guardrails and permissions
Policies, scoped credentials and approval gates so AI tools can only reach what they should, with every action logged.
Director, IT & Systems Infrastructure
ChrisTajii
I lead the infrastructure, the team and the process that keep systems up.
Over a decade in infrastructure, from racking servers on a datacenter floor to leading IT and systems infrastructure. I turn one-off systems into a uniform, documented, automated platform that a team can run with confidence.
- role
- Director, IT & Systems Infrastructure
- based
- Dallas–Fort Worth, TX · remote-friendly
- uptime
- 11 years in infrastructure, since 2015
- focus
- reliability · automation · security
- mantra
- Bad news does not get better with time.
300+systems under management across infrastructure
80%less manual configuration, automated through config management (Ansible, Puppet)
0unplanned downtime moving a full office to colocation
11 yrsin infrastructure, from datacenter floor to director
About
Calm infrastructure, built on purpose.
I started on the datacenter floor, racking servers and cabling networks, then spent years as a Linux systems administrator keeping production running. Today I lead IT and systems infrastructure: the systems themselves, the people who run them, and the process that keeps them predictable.
The work I enjoy most is turning a collection of one-of-a-kind systems into a uniform platform. That means configuration management instead of hand edits, monitoring that catches problems first, and documentation good enough that anyone on the team can pick up a task.
I still stay close to the technology. The hardest network and OS problems tend to land on my desk, and I like it that way. I believe problems should be raised early and in the open, and that a reliable system is a well-understood one.
What I lead
Strategy
Roadmap, budget and vendors
Owning technology decisions end to end: what to build next, what it costs, and who we partner with.
Reliability
Uptime as a standard
Monitoring, configuration management and documented process across hundreds of systems, with less tech debt every quarter.
Security
SOC 2, PCI and vulnerability management
Meeting SOC 2 and PCI requirements and hardening internal and public-facing systems, with EDR and vulnerability scanning for detection and remediation.
People
Team, training and customers
Hiring and leading an infrastructure team, training staff on Linux and networking, and presenting to customers.
How I ship
Every change goes through Git.
Software and infrastructure follow the same workflow. Servers, network config and deployments live in Git, so every change is reviewed, tested, repeatable and easy to roll back.
- commit
Versioned
Code, configs and playbooks in Git. No hand edits on servers.
- review
Reviewed
Merge requests with peer review and AI-assisted adversarial review.
- pipeline
Tested
CI/CD runs linting, tests and security checks on every change.
- deploy
Automated
Ansible applies the same result every time, in stages.
- observe
Verified
Monitoring confirms health, and rollback is one revert away.
AI, safely
guardrails
skills
red team
mcp · api
Useful AI, with guardrails first.
I bring AI into infrastructure work the same way I bring in any system: scoped access, clear rules and a review step before anything reaches production.
Skills that encode our process
Packaging team runbooks and standards as reusable agent skills, so AI follows the way we already work.
Adversarial review and pen testing
Using AI as an adversarial code reviewer and to probe our own systems, finding weaknesses before anyone else does.
Connected systems
Connecting systems through their APIs, and building and hosting MCP servers that give AI tools safe, scoped access to internal data.
Career
DataVoice International
Systems Administrator→IT Lead / Senior Sysadmin→Director, IT & Systems Infrastructure
- Led the move from custom one-off deployments to a uniform product with consistent process.
- Ran 200+ systems solo for three years, cutting deployment time and setting a high bar for uptime.
- Introduced Ansible, reducing time spent on manual configuration by about 80%.
- Retired an entire office's hardware and moved its services to colocation without downtime, saving thousands per month.
- Built internal tools that help other teams work faster.
Connexity / Hitwise
- Linux administration across Debian and CentOS, working with engineering to keep infrastructure healthy and to expand it.
- Authentication, configuration management, monitoring and scripting; hands-on datacenter work.
- 24-hour on-call rotation through PagerDuty.
ZeroLag Communications
- Racked, configured and repaired servers and network gear.
- Rebuilt inventory tracking, cutting the time spent on audits.
Toolbox
Systems
Linux (Debian, RHEL)KVMVMware ESXiCloudStackLDAP
Automation
AnsiblePuppetBashPython
Delivery
GitGitLabCI/CD pipelinesMerge requestsInfrastructure as code
AI & integration
MCP serversAgent skillsAI guardrailsAI code reviewREST APIs
Observability
Icinga / NagiosLogicMonitorXymonPagerDuty
Security & network
SOC 2PCICrowdStrike FalconRapid7DNS · VLANs · routing
Beyond work
Eagle Scout. Led 40 scouts through a 200+ hour service project for a public school, and ran weekly meetings for 60+ scouts as Senior Patrol Leader. It is where I learned to plan, delegate and follow through.