Engineering · Platform · Infrastructure

Michael Phillips

Engineering Manager · W.W. Grainger

I lead the Pipeline team within Platform Engineering at W.W. Grainger, owning the enterprise VCS, CI/CD, and code-quality offering across 5,000+ repositories. Roughly nine years spanning platform engineering, systems operations, and network leadership — grounded in a physics and computer science background, with peer-reviewed publications in computational physics.

Champaign, IL mikeandrewphillips@gmail.com
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Experience

01

W.W. Grainger

May 2022 – Present

Engineering Manager

May 2025 – Present
  • Lead the Pipeline team (3 FTEs + 4 contractors) within Platform Engineering, owning the internal VCS, CI/CD, and Code Quality product offering — 300+ team-owned repos and 5,000+ enterprise repos under management
  • Drove migration of self-hosted EKS CI/CD runners to a firewalled network environment, partnering with Corporate Security on 100+ outbound firewall rules to harden enterprise pipelines
  • Optimize GitHub Actions/Workflows and SonarQube tooling; partner with Security, Developer Portal, and Golden Pipelines on enterprise developer experience

Senior Software Engineer

Sep 2024 – May 2025
  • Promoted to Senior Software Engineer, expanding ownership of the enterprise VCS platform and developer tooling
  • Mentored junior and peer engineers across the org through the company's young-professional development program
  • Participated in org-wide Architecture Reviews

Software Engineer II

May 2022 – Sep 2024
  • Migrated 100s of repositories and pipelines from Bitbucket, CircleCI, and Bamboo to GitHub and GitHub Actions
  • Designed and deployed a serverless Python GitHub App (Terraform + AWS Lambda) to establish and enforce enterprise VCS policy guardrails
  • Designed and deployed Kafka consumers/producers to automate GitHub tasks and publish VCS metadata
  • Built and deployed an ElastiCache service offering using Terraform and AWS Service Catalog on a tight timeline from prior design work
  • Regularly supported and enabled developers to maintain and modernize CI/CD pipelines
  • Developed multiple internal reporting tools on VCS metrics

Pavlov Media

Sep 2021 – May 2022

Senior DevOps Engineer

Sep 2021 – May 2022
  • Designed and implemented networks using MLAG, VPN, and VRR; administered Arista, FortiGate, and MikroTik
  • Managed and troubleshot Layer 7 firewalls; reviewed SIEM and other security alerts
  • Authored and maintained network architecture documentation
  • Assisted with Ansible automation

Wolfram Research

Feb 2017 – Sep 2021

Systems Command and Network Manager

May 2019 – Sep 2021
  • Led 24/7 monitoring, internal/external support, and the operations center across thousands of servers, network devices, and customer-facing websites
  • Managed ten direct reports across three shifts
  • Network architect for 2 data centers, 2 colocations, HQ, 9 remote offices, and cloud environments
  • Architected a BGP/VXLAN data-center network on Arista routers
  • Performed vulnerability assessments using Nessus
  • Oversaw implementation of monitoring and reporting tools

Network Systems Administrator

Aug 2018 – May 2019
  • Sole network admin for all company offices, data centers, colocations, and cloud environments
  • Migrated flat networks to a three-tier hierarchical OSPF design
  • Completed a new Wi-Fi rollout; deployed SonicWalls and moved tunnels to routed L3 links with active VPN failover
  • Managed Cisco, Extreme, MikroTik, and Ubiquiti equipment; iptables/DHCP/DNS/routing on CentOS

Project Manager

Oct 2017 – Aug 2018
  • Primary POC for enterprise clients running appliances in production
  • Owned project management for all Global Technical Operations groups: Web Systems, Systems Administration, 24/7 Operations Center
  • Ran the weekly operational cadence, including standing C-level program reviews

Project Coordinator

Feb 2017 – Oct 2017
  • Managed the full lifecycle of Wolfram Systems Command internal and external projects
  • Administered JIRA projects; ran daily standups/Scrum; presented weekly to 40+ stakeholders
  • Improved release procedure and documentation for Wolfram Enterprise Private Clouds

Parkland College

Jan 2021 – May 2021

Part-Time Faculty

Jan 2021 – May 2021
  • Taught CSC-133: PC Hardware and OS Maintenance (Spring 2021), preparing students for the A+ certification
  • Brought industry experience and mentoring into the classroom

Auburn University Small Satellite Program

Jan 2015 – Dec 2015

Project Manager - TRYAD CubeSats

Aug 2015 – Dec 2015
  • Engineering management for 2 NSF-funded TRYAD CubeSats ($893,873 budget)
  • Led 4 design reviews; maintained ITAR compliance; followed NASA Systems Engineering Handbook procedures
  • Presented the program overview at the 2015 SESAPS meeting (Mobile, AL)

Project Manager - AubieSat-2

Jan 2015 – May 2015
  • Project manager and system architect for the AubieSat-2 project (AUSSP)

Auburn University

Sep 2011 – May 2013

Research Assistant - Computational Physics

Sep 2011 – May 2013
  • Simulated n-body systems and numerically solved differential equations in C++
  • Co-author on two peer-reviewed physics publications (see Publications)

Western Kentucky University

2010 – 2011

Research & Teaching Assistant

2010 – 2011
  • Mathematics RA: analyzed Krapivsky-Redner model graphs (Dr. Bela Csaba)
  • Chemistry RA: numerically solved nitrate-snow-photolysis kinetics (Dr. Matthew Nee; Gatton research grant)
  • NOVA Center RA: maintained a large-chamber scanning electron microscope (Dr. Ed Kintzel)
  • Teaching Assistant, VAMPY 'Forensics Investigations in Material Science' summer program

Skills & Technology

02

Languages

PythonC++Wolfram LanguageLabView

Coursework (Auburn)

FortranJavaR

Platform & CI/CD

GitHub ActionsCircleCISonarQubeTerraformApache KafkaDocker

AWS

LambdaDynamoDBCDKTerraformElastiCacheS3EC2Route 53AWS VPN

Monitoring

ZabbixThousandEyesPingdomGrafanaInfluxTelegrafDataDog

Education & Credentials

03

Education

Eastern Illinois University

B.A. Interdisciplinary Studies

Jan 2021 – Dec 2023

Auburn University

Physics & Computer Science

Aug 2011 – Dec 2016

Western Kentucky University

Dual enrollment via the Gatton Academy

2009 – 2011

The Gatton Academy

High School Diploma with Honors (Math & Science)

2009 – 2011

Certifications

Azure

  • Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) — 2022
  • Credential ID I231-4634

GitHub

  • GitHub Fundamentals — 2024

MikroTik (lapsed)

  • MTCNA · MTCRE · MTCTE · MTCWE — 2021
  • Wireless Engineer (MTCWE) # 2110WE6906
  • Traffic Control Engineer (MTCTE) # 2110TCE6901
  • Routing Engineer (MTCRE) # 2110RE6880
  • Network Associate (MTCNA) # 2110NA6847

Publications

04
  1. F. Robicheaux, M.M. Goforth, and M.A. Phillips, "Simulation of prompt many-body ionization in a frozen Rydberg gas," Phys. Rev. A 90, 022712 (2014)
  2. F. Robicheaux, B.J. Bender, and M.A. Phillips, "Simulations of an ultracold, neutral plasma with equal mass for every charge," J. Phys. B 47, 245701 (2014)