Ben Stef

JP Morgan — Jersey City, NJ

Senior Infrastructure Engineer

May 2024 – Present

• Support the Employee Platforms division, maintaining collaboration and communication tools for ~350,000 JPMorgan employees globally
• Designed and implemented solutions for enterprise collaboration platforms including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, etc.
• Authored and maintained Terraform infrastructure-as-code to deploy services and infrastructure on AWS
• Collaborated across multiple cross-functional teams to deliver platform requirements on schedule
• Partnered directly with Product Managers to translate business requirements into technical solutions
• Applied security-first principles throughout system design and implementation phases
• Provided architectural guidance to internal App Development teams to improve end-user experience
• Implemented and tested SaaS application features in lower environments before deployment to production
• Implemented solutions for better employee experience through Zoom: AI Companion, Zoom Events, Exchange Calendar integration

Datadog, Inc. — New York, NY

Senior Technical Solutions Engineer

Jan 2023 – Apr 2024

• Served as senior escalation point, collaborating closely with engineering teams to reproduce and resolve complex customer-reported issues across 600+ Datadog integrations
• Specialized in the Agent Integrations team, supporting integrations across infrastructure, cloud, web, metrics, and monitoring domains
• Authored Jira escalation cards for engineering review of bugs and complex technical issues, and submitted feature requests based on real customer use cases
• Conducted live troubleshooting calls with customers across multiple time zones to resolve integration issues in real time
• Built internal sandbox environments using AWS, Azure, and GCP, and wrote detailed implementation guides for team-wide use
• Developed and rolled out best-practice troubleshooting standards across the region
• Authored numerous internal and external knowledge base articles focused on Windows platform integrations (Active Directory, Windows Events, Deployments)
• Led daily team office hours sessions with Tech Solutions peers and L1 engineers

Consilio LLC / Inventus LLC — New York, NY

Systems Engineer — e-Discovery / Application Support Engineer

Aug 2018 – Dec 2022

• Served as primary escalation point for application issues including latency, performance bottlenecks, and application hang-ups in Relativity, Relativity One, Venio, and LAW
• Managed and administered the company-wide Zoom environment, establishing and enforcing policies
• Oversaw domain name registration and registrar management, including expiration and contact accuracy
• Assisted the InfoSec team with SOC 2 audit tasks including user access reviews, environment configuration validation, and security remediation
• Created internal and external knowledge base articles for troubleshooting common application issues
• Performed regular application upgrades (BrainSpace, Venio, Relativity) across production and test environments
• Part of the global IT and infrastructure team, focused on high-availability e-Discovery systems (company subsequently merged with Legility LLC)
• Managed high-availability Relativity and BrainSpace instances supporting client-facing e-Discovery operations
• Developed customer service standards and SLA frameworks to align IT support with client expectations
• Expanded systems documentation and improved IT operational processes company-wide
• Supported managed-service environments separated from production, including routine patching and maintenance
• Assisted with security questionnaires and implemented security configurations as required
• Provided testing support to the DevOps team for internal application optimization initiatives

George Jon & Associates, Inc. — Chicago, IL

Technical Advisor & Systems Engineer / System Analyst 3

Nov 2013 – Jul 2018

• Served as primary engineer for multiple client environments, managing all infrastructure, hardware, and licensing documentation
• Provided subject matter expertise (SME) on e-Discovery infrastructure to clients across the legal and financial sectors
• Prioritized tickets and projects in alignment with client needs, timelines, and budgets
• Conducted monthly client meetings to review growth plans, outstanding issues, and future initiatives
• Traveled onsite to client locations to install new equipment and support infrastructure expansions
• Resolved production systems tickets, escalating as needed, with regular client status updates per SLA
• Troubleshot complex issues spanning SQL clusters, application failures, and end-user systems
• Led incident response for production outages: restored environments first, then conducted thorough root cause analysis
• Reviewed SNMP trap alerts hourly, created tickets, and triaged issues for self or team resolution
• Coordinated with vendors (Microsoft, Dell, VMware) for hardware and software support and escalations
• Maintained up-to-date client documentation and authored knowledge base articles for common issue patterns

Notable Engagements:

• Account Management: Managed relationships with major law firm clients, coordinating across Security, IT, and Executive stakeholders for SLA compliance
• Relativity e-Discovery: Built custom SQL maintenance plans for database performance tuning; migrated databases across Relativity platforms; trained new team members
• FX Trading Platform: Provided year-long on-site application support for a major NYC investment bank, maintaining an IBM Netezza platform
• European Deployment: Led a 6-month on-site engagement in Europe, managing all infrastructure for a large Relativity deployment

Quest Software / Dell Software — Buffalo Grove, IL

QA Analyst / Software QA Associate 2

Mar 2009 – Oct 2013

• Built and maintained VMware environments with multiple ESX/ESXi hosts, vCenters, and VM templates across iSCSI, Fiber, and SAS configurations
• Created MS Exchange, Active Directory, SQL, and Hyper-V virtual environments for application testing
• Wrote and reviewed product documentation, test cases, and acceptance test cases prior to each release
• Authored and maintained knowledge base articles on product functionality
• Conducted competitor analysis and performance benchmarking, producing comprehensive reports
• Analyzed and documented software defects, escalating to development with detailed reproduction steps or workarounds
• Investigated customer support cases by analyzing logs to identify root cause
• Configured and maintained shared test environments on Windows Server, Linux, Exchange, SharePoint, and SQL
• Gained specialized expertise in VSS backup solutions and tested functionality with vRanger Pro and Veeam

Novarra — Itasca, IL

QA Engineer & Deployment Engineer

May 2007 – Dec 2008

• Finalized software requirements and test plans based on customer specifications; traveled on-site to assess environments and validate deployments
• Installed and configured proprietary software on blade servers (Tomcat) for performance and load testing on Linux
• Deployed operator-grade software into wireless carriers' networks across global clients in Hong Kong, Italy, Lithuania, and Turkey
• Maintained QA servers in the lab and documented test plans and results for released products

UIC College of Pharmacy — Chicago, IL

Computer Specialist

Jan 2003 – Feb 2006

• Provided helpdesk support for pharmacy faculty and students, troubleshooting hardware, network, and software issues
• Maintained user accounts, installed network software, and repaired/installed PCs
• Documented detailed resolution steps for recurring issues to build a departmental knowledge base