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Donald Waters — Engineer · Builder · Family-first

Everything I’ve built, in one place.

Engineer by day, builder always. Most of what I make starts with my family; the rest is pure curiosity. Here’s the work — and a bit of who I am.

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Years building in tech

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Projects in the archive

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Apps live on the web

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Tier 3 resolution rate

01 Selected Work

Things I’ve designed, built, and shipped.

A curated slice of the archive. Every card opens a full case study — and there’s plenty more where these came from.

All projects
02 About

The human behind the commits.

I’m an engineer, a builder, and a family-first maker. By day I’m a Tier 3 support engineer at Scale Computing — the last line of defense for the toughest hyperconverged-infrastructure cases. But the job title only tells part of the story.

Most of what I build starts at home: a chore app to get my kids excited about pitching in, an AI assistant to keep our family’s life organized, a way to preserve the stories that matter. Somewhere in between there are games, automation tools, and a business or two. If something in my life could be better with a little software, I tend to go build it.

The rest is pure curiosity — AI, mobile, game design, whatever’s pulling at me that week. This site is the home for all of it: the work, the side projects, and a bit of who I am.

What I’m doing now

Infrastructure

  • Hyperconverged (HCI)
  • KVM
  • VMware
  • Cluster & Storage I/O
  • Dell Server Hardware
  • Linux / CLI
  • Networking & Diagnostics
  • Root-Cause Analysis

Automation

  • Python
  • Ansible
  • Bash
  • REST API Integrations
  • Custom Scripting
  • Git / GitHub

Support Engineering

  • Escalation Management
  • Case Quality & Docs
  • KB & Runbooks
  • Technical Coaching
  • SLA-Driven Triage

Operations

  • Enterprise Deployments
  • Stakeholder Communication
  • Cross-Functional (R&D / Product)
  • Vendor Management
03 Experience

Where I’ve done the work.

  1. 2022 — Present Indianapolis, IN

    Senior Technical Support Engineer (Tier 3) · Scale Computing

    Final escalation point for the department’s most complex cases — hypervisor and cluster-level troubleshooting, storage I/O, node hardware diagnostics, and root-cause analysis on production HCI.

    • 100% case resolution rate, 97% NPS, and 200+ engineering escalations owned end to end.
    • Designed and deployed Support-Ansible, an automation framework for cluster maintenance, updates, and log collection — cutting manual work and making issues reproducible.
    • Partner with R&D to find root causes and drive long-term product fixes instead of one-off workarounds.
    • Mentor and coach Tier 1 and Tier 2 engineers; author KB articles and runbooks to cut duplicate escalations.
    • Progressed from Tier 1 to Tier 3 in under two years.
    • KVM
    • VMware
    • Linux
    • Python
    • Ansible
    • Dell Hardware
  2. 2021 — 2022 Whiteland, IN

    Associate Director, Managed Services · Five Star Technology Solutions

    Led managed services for multiple K-12 school corporations — owning service delivery, budgets, vendor relationships, and district-wide deployments.

    • Managed and coached a team of technicians across daily service delivery.
    • Owned technology budgets and vendor relationships, coordinating with school leadership and cross-functional stakeholders.
    • Built a help-desk system with panic alerts, incident tracking, and performance dashboards to improve visibility and response.
    • Team Leadership
    • Help Desk Systems
    • Vendor Management
  3. 2013 — 2021 Whiteland, IN

    IT Support Specialist & Onsite Technician · Five Star Technology Solutions

    Provided onsite and help-desk technology support across multiple school districts, progressing from Onsite Technician to Support Specialist over eight years.

    • Day-to-day support, hardware repair, and networking for thousands of staff and student devices.
    • Built the troubleshooting habits and customer-first communication that carried into Tier 3 work.
    • Desktop Support
    • Networking
    • K-12 IT
04 Writing

Notes, essays & build logs.

Occasional thinking-out-loud about engineering, design, and the craft of shipping.

All writing