Ben Stef - Systems Administrator & Support Engineer

Professional Summary

Senior Systems Administrator and Support Engineer with over 19 years of experience in systems and application support, diagnostics, and infrastructure management. Proven expertise in e-Discovery platforms, observability tools, and cloud technologies. Strong technical acumen with ability to rapidly learn new systems, coupled with excellent documentation skills and customer-focused approach. Experienced in working with cross-functional teams, managing complex technical environments, and delivering strategic solutions for enterprise-scale deployments.

Core Expertise

Systems & Network Administration
e-Discovery Applications (Relativity, Nuix, LAW, VENIO)
System Security, Backup & Recovery
Programming & Scripting
Server Administration & Repair
Root Cause Analysis
Mixed-Platform Environments
Open-Source Tools
Infrastructure Support (LAN/WAN/VPN/NOC)
User Experience & Application Support
Observability & Monitoring Platforms

Professional Experience

JP Morgan Chase

Senior Infrastructure Engineer

May 2024 - Present

Support Employee Platforms division maintaining communication and collaboration platforms for ~340k employees
Implement solutions for Zoom, Teams, Webex, and other collaboration platforms
Write and maintain Terraform infrastructure code for AWS deployments
Collaborate with cross-functional teams and Product Managers on requirements and solutions
Design security-conscious implementations and maintain comprehensive documentation
Provide architectural guidance to internal App Development team for enhanced user experience

Datadog Inc.

Senior Technical Solutions Engineer

Jan 2023 - April 2024

Provided technical support for Datadog platform, resolving customer implementation and configuration issues
Worked closely with engineering teams to reproduce and analyze complex technical issues
Specialized in Datadog Agent Integrations supporting 600+ platform integrations
Created internal sandbox environments and implementation guides for AWS, Azure, and GCP
Developed best practices for team collaboration using industry-leading troubleshooting experience
Wrote extensive knowledge base articles on Windows platform integrations
Led daily team meetings providing insight on customer tickets and issues

Key Achievement:

Defined and implemented best practices for team collaboration that were rolled out region-wide within the company

Consilio LLC

Application Support Engineer

Jan 2020 - Dec 2022

Supported e-Discovery applications including Relativity, Relativity One, Venio, and LAW
Point of escalation for performance issues, application bottlenecks, and latency problems
Maintained company-wide Zoom environment and domain name registration
Assisted InfoSec with audit tasks and SOC2 compliance information gathering
Created comprehensive internal and external documentation
Performed regular application upgrades including BrainSpace, Venio, and Relativity

Technical Skills

Operating Systems

Windows (all versions), Linux, Mac OSX, VMWare, Hyper-V

Platforms

SQL, MySQL, VMware vSphere, Cisco, Network Switches

Cloud

AWS, Azure, Google Cloud (GCP), Microsoft365, MaaS360, Zoom

Monitoring

Datadog, Grafana, Splunk, Zabbix

e-Discovery

Relativity, Relativity One, BrainSpace, Nuix, Netezza, Venio

Web Technologies

IIS, Apache, WordPress, Google Apps, Drupal, Squarespace

Education & Certifications

University of Illinois at Chicago

Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering

Minor in Economics

Professional Certifications

CCNA
Brent Ozar SQL Performance
Brainspace Certified Admin
DELL Storage - Equallogic Storage Architect
DELL Storage - Compellent Storage Architect

Scholarly Achievement

First Place, UIC College of Engineering EXPO 2007

Category 9: User Interface and Education

"TypeMouse: Fully Functional Keyboard and Mouse in a Single-Handed Device"