From business management and customer advocacy to AWS-certified cloud architecture: a path built on transferable skills, hands-on practice, and deliberate study.
Five years of client-facing professional experience combined with hands-on cloud architecture projects and technical training.
Pilot Catastrophe Services | Fort Worth, TX · Remote
Instacart | Remote
Whole Foods Market | Washington DC-Baltimore Area
Every step built the skills I bring to Solutions Architecture today.
University of Douala · Cameroon
Built the foundation of how I think about business problems. Studied stakeholder management, operations, organizational behavior, and strategic decision-making. These disciplines inform how I approach architecture reviews, customer discovery sessions, and technical consulting engagements today.
Whole Foods Market · Washington DC–Baltimore Area
Managed high-volume operational workflows across multiple daily transactions. Used internal dashboards and real-time reporting tools to monitor SLA adherence and identify bottlenecks. Collaborated with technology teams to improve internal systems and implement process improvements. This was my first direct exposure to operations and technology working together.
Instacart · Remote
Resolved high-complexity customer issues at scale in a compliance-sensitive, fully remote environment. Applied structured troubleshooting to identify root causes and deliver durable solutions. I use the same methodology in cloud architecture work. Translated technical platform constraints into plain language for customers and internal teams. Identified recurring failure patterns and escalated them to product and operations teams, acting as a voice of the customer.
Pilot Catastrophe Services · Fort Worth, TX · Remote
This role accelerated my professional development faster than anything before it. Managing 100+ simultaneous complex claims under strict deadlines required the same skills that define great Solutions Architects: structured discovery, stakeholder alignment, risk assessment, technical documentation, and delivering decisions under pressure. I led multi-party conversations with policyholders, engineers, and contractors, translating complex technical assessments into clear outcomes for non-technical customers. Used Guidewire, Xactimate, and XactAnalysis enterprise platforms daily.
Colaberry School of Data Analytics · Plano, TX
The first deliberate step toward a technology career. Learning data analysis, visualization, and analytics workflows revealed how much I enjoy translating raw information into decisions. That skill is equally valuable in cloud architecture. This program confirmed my instinct that I could transition into tech, and set my trajectory toward cloud computing.
Western Governors University · Salt Lake City, UT 84107 Completed
Formal computer science education covering computer networks, operating systems, database systems, software engineering, and data structures. Built the theoretical foundation that complements my hands-on AWS work. Earned multiple WGU micro-credentials including Java Developer, Back-End Developer, and AI Optimization Developer.
Linux Professional Institute · AWS Skills Center
Earned the Linux Essentials Certificate from LPI and the AWS Cloud Practitioner Foundations badge, validating foundational technical skills across the Linux command line, scripting, file systems, and core AWS services before advancing to architecture-level certification.
Amazon Web Services
Earned the AWS SAA-C03 certification, validating my ability to design distributed systems across EC2, VPC, S3, IAM, RDS, Lambda, CloudFront, Route 53, CloudWatch, WAF, and KMS. This was the milestone that formally launched my cloud career.
Amazon Web Services · Forage
Completed a real-world architecture review simulation for a client scenario, applying the AWS Well-Architected Framework to evaluate an existing infrastructure design, identify gaps, and deliver written recommendations across reliability, security, performance, and cost optimization pillars.
Per Scholas · Seattle, WA
Completed intensive cloud computing training covering Linux, Python, AWS networking, EC2, Lambda, Auto Scaling, DynamoDB, Redshift, security, monitoring, and cloud operations.
PeopleCert · Earned
Boston Consulting Group · Forage
Completed an enterprise IT architecture simulation with BCG, analyzing a client's existing technology landscape, identifying architectural gaps, and presenting structured recommendations. Applied consulting frameworks to communicate complex technical trade-offs to business stakeholders.
Personal Projects · GitHub: vanessa9373/portfolio
Designed and documented real cloud architectures from scratch, applying the Well-Architected Framework across all six pillars. Built a three-AZ Highly Available Web Platform with auto-scaling compute, managed relational Multi-AZ failover, global CDN, web application firewall, and encryption at rest, achieving sub-2-minute database failover. Designed a Multi-Account Cloud Governance Foundation with organizational structure, policy guardrails, centralized network transit, and security aggregation. Built an event-driven serverless order processing system with managed API, serverless functions, message queuing, pub/sub notifications, and NoSQL storage.
Every skill from my previous career has a direct counterpart in Solutions Architecture.
Licensed as an Independent Adjuster in multiple states, demonstrating regulatory compliance and professional accountability across jurisdictions.