Lee Sichello

I'm a

Me

Hi there — I'm Lee, a senior systems expert with a background in software and applied science. Over the past 13 years, I’ve built a broad technical foundation with enterprise experience in pre- and post-sales support, cloud and on-prem infrastructure, Linux administration, and project leadership. My career spans a range of roles across the software development lifecycle in both the U.S. and Canada. For the last 8 years, I’ve worked remotely for Illumina Inc., contributing to the exciting field of genomics from British Columbia.

As an enthusiastic learner and communicator, I’m comfortable diving deep into technical topics and translating low-level complexity into clear insights for high-level audiences. I enjoy mentoring colleagues, building tools, and improving processes, but at the heart of it all, I’m a problem solver. Whether it’s troubleshooting infrastructure, customizing solutions for a key account, or developing something new, I approach complex challenges with academic curiosity, researching and implementing effective solutions that help customers and colleagues achieve their technical goals.

I live with my family in the coastal city of Campbell River on Northern Vancouver Island, where we’ve put down strong roots and love being part of the community. Outside of work and family life, I spend time on personal projects or out by the ocean.

About The Site


I put this site together to hone my skills using Hashicorp's Terraform and AWS serverless architecture.

As you can see from the architecture diagram below, there's a suprising amount going on under the hood for simple site. The entire site is hosted for $0.25/month in AWS and is completely serverless with high speed and availability from CloudFront CDN. In order to provide the visitor counter you see below, the implementation also includes a serverless API that is backed by Lambda and DynamoDB. Best of all, by using Terraform for IaC, the site content and all underlying AWS infrastructure can be modified, tested, and deployed in seconds via a push to my GitHub repo for CI/CD.



Couldn't I have just deployed a static resume more quickly using GitHub pages, you ask? Yes, I could have. Is my site completely overengineered for the task? Absolutely, but that's the whole point! It's a lightweight implementation of you might see in a larger-scale web application. Here's how it works:

  1. User requests to load sichello.com in their browser.
  2. DNS request is sent to Route53, which resolves to the nearest CloudFront CDN edge location.
  3. CloudFront forwards the request to an S3 bucket containing the the frontend files and they are return to the browser.
  4. The S3 bucket with frontend code is protected with Origin Access Identity (OAI), which prevents direct access to the bucket.
  5. JavaScript in the frontend sends a POST request to an API Gateway to retrieve the number of visitors for the footer.
  6. The API Gateway, protected by Cross Origin Resource Sharing (CORS), forwards the POST request to a Lambda function.
  7. The Lambda function, written in Python, increments the visitor counter in the DynamoDB and returns the count.
  8. The visitor count is displayed in the footer.
  9. A Github repo provides code version control and CI/CD through a Github Actions intergration with Terraform.
  10. Terraform deploys the AWS infrastructure.
The project did present me with several struggles, but that's where the learning happens. I started off by making a very basic HTML site then manually creating and integrating all the AWS componenents as a proof of concept. Once that had been fleshed out I looped back on the IaC and implemented the nearly thirty underlying AWS site resources in Terraform code- no a small undertaking. Getting the CloudFront configs, Lambda function, CORS rules and routing implemented in Terraform took the majority of the project time.

Once I had the site to the point that I could completely destroy all AWS resources with a click, then redeploy them all with another, I took some more time to make the HTML/CSS pretty and update up my resume. If you have any questions about it, shoot me an email, I'd love to chat.





Facts

Years enterprise experience

+ Hours troubleshooting

Years fully remote

Team Player

Resume

Professional Experience

Senior Technical Applications Scientist - BioInformatics Solutions

Jan 2018 - Present (6+ yr)

Illumina Inc, San Diego, California

Illumina's genetic sequencing instruments generate vast amounts of data, which are subsequently interpreted using a range of bioinformatics solutions. We offer a variety of SaaS and on-premises solutions, including proprietary hardware and software systems to meet our customers' diverse bioinformatics needs. I specialize in integrating and troubleshooting Illumina's instruments and bioinformatics solutions along with their surrounding tehcnical infrastructure.

