Brandon Axtmann

Professional Experience

A deep dive into my roles, leadership, and technical contributions.

Rentsync

Manager of IT & Cybersecurity

Feb 2023 – Present

Remote, Canada

Leadership & M&A Support

  • Contributed as a senior technical and security leader across 7+ merger & acquisition transactions (5+ buy-side, 2 sell-side).
  • Participated directly in technical, security, and infrastructure discussions with private equity firms, consulting partners, and external legal counsel.
  • Supported technical diligence, security reviews, and post-acquisition integration planning for acquired organizations.

Org & Team Building

  • Built and currently manage a 7-person IT, DevOps, and Security team.
  • Established an internal software development function focused on building tooling to accelerate work across engineering, operations, and support teams.

Architecture & Platform Leadership

  • Regularly consulted by product and engineering teams on system design, infrastructure decisions, and platform tradeoffs.
  • Involved in R&D prototyping, architectural reviews, and technical evaluations to guide platform rebuilds and migrations.

AI Governance & Enablement

  • Led internal AI governance efforts, including policy development, risk considerations, and vendor evaluation.
  • Rolled out AI-assisted coding tools for developers with a focus on security, compliance, and responsible usage.
  • Built and maintained internal AI-powered tools to support engineering, operations, and support workflows.

Hands-On Engineering & Platform Development

  • Remain hands-on building internal tools using TypeScript, Next.js, Hono, TanStack, and Cloudflare’s developer platform.
  • Led and contributed directly to multiple infrastructure migrations, platform rebuilds, and modernization initiatives.

Operational Excellence & Reliability

  • Reduced Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR) by approximately 25% over the last 6 months through improved observability and response processes.
  • Designed and evolved internal monitoring, alerting, and incident response systems to improve reliability and customer impact.

Rentsync

DevOps Engineer & Systems Administrator

Jan 2022 – Feb 2023

Remote, Canada

Security & Compliance Foundations

  • Implemented server hardening, MFA across cloud environments, network lockdowns, and continuous compliance monitoring using Vanta.
  • Performed regular OS and application patching and enforced encryption standards across user devices.
  • Helped establish baseline security practices and device standards across the organization.

Infrastructure Monitoring

  • Deployed monitoring and alerting across infrastructure using Zabbix, Prometheus, and Grafana to improve visibility and response times.

Infrastructure Management

  • Maintained and operated production infrastructure using Ansible, Docker, Kubernetes, Helm, and Terraform.
  • Supported day-to-day operations and incident response across cloud and on-prem components.

Cloud Infrastructure Optimization

  • Operated and optimized AWS and GCP environments with a monthly spend exceeding $30k.
  • Implemented cost optimizations and architectural improvements to reduce ongoing infrastructure expenses.

Rentsync

Technical Support Specialist

Jan 2021 – Jan 2022

Remote, Canada

Support Operations

  • Handled a high-volume technical support inbox, resolving 10–20 tickets per day across hosting, DNS, email, and application issues.

Client Onboarding

  • Led onboarding calls for new clients, guiding them through platform setup and core workflows.

Incident Support

  • Worked alongside IT and DevOps teams during major outages to assist with diagnosis and recovery.
  • Helped improve escalation paths, monitoring coverage, and response workflows.

Cross-Team Collaboration

  • Collaborated closely with developers to report bugs, validate fixes, and support feature rollouts.

Custom Monitoring Tooling

  • Built an internal health check and monitoring platform using Docker, Kubernetes, Python, and Zabbix.
  • Provided visibility into application and infrastructure health across the stack.

Blackberry Limited

Network Operations Center

Jan 2020 – Sept 2020

Waterloo, Canada

24/7 Service Monitoring

  • Provided 24/7 monitoring for internal and customer-facing Blackberry services to ensure uptime and reliability.

Incident Response

  • Delivered level 2 and 3 support for internal tools and services using monitoring and alerting systems.
  • Worked with engineering and operations teams to diagnose and resolve complex incidents.

Global Change Management

  • Executed approved infrastructure changes across Blackberry’s global environments and select enterprise customers.
  • Followed structured change management and testing processes to minimize service disruption.

Monitoring Improvements

  • Updated and maintained legacy monitoring scripts across Linux, Windows, and bash environments to improve accuracy.

Alert Optimization

  • Contributed to an alert correlation initiative that reduced duplicate alerts and ticket noise by roughly 40%.

Skills & Expertise108+ items

M&A Due Diligence
Technical Strategy
Systems Architecture
Team Building
Cross-functional Leadership
Stakeholder Management
Executive Communication
Integration Planning
Risk Assessment
Vendor Management
Budget Management
Hiring & Recruiting
Org Design
Policy Design
Compliance Operations
Change Management
Mentorship
Technical Decision Making
Cybersecurity Management
Security Posture Assessment
SOC 2 Compliance
Incident Response
Identity & Access Management (IAM)
Data Privacy & Governance
Threat Modeling
Vulnerability Management
Penetration Testing Coordination
Security Awareness Training
OAuth 2.0
SAML / SSO
Network Security
Firewall Configuration
Endpoint Protection
Zero Trust Concepts
Data Classification
Audit Preparation
TypeScript
Next.js
Hono
Cloudflare Workers
Edge Computing
Serverless Architecture
Distributed Systems
Event-driven Architecture
System Design
Microservices
REST APIs
React
Node.js
TanStack Query
PostgreSQL
Cloudflare Durable Objects
Cloudflare KV
WebSockets
GraphQL
Redis
AI Governance
LLM Integration
Internal AI Tooling
Prompt Engineering
RAG Architectures
Product Roadmapping
Feature Prioritization
Technical Documentation
UX Collaboration
Internal Platforms
DevOps
Platform Engineering
Observability & Monitoring
Incident Management
Site Reliability Engineering
Infrastructure as Code
Cloud Infrastructure
Cost Optimization
Infrastructure Migrations
Capacity Planning
Release Management
On-call Operations
Runbook Development
Monitoring Strategy
Docker
Terraform
CI/CD Pipelines
Git / GitHub
Python
Bash Scripting
PowerShell
SQL
AWS
GCP
Vercel
Netlify
Deno
Bun
Vite
Webpack
Jest
Playwright
ESLint
Prettier
Agile Methodologies
Kanban
Jira
Confluence
Notion
Slack Integrations
Technical Writing
Open Source
Tech
Leadership
Security
Product
Ops