Lee Nattress

Cloud Architect & Systems Engineer

leenattress1981@gmail.comLinkedIn

Personal Statement

I am a Systems and Cloud Architect with a special focus on Serverless Microservice Architecture. I have 25+ years of experience writing software that scales in production.

I specialize in taking huge monoliths and breaking them down into decoupled microservices, as well as writing advanced tooling and bringing engineers along on the journey to get us to the value quicker.

I can also take systems that have become a microservice mess and consolidate them back into workable, clean monoliths when that's the right architectural choice for the business.

Along the way to becoming an architect, I've mastered: AWS Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, S3, EventBridge, SQS, SNS, Step Functions, CloudFormation, Terraform, Docker, CI/CD pipelines, GitHub Actions, TypeScript, Node.js, React, Next.js, Python, .NET, Azure, PostgreSQL, Redis, WebSockets, REST APIs, Microservices patterns, Domain-Driven Design, Event Sourcing, CQRS, Test-Driven Development, Infrastructure as Code, Observability (CloudWatch), Security best practices, OWASP, Bash scripting, Git, Serverless Framework, SAM, CDK, and Agile methodologies.

I am equally comfortable working hands-on as a developer or leading teams as an architect. I understand the challenges faced by both roles and can bridge the gap effectively.

I come from a technical engineering background, which means I can develop NodeJS backend applications and any JavaScript frontend applications, with full test suites, unit, integration, and end-to-end from first commit to deployment to production. I can pick up any language and framework quickly.

As for leadership, I have done many talks about development and being an engineer, I write effective documentation for my teams, and I encourage them to do the same. I align teams and technology. I understand how to get the best from engineers and I encourage that process.

I write video games and love sci-fi, anything that has spaceships, robots, and laser beams. I read a LOT of books; I loved the 'Phoenix Project', 'Domain Driven Design', 'Modern Software Engineering', and 'Accelerate'. I build things with Arduinos and I own far too many soldering irons.

Skills

Work History

Principal Architect - Fairstone, Newcastle

Current

  • Scaling a .NET monolith on Azure while keeping it stable and performant
  • Building features that pass strict regulatory audits for financial services
  • Writing Terraform with automated security checks that catch vulnerabilities before deployment
  • Layering multiple security controls so if one fails, others catch it
  • Running continuous scans to find and fix security issues before they become problems
  • Keeping customer data completely separate using strict isolation patterns
  • Locking down networks with private endpoints, VNets, and zero-trust principles
  • Responding to security audits and compliance reviews with technical evidence
  • Making architecture decisions that don't sacrifice speed for security
  • Teaching teams to think about security from the first line of code

Cloud Architect - 3t Digital, Gateshead

June 2022 - 2024

  • Helped move the organization from project-based to product-based delivery
  • Influenced an entire organization to move towards true event-driven microservices
  • Architected and built a data ingest pipeline for high scale/volume event-driven imports
  • Architected and built a parquet-based export solution for Power BI access
  • Broke down existing monolithic architecture using domain-driven design
  • Ran Event storming sessions to find seams and structure domains
  • Trained and guided multiple teams in building decoupled, distributed systems
  • Educated testing teams on event-driven integration tests
  • Helped platform team design and implement cross-cutting concerns
  • Worked directly with clients to solve complex integrations
  • Created mono-repo with tooling for microservice delivery and testing
  • Hosted talks, learning lunches, and think-tanks

Architect - Workcast, Gateshead

December 2020 - June 2022

  • Architected a serverless broadcasting and streaming system for webinars in AWS
  • Created a digital stage for planning and delivering webinars
  • Created a web browser-based video editor
  • Moved deployments from monthly to daily
  • Introduced and championed automated testing
  • Completed multiple software projects with strict goals to receive grants
  • Multiple talks at events such as Serverless North East

Senior Software Engineer - Leighton, Gateshead

March 2018 - December 2020

  • Full Stack engineer with functional, security, and penetration testing
  • Worked with teams to deliver very high-quality software
  • Built auto-scaling REST API in AWS with containers
  • Built Angular front ends for complex business logic
  • DevOps experience with pipelines and advanced BASH scripting
  • Heavy focus on automation and tooling

Various Contributing Roles

~2000 - 2018

  • Ecommerce specialist for several multi-million pound online stores
  • Paid search and social advertising expert with analytics dashboards
  • Photoshop expert with all features of Photoshop and Illustrator
  • Email marketing, conversion rate testing, and design
  • Landing page design and conversion expert with split testing
  • UI/UX design for design systems, admin portals, and SaaS applications
  • Building Intranets for internal data sharing

Projects

eventdriven.tools - Think POSTMAN for AWS Events

skilly.dev - Skills assessment and career progression platform for tech teams

cultured.dev - Developer culture and professional competency certification platform

quak.dev - SQL query tool for CSV and Parquet files in the browser

Obsidian DynamoDB Plugin - Query AWS DynamoDB tables directly from your Obsidian.md documentation