ISIan Strathdee
Professional history · 2005—2026

Built from
the systems up.

Two decades of learning what reliable delivery requires—across infrastructure, QA, release operations, platform engineering, and automation.

01 Career arc

The roles changed. The focus stayed consistent: reduce friction, clarify operations, and make delivery more dependable.

Download full résumé
2015—2025

A decade of progression

M&T Bank
Software Specialists → full-time

Buffalo, NY

Joined as a contract TFS Administrator, converted to a full-time Software Engineer in May 2017, and advanced through three engineering levels while expanding into enterprise DevOps platform ownership and automation.

Contractor full-time hire two promotions

Role progression

Swipe to follow
01

TFS
Administrator

Software Specialists
Contracted to M&T Bank

02

Software
Engineer I

M&T Bank
Hired full-time

03

Software
Engineer II

M&T Bank

Banking Officer · 2019
04

Technical
Engineer III

M&T Bank

Banking Officer

Selected impact across the progression

  • Refactored TFS access control and administrative workflows across 200+ team projects while working as a contractor.
  • Operated Azure DevOps Server/TFS for 1,000+ developers and 1,000+ CI/CD pipelines.
  • Built reusable PowerShell, REST API, and Ansible automation for auditing, provisioning, telemetry, platform administration, configuration management, and upgrades.
  • Administered Azure DevOps SaaS, GitLab, Artifactory/Xray, Elastic, and related enterprise delivery workflows.
  • Designed a least-privilege access model across 200+ team projects and supported DEV, CERT, PROD, and DR environments.
  • Led disaster recovery exercises and improved developer enablement through workshops, documentation, and hands-on troubleshooting.
2014—2015

Release management

Release Manager
HP Enterprise Services

Herndon, VA · Federal contract

Managed release operations for regulated logistics platforms where traceability, stability, and execution discipline were critical.

  • Coordinated controlled deployment and release-readiness workflows.
  • Automated release processes with PowerShell, Visual Studio, and TFS to improve consistency and reduce manual effort.
2008—2014

Release engineering · QA

Senior Release Engineer
AmCad

Herndon, VA

Progressed into release engineering leadership for municipal software, coordinating the path from build through client production rollout.

  • Owned build, QA, packaging, deployment coordination, and production rollout support.
  • Designed automated pipelines with Jenkins, MSBuild, Automated Build Studio, and InstallShield.
  • Authored deployment packages, release documentation, implementation procedures, and customer-facing rollout materials.
2005—2007

Systems administration

System Administrator
EBE Technologies

East Moline, IL

Built the infrastructure and troubleshooting foundation that shaped every role that followed.

  • Supported remote client environments, user administration, infrastructure troubleshooting, and tier 1–2 operational issues.
02 Education & development

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Bachelor of Science,
Management Information Systems

Graduated 2005

Continuing education

Microsoft AI
Engineer Program

Ongoing coursework in Python, data science, machine learning, deep learning, Azure AI, generative AI, and AI agents—culminating in an AI Engineer Capstone project.

In progress 81 days left
Jun 1, 2026 53% complete Nov 18, 2026

Next: the work behind the work

Selected work