About Me

Hello, I'm Ryan Galazka, a Cloud Engineer with expertise in AWS solutions, Terraform, and both Linux and Windows systems. Since beginning my journey with a cloud computing bootcamp in 2021, I’ve built secure, scalable cloud solutions for government agencies, contributed to the tech community through in-depth guides, and created reusable tools to solve real-world challenges. I’m passionate about leveraging my skills to develop innovative solutions while empowering others in the tech space through knowledge sharing and collaboration.

Professional Highlights

x2 AWS Certified
Experience with AWS GovCloud
Authored 20+ articles to educate and enable the tech community
Notable Projects:
- Developed this portfolio website to showcase technical skills
- Launched a test environment supporting 300+ users at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
- Contributed to a Wireless-as-a-Service MVP for a U.S. government agency, handling documentation, deployment, and configuration
Skills: AWS, Windows/Linux system administration, Terraform, and CI/CD pipelines

Certifications

Resume

Work Experience

Symposit LLC - Cloud Engineer

06/2022 - 05/2023

As a Cloud Engineer at Symposit LLC, I collaborated directly with the CEO to deliver AWS GovCloud solutions for two Federal Government agencies.

Launched and managed a test environment used by over 300 individuals at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, utilizing services such as VPC, EC2, Lambda, S3, and CloudFormation.
Successfully assisted in creating an MVP for a Wireless-as-a-Service product in the cloud for a U.S. Government agency, including documentation, diagramming, deployment, and configuration.
Provided technical support and resolved issues through effective Jira ticket management.
Gained extensive experience in AWS GovCloud FedRAMP compliance and DHS Sensitive Security Information (SSI) training.

About This Page

This portfolio website is a personal project inspired by the AWS Cloud Resume Challenge. It demonstrates my ability to architect and implement secure, scalable cloud solutions by combining front-end development with back-end services.

Infrastructure Overview

Below is a diagram that illustrates the architecture of this project, including services like S3, CloudFront, DynamoDB, and Lambda, as well as their interactions.

Two Versions of the Cloud Resume Challenge

The Hands-On Journey

My first implementation of the challenge was done manually through the AWS Console, focusing on understanding each service and configuring them step by step. Highlights include:

Hosting static website content on S3 with CloudFront as a CDN.
Configuring DNS and SSL certificates via Route 53 and ACM for secure access to galazkar.com.
Implementing a visitor counter using DynamoDB, Lambda, and JavaScript.
Automating deployment with GitHub Actions for CI/CD.

Read more about this approach in my article: The AWS Cloud Resume Challenge.

The Terraform Conversion

To enhance and streamline the solution, I translated the infrastructure into code using Terraform. This version prioritizes automation and maintainability. Key achievements include:

Defining reusable Terraform modules for resources like S3, CloudFront, and Route 53.
Automating bucket object uploads with CloudFront Origin Access Identity (OAI).
Programmatically configuring DNS records in Route 53.
Ensuring seamless infrastructure updates using Terraform workflows.

Learn more about this in my article: Infrastructure Evolution: Terraforming My Cloud Resume on AWS.

Key Technologies Used

HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for the front end.
AWS services: S3, CloudFront, DynamoDB, Lambda, Route 53, ACM.
Terraform for Infrastructure as Code (IaC).
GitHub Actions/GitLab for CI/CD pipelines.

This project allowed me to explore both manual configurations and Infrastructure as Code, strengthening my expertise in designing production-ready cloud solutions.

Publications

Here are my latest posts on Medium:

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