Laird Williams

Laird Williams has over 30 years of professional experience in the software development and engineering industry. Laird began their career in 1986 as a Software Developer at Lord and Ware, Inc. In 1987, they joined Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a Development Associate, where they invented and implemented an embeddable, real-time variant of OPS5 and developed an embedded, real-time system for automated correlation of active and passive sensor signals in a military aircraft. In 1991, they started their own company, Zephyr Technologies, Inc., where they acted as the Owner/President and Technical Lead for multiple client engagements. In 1995, they joined Rockwell Electronic Commerce as the Lead Architect and Chief Engineer, where they designed a large-scale, vendor-neutral, open (with APIs), real-time distributed system for controlling the flow of work in large customer contact centers in C++. In 2000, they were hired as a Senior Architect at Infinite Technology. In 2003, they moved to Spherion Corp as a Senior Consulting Engineer & Development Manager. In 2005, they joined Macro Solutions as an Enterprise Solutions Architect and Development Operations Lead, where they were the program-wide subject-matter expert for object-oriented analysis and design, lightweight frameworks, secure coding practices, and application architecture. In 2011, they started their own company, L & L Technical Services, Inc., as the Owner/President. In 2014, they returned to Macro Solutions as an Azure Cloud Solutions Architect and DevOps Engineer, Cloud Solutions Architect & Lead Engineer, and DevOps Solution Architect and Lead Engineer. In these roles, they collaborated with FDIC Federal and Microsoft Technical Staff and designed and implemented solutions for a wide variety of hybrid environment issues. Laird also led the design and development of an Azure-hosted DevOps automation toolset and pioneered the use of infrastructure-as-code (IaC) and immutable infrastructure for Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) systems at FDIC. Laird also mentored team system admins on development practices and instituted and maintained paired-performance (programming, high-risk/complexity O&M activities, diagnosis, etc.).

Laird Williams completed their Bachelor of Science (BS) in Mathematics and Computer Science from the State University of New York at Fredonia between 1982 and 1985. Laird then went on to receive their MS in Computer Science from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville between 1987 and 1991. In addition to their degrees, Laird Williams also holds several certifications, including Kanban Management Professional from Lean Kanban University (obtained in June 2019), Advanced Certified Scrum Master from Scrum Alliance (obtained in May 2018), Certified Scrum Master from Scrum Alliance (obtained in May 2016), Certified Scrum Professional-ScrumMaster from Scrum Alliance (obtained in June 2020), Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert from Microsoft (obtained in April 2022), Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert from Microsoft (obtained in February 2022), Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate from Microsoft (obtained in January 2022), PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) from Project Management Institute (obtained in December 2017), Certified SAFe 4 DevOps Practitioner from Scaled Agile, Inc. (obtained in May 2018), Certified SAFe 5 DevOps Practitioner from Scaled Agile, Inc. (obtained in April 2020), Certified SAFe 5 Program Consultant from Scaled Agile, Inc. (obtained in April 2020), Safe 4 Program Consultant from Scaled Agile, Inc. (obtained in November 2017), and AWS Certified Solution Architect - Associate from Amazon Web Services (obtained in August 2017).