About

About me

My name is Kyle Hartson. I am from Cleveland, Ohio currently working as an Software Developer at Eurofins. My current work focuses on the development and maintenance of software systems that support our laboratory operations, as well as the services with which our customers integrate and interact. Our team works across the stack, managing DevOps, development, and support tasks, with our primary technologies being:

  • Development: C#/.NET 10, TypeScript/React, VB6/ASP Classic (supported legacy systems)
  • Infrastructure: Azure, Kubernetes (Azure Kubernetes Services), Azure Pipelines, Azure Repos, Azure Application Gateways, Azure SQL (MSSQL), Azure VMs
  • Databases: MSSQL
  • Development environment: Windows, Linux

I am also on the team at Digital Graphene, a Cleveland-based group where I work alongside 3 highly-experienced colleagues in the contracted development and digital solutions space. Our flagship product is TrackSurfer, a production tool for narrative audio creators and teams, built on Microsoft Azure’s serverless platforms.

My Interests

DevOps/DevSecOps

Having started my career on a helpdesk, I take special interest in the intersection of Software Development, IT Infrastructure, and Cybersecurity. Most of my pet projects of personal interests center on:

  • The integration and development of shift-left strategies into the infrastructure that supports the development lifecycle
  • Understanding not only the current paradigms of cloud computing but also the networking and administrative tenents that underpin these abstraction layers
  • Learning and implementing the tools to harden and secure software systems, from SAST/DAST to software-defined mesh networking
  • Staying curious and informed on issues of software security to develop the skillset to be reactive to a burgeoning technical landscape

Software Development

In software development, even more than writing code, I find that my interests keenly align with:

  • How to continually improve/optimize the developer experience (DX)
    • This can entail solutions ranging from generative tools/automations to learning theories/paradigms that drive adaptive, effective development
  • Ways of automating, enhancing, and standardizing the discipline of software development via documentation and process frameworks
  • Learning when and how to balance development priorities, such as when to reuse existing solutions versus developing a novel approach
  • Understanding fundamentals of software composition/architecture and why such systems and patterns exist

Homelabbing

In my spare time, I maintain a small lab of devices that I use to learn, test, or host services that are useful to myself. I currently deploy:

  • ProxMox (on an Intel NUC)
    • Ubuntu VM as remote development/work environment
    • Tailscale for remote access to cluster
    • Various LXC/containers for hosting scripts, tools
    • Testing environment for automated CI/CD actions and Tailscale integrations
  • Ubuntu (bare metal, on an ASUS PB60)
    • K3s/Kubernetes stack hosting Ollama/pgvector services for a SLM sandbox
  • Zima Board
    • Bare metal installation of pfSense for home firewall/networking
  • Cisco 3850

I primarily use this as a sandbox to experiment with software-defined networking, virtualization and orchestration, configuration management and automation.