Vanessa Awo

Professional Summary

Aspiring AWS Solutions Architect with hands-on experience designing scalable, secure, and highly available cloud architectures using AWS services including EC2, VPC, IAM, Lambda, RDS, DynamoDB, CloudFormation, CloudFront, and Auto Scaling. Passionate about applying the AWS Well-Architected Framework to deliver reliable, cost-efficient cloud solutions. Strong problem-solving and communication skills developed through experience in fast-paced operational environments. AWS Certified Solutions Architect — Associate.

Technical Skills

Cloud Computing – AWS: EC2, S3, VPC, IAM, Lambda, RDS, DynamoDB, Redshift, Systems Manager (SSM), CloudWatch, CloudFormation, CloudFront, Route 53, SNS, SQS, Auto Scaling, Elastic Load Balancing, ECS, AWS Backup

Infrastructure as Code & Automation: Terraform, CloudFormation, Ansible, Docker, GitHub Actions, CI/CD Pipelines

Monitoring & Observability: Prometheus, Grafana, ELK Stack, CloudWatch Dashboards & Alarms, SNS Alerts, Distributed Tracing

Networking: VPC, Subnets, Security Groups, NACLs, Internet Gateways, Route Tables, Load Balancers, DNS, TCP/IP Protocols

Linux & Scripting: Linux OS (Ubuntu, Amazon Linux), Bash Shell Scripting, SSH, File & Directory Management, User & Group Management, File Permissions, Process Management, Python

Databases: MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, Amazon RDS, DynamoDB, Redshift

Operating Systems & AI: Linux, Windows, ChatGPT, Prompt Engineering, Claude AI, Gemini

Software & Productivity: Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook), Google Workspace, Guidewire, Xactimate, XactAnalysis

Professional Experience

Claims Adjuster 02/2022 – 03/2026

Pilot Catastrophe Services — Fort Worth, TX

Managed a pipeline of one-hundred-plus simultaneous active claims while consistently meeting SLA deadlines and maintaining full compliance with state regulations and policy terms
Streamlined distributed team workflows across high-volume caseloads, reducing claims processing errors and improving end-to-end case resolution turnaround times
Leveraged Guidewire, Xactimate, and XactAnalysis to optimize claims tracking and documentation accuracy, cutting manual inefficiencies and improving audit readiness
Identified and escalated suspected fraudulent claims to the Special Investigations Unit by detecting documentation inconsistencies, directly supporting loss prevention efforts and reducing organizational risk exposure
Negotiated complex property loss settlements with adjusters, engineers, and contractors, consistently achieving fair and defensible resolutions while minimizing organizational liability
Translated complex technical assessments and coverage decisions into clear communications for policyholders and non-technical stakeholders, improving client satisfaction and reducing escalations

Projects

SRE Production-Grade Microservices Infrastructure 02/2026

Architected a multi-AZ Kubernetes infrastructure using Terraform and a GitOps-driven CI/CD pipeline with ArgoCD and GitHub Actions for automated builds, deployments, and rollbacks; validated 100% resiliency under node failure and traffic spikes using Chaos Mesh
Built full-stack observability using Prometheus, Grafana, and the ELK Stack implementing SLOs, SLIs, and error budget tracking—and designed a cross-region backup and disaster recovery strategy achieving zero data loss across all services

High-Availability WordPress Site with Infrastructure as Code 07/2025

AWS (EC2, RDS, S3, CloudFront, Auto Scaling, CloudFormation, CloudWatch, Route 53) | WordPress | MySQL

Reduced infrastructure provisioning time from two-plus hours to fifteen minutes by authoring CloudFormation templates that automated deployment of Auto Scaling Groups, RDS Multi-AZ, and CloudFront CDN across networking, compute, database, and storage layers
Ensured continuous uptime visibility and data protection by building CloudWatch dashboards and alarms to monitor error rates and response times, and implementing AWS Backup with S3 lifecycle policies for automated retention

Automated CI/CD Pipeline for Web Application Deployment 06/2025

Reduced manual deployment time by eighty-five percent by building an end-to-end CI/CD pipeline using Jenkins, GitHub, and Docker to automate Node.js application deployment to AWS EC2 and ECS, with Terraform-provisioned infrastructure including VPC, security groups, and Application Load Balancer
Accelerated incident response by configuring CloudWatch custom metrics and SNS email alerts that delivered real-time application health notifications, enabling proactive monitoring across the full deployment environment

Education and Certifications

Per Scholas | AWS Re/Start — Seattle, WA • Expected 08/2026

Rigorous, full-time 15-week virtual program covering Cloud Computing Services, Networking, Databases, and AWS Cloud Management, Monitoring, and Governance. Focus: Linux, Python, Auto Scaling, EC2, Lambda, Shell Scripting, Cloud Concepts, Network Firewall, AWS Systems Manager, Redshift, and DynamoDB.

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science — Western Governors University • 07/2023 – 07/2026

AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate — Amazon Web Services • 09/2025 – 07/2028

Linux Essentials Certificate — Linux Professional Institute (LPI) • 05/2025

Certification in Data Analytics — Colaberry School of Data Analytics, Plano, TX • 07/2022 – 07/2023

Bachelor’s in Business Management — University of Douala • 10/2015 – 06/2019