  • Pre and post-sales customer advocate and internal subject matter expert in SaaS and On-Prem bioinformatics solutions.
  • Specialized support for complex technical issues in software, networking, hardware, security, and cloud infrastructure.
  • Provide technical guidance on product implementation, customizations, and best practices.
  • Troubleshoot Linux and Windows integrated systems at hardware, OS, and application levels.
  • Monitor production SaaS systems for high availability and rapid incident response.
  • Collaborate with development and operations teams to triage product defects and improve functionality.
  • Develop and manage internal tools, HPC compute resources, and storage systems.

Key Skills: Technical Accounts | SaaS and On-prem Solutions | Troubleshooting | Red Hat Enterprise Linux | Networking | NAS | Security | Cloud Engineering | Kubernetes | | Bioinformatics | Bash | Hashicorp Tools | Observability | Integrated Systems

Technical Application Scientist - Lab Information Management Systems (LIMS)

Oct 2016 - Jan 2018 (1 yr 4 mos)

Illumina Inc, San Diego, California

As an experienced Technical Project Manager, I was brought on to support customer implementations of a Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) for genomics laboratories. The platform is a traditional three-tier application, available as both a SaaS and on-premise solution, and integrates with Illumina’s laboratory instruments.

  • Led technical implementation projects for genomics Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS).
  • Provided pre and post-sales technical consulting to LIMS customers.
  • Solutions engineering for custom LIMS deployments, both on-prem and in AWS.
  • Administered AWS resources as well as their integration to on-prem customer ecosystems.
  • Delivered specialized technical support and incident response, including after-hours on-call duties.

Key Skills: Red Hat Enterprise Linux | Amazon Web Services (EC2, EBS, S3, Route53, VPC, IAM, Cloudwatch) | Networking | Technical Project Management | SQL | Solutions Architecture | Ansible

Technical Project Manager

Apr 2015 - Oct 2016 (1 yr 7 mos)

iQmetrix USA, Davidson, North Carolina

  • Led end-to-end project management of custom software solutions for iQmetrix's largest enterprise client.
  • Defined client requirements, overseeing delivery from design to release.
  • Coordinated remote technical teams (development, operations, QA, support).
  • Designed and delivered joint application systems architecture for partner integrations.
  • Regularly traveled to client sites for production deployments.

Key Skills: Technical Project Management | Release Management | Systems Architecture | Account Management | Joint Application Design (JAD) | Microservices | Microsoft Azure

Quality Assurance Analyst

May 2013 - Apr 2015 (2 yr)

iQmetrix Canada, Regina, SK

  • Led QA for iQmetrix’s largest enterprise client, including bug tracking, automation, and performance testing.
  • Managed 20+ pre-production testing environments.
  • Developed test plans, automation frameworks, and release validation processes.

Key Skills: Jira | Postman | REST APIs | Agile Testing | SQL | Test Automation

Systems Engineer - Computational Physics

Jan 2012 - May 2013 (1 yr 5 mos)

Saskatchewan Cancer Agency, Regina, SK

  • Designed and implemented a 16-node Linux HPC cluster for radiotherapy simulations.
  • Developed Monte Carlo radiotherapy simulation software.
  • Conducted system calibration, quality assurance, and research.

Key Skills: Linux Administration | HPC | Computational Physics | Bash | C++ | Networking | Radiotherapy

NSERC Research Assistant

May 2010 - Jan 2012 (1 yr 9 mos)

University of Regina, Regina, SK

  • Assisted in the design of a Cherenkov particle detector for Jefferson Laboratory.
  • Developed particle detector simulation software.
  • Performed Computer-Aided Design of particle detector components.

Key Skills: Linux Administration | Computer-Aided Design (CAD) | C++ | ROOT | Research | Bash | Siemens Solid Edge

Education

Bachelor of Science, Applied Physics

2007 - 2012

University of Regina

Graduated with great distinction. Emphasis in computational modeling and electronics.

Certificate, Computer Science

2011 - 2012

University of Regina

Certifications

Red Hat Certified Systems Administrator (RHCSA)

2023

Red Hat version 9

Volunteering

Shoreline Rehabilitation

2019 - Present (~5 yr)

Living Oceans Society

Shoreline cleanups and heli extractions from remote shores of Vancouver Island

Volunteer Firefighter

2019 - 2022 (3 yr)

Port Hardy Fire Rescue

Interior firefighter and emergency vehicle operator with air brake endorsement

Contact

Location:

Campbell River, British Columbia, Canada