About Me
James Hillyard
Senior Infrastructure Engineer Apprentice
I'm a passionate infrastructure engineer with over 5 years of experience developing software and maintaining production grade infrastructure. I currently specialise in architecting scalable, business appropriate well-architected AWS solutions.
My journey in technology began during secondary school, where honestly I was lost. I knew I was naturally strong in programming but had failed to find my love for it until I landed the apprenticeship at Payara. With a clear goal and passionate mentors, I discovered my love for problem-solving through code. Since then, I've fulfilled various business functions and found my passion for DevOps and cloud-based infrastructure.
When I'm not working, I enjoy creating software, playing video games or baking cakes.
Experience
Payara Services
Senior Infrastructure Engineer Apprentice
Moved into IT Operations to fulfil a DevOps role in maintaining all of Payara's self-hosted systems. I independently maintain over £120,000 per year of infrastructure in AWS supporting all of Payara's mission critical infrastructure.
Intermediate Software Engineer Apprentice
I returned to the Engineering team where I lead the Payara release process exclusively for 18 months, being the sole release capable engineer for the business.
Intermediate Service Engineer Apprentice
I worked in the Service team for 9 months as part of the apprenticeship, delivering technical support to Payara's customers and troubleshooting their issues maintaining 100% SLA compliance and 5* satisfaction.
Intermediate Software Engineer Apprentice
Lead development efforts of the Payara platform including owning key new features such as multiple keystores and the Payara upgrade tool for Windows.
Junior Software Engineer Apprentice
Assisted with development of the Payara Platform and spent a long time learning about enterprise programming, Java and the Jakarta EE ecosystem.
Education
Aston University
BSc Digital and Technology Solutions
Certifications
Games I'm Currently Playing
Monster Hunter Wilds
Risk of Rain 2
