Get to Know a Technical Account Management Lead: Sean Hamlin

"Get to Know..." is a new blog series meant to share the stories of the individuals behind the scenes at amazee.io and help you get to know them a little better. Our people are really what makes amazee.io special, and we're excited to introduce them to you.

This month you'll meet Sean Hamlin, a Technical Account Manager at amazee.io. Sean has been with amazee.io for almost a year and a half and is based out of Wellington, New Zealand.

Here are some fun facts about Sean:

His favorite movies are… Shawshank Redemption, The Matrix, and John Wick.

His favorite food is… BBQ brisket

His favorite musical artists are… Metallica, Phil Collins, and Eminem.

Tell us more about your role as a Technical Account Manager. What does a typical day look like?

I review cluster health, stay in communication with end customers to find out what is happening (e.g. is there a site launch planned, or a high-traffic event), escalate issues to the support or product teams, and handle reporting. I am always trying to stay one step ahead and avoid issues before they happen.

What do you like most about your work?

Finding creative solutions to complex problems, and making the implementation as simple as possible. Also, boring site launches.

What is your favorite success story from your time as a Technical Account Manager?

This would have to be the response to COVID-19 by the team for GovCMS. During the peak of the traffic we were:

• Reviewing the scaling settings daily for the impacted sites to ensure the settings were optimal for this ‘new normal’ of traffic
• Staying in constant contact with the end customers and GovCMS
• Scaling the infrastructure where needed to keep up with demand

The end result was 0 downtimes during the busiest period for GovCMS, and up to 100,000 page views during the peak minute on www.health.gov.au. (You can read more about this in our GovCMS case study.)

What do you find most unique about amazee.io when it comes to working with your clients?

Lagoon runs on Kubernetes, and Kubernetes affords a lot of really neat tools at your disposal. E.g. you can scale the running application within the bounds of the existing cluster size.

What do you like most about working at amazee.io? Or, what is your favorite memory from your time at amazee.io so far?

There was a Lagoon meeting in Austin (pre-COVID-19) that got a bunch of the team over in the same place, whilst we hacked away getting Lagoon to deploy into native Kubernetes (it was only Openshift prior to that).

It was really neat to be able to hang with the team in a giant shared house and get to know each other a bit more, all while being in Texas, which is certainly unique coming from New Zealand.

What is your favorite amazee.io Slack channel?

#random

What do you like to do when you aren’t working?

Running around after my two kids, 2 and 4.

If you could share a meal with anyone, living or dead, who would it be and why?

Bill Gates. Would be nice to meet a billionaire that is motivated to make the planet better.

If you were a superhero, what would your power be?

Doctor Strange’s time control ability would certainly come in handy.

Anything else you’d like people to know about you, or your role as a Technical Account Manager?

I try to be open and approachable, and will teach anyone anything I know.