Ben Stef
Senior Infrastructure & Systems Engineer
Professional Summary
Infrastructure and systems engineering professional with 20+ years of experience across enterprise environments, e-Discovery platforms, and cloud-based observability solutions. Proven ability to design, deploy, and support complex systems at scale while driving cross-functional collaboration, documentation standards, and customer satisfaction. Experienced with JPMorgan-scale enterprise deployments, SaaS observability (Datadog), and leading e-Discovery platforms (Relativity, Nuix, BrainSpace).
Professional Experience
JP Morgan — Jersey City, NJ
May 2024 – Present
Senior Infrastructure Engineer
- 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
Jan 2023 – Apr 2024
Senior Technical Solutions Engineer
- 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 — New York, NY
Jan 2020 – Dec 2022
Application Support Engineer
- 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
Inventus LLC — New York, NY
Aug 2018 – Dec 2019
Systems Engineer — e-Discovery
- 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
Oct 2015 – Jul 2018
Technical Advisor & Systems Engineer
- 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
Notable Engagements: Account management for major law firms · Relativity SQL performance tuning & database migrations · Year-long on-site FX Trading Platform support (IBM Netezza) at a major NYC investment bank · 6-month European deployment leading all infrastructure for a large-scale Relativity rollout
George Jon & Associates, Inc. — Chicago, IL
Nov 2013 – Oct 2015
System Analyst 3
- 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
Dell Software — Buffalo Grove, IL
Sep 2012 – Oct 2013
Software QA Associate 2
- 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
Quest Software (acquired by Dell) — Buffalo Grove, IL
Mar 2009 – Sep 2012
QA Analyst
- 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
- Conducted competitor analysis and performance benchmarking, producing comprehensive reports
Novarra — Itasca, IL
May 2007 – Dec 2008
QA Engineer & Deployment Engineer
- Finalized software requirements and test plans based on customer specifications; traveled on-site to assess environments and validate deployments
- Deployed operator-grade software into wireless carriers' networks across global clients in Hong Kong, Italy, Lithuania, and Turkey
- Installed and configured proprietary software on blade servers (Tomcat) for performance and load testing on Linux
UIC College of Pharmacy — Chicago, IL
Jan 2003 – Feb 2006
Computer Specialist
- 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
Technical Skills
Operating Systems
Windows (all versions), Linux, macOS, VMware, Hyper-V, iOS, iPadOS, tvOS
Cloud
AWS, Azure, Google Cloud (GCP)
SaaS
Microsoft 365, MaaS360, Zoom
Platforms
SQL, MySQL, VMware vSphere, Cisco networking (managed/unmanaged switches)
Monitoring
Datadog, Grafana, Splunk, Zabbix
e-Discovery
Relativity, Relativity One, BrainSpace, Nuix, Netezza, Consilio Sightline, Envize, Venio
Software
Microsoft Exchange, Active Directory & Entra, SharePoint, Veeam, vRanger Pro, VMware vCenter, Citrix XenApp
Hardware
Dell Servers, Dell EqualLogic, Dell Compellent, Dell Force10, IBM Blade Center, NetApp, HP
DevOps / IaC
Terraform, Jira, Git
Education & Certifications
University of Illinois at Chicago
Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering
Minor in Economics
Professional Certifications
- AWS Solutions Architect – in progress
- CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate)
- Brent Ozar SQL Performance Training
- BrainSpace Certified Administrator
- Dell Storage: EqualLogic Storage Architect
- Dell Storage: Compellent Storage Architect
🏆 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"