Solutions Engineering · San Antonio, TX

Clarity at the Intersection of Systems

A 25-year customer-facing closer, retooled for Solutions Engineering across observability, cloud, AI, and technical storytelling.

I’m Eric Harris. For 25 years, I’ve done the hardest-to-teach parts of customer-facing technical work: running discovery, presenting under pressure, handling objections, coaching teams, and guiding complex decisions to a close. Over the last eight months, I’ve built the technical half to match - AWS, OpenTelemetry, and Dynatrace certifications plus hands-on projects.

My edge isn’t out-engineering the engineer. It’s uncovering the opportunities to remove pain, and translating that value to each stakeholder at the level they care about most. I build demos, narratives, and working artifacts that help solve real problems, and I frame perspectives that feel true, because they are.

Best fit

Commercial or Enterprise Solutions Engineering, where customer discovery, demo fluency, and a fast observability ramp matter more than a traditional engineer-to-SE path.

See an Observability Demo Download Resume Connect on LinkedIn

San Antonio, TX Solutions Engineering Observability AWS OpenTelemetry AI-Assisted Systems

Featured work

Observability Demo

Built observability-first. Every step visible. The cloud and telemetry work sits underneath.

Observability-native workflow & public demo pipeline

StoryTime

A local-first pipeline that turns public-domain and Creative Commons texts into audio, generates RSS, and exposes the whole workflow - built observability-first, with process mapping, failure visibility, and a deliberate operator experience.

Why it matters

An end-to-end observability demo I built and can walk through live - process mapping, failure visibility, and a deliberate operator experience. The closest thing on this site to the demo an SE runs every week.

Observability Workflow Design Operator Experience Local-First Demo Architecture

Live Demo GitHub

Verified ramp

Credentials

I’ve been a self-directed learner all my life. In sales, my proof of competency has always been the business outcomes and the income that followed. Over the last eight months, I’ve made it my focus to show that same competency and my ramp speed in a way anyone can verify.

OpenTelemetry Certified Associate (OTCA)

Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF)

Telemetry & Tracing

Issued May 2026 · Expires May 2028 ID · LF-fu7ozzqcoq

Application Performance Monitoring Distributed Tracing +5 more

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Dynatrace Essentials

Dynatrace

Observability

Issued Jun 2026 · Expires Jun 2028 ID · 1c1d2668-c8e2-43ac-be32-a92edc8d3756

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AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Cloud Architecture

Issued Dec 2025 · Expires Dec 2028

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AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Cloud Foundations

Issued Dec 2025 · Expires Dec 2028

Cloud Computing Concepts Amazon Web Services (AWS)

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Career Essentials in Generative AI

Microsoft · LinkedIn

Generative AI

Issued Jun 2026

Prompt Engineering AI for Business +1 more

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Ethics in the Age of Generative AI

AI Ethics

Issued Jun 2026

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Responsible AI +2 more

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Foundations of Cybersecurity

Google

Security

Issued Aug 2023

Cybersecurity

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Certificate in Digital Animation & Media Arts

Victor Valley College

Creative & Media Arts

Earned 2000

Digital Animation Media Arts Visual Storytelling

Currently preparing: Dynatrace Associate · Terraform · Python · Cloud infrastructure · Observability labs

Positioning

Why This Matters for Solutions Engineering

Sales Acumen

25 years of discovery, presentation, objection handling, coaching, and customer trust-building.

Technical Curiosity

Home lab systems, AWS, OpenTelemetry, Dynatrace Essentials, observability projects, and a continuous hands-on ramp.

Customer Pattern Recognition

Experience across automotive, insurance, training, business analysis, and high-consideration customer conversations.

AI-Assisted Execution

AI as leverage, not a substitute for judgment - structured, inspectable, and accountable workflows.

The through-line is practical translation: take ambiguity, identify the real constraint, and turn technical capability into business confidence.

One pattern, many expressions

How the Work Connects

My projects here are all different expressions of the same pattern:

I find the signal under the noise and translate the signal’s logic to interested parties in a way that helps people act with confidence.

That’s a human pattern. It lives in customer discovery, observability, workflow design and AI-assisted development, sales training and performance coaching, animation and photography. In Solutions Engineering, the job goes beyond the tools. The art is in recognizing the pain, defining the objective, presenting the options, and earning the trust.

The only variable is the medium.

Signal

Find what matters in the noise - in telemetry, in data, in a customer conversation.

Systems

Understand how the pieces connect, where they fail, and why it matters.

Story

Explain complex things so people actually follow - and act.

Trust

Earn confidence through clarity, evidence, and follow-through.

Selected work

Things I've Built

Same four moves, different mediums. Each of these was a real problem I wanted solved - a mobile cockpit, a multi-model review system, a continuity engine for AI video - and each one shipped.

AI-assisted workflow governance & multi-model review system

RoundTable

A local-first Progressive Web App for coordinating multi-model AI work through phase gates, critique layers, review loops, and explicit state management - structured AI usage with human judgment still in control.

Why it matters

Shows AI fluency, process governance, and disciplined execution.

React TypeScript Vite PWA Local-First LLM Workflow

Live Demo GitHub

Native Android app · time-sensitive workflow execution

ApplyWindow

A native Android execution cockpit for time-sensitive workflows. It stages inputs, reminders, documents, checklists, and a live WebView into one mobile workspace, then records submission timing without ever auto-submitting. The point is disciplined preparation, human-in-the-loop execution, and reliable evidence under pressure.

Why it matters

Native Android engineering, human-in-the-loop AI use, workflow orchestration, and spec-driven delivery of a complete, shipped app.

Kotlin Jetpack Compose Room AlarmManager WebView Android

View Project GitHub

Windows desktop app · visual continuity for AI video

StoryBoard

A shipped Windows desktop app that treats visual continuity as state management for AI video production. It organizes storyboard keyframes, emotional beats, artifact bundles, and persistent 3D reference assets so each scene has a source of truth before it becomes an AI-generated shot.

Why it matters

Shows source-of-truth design for creative systems - using persistent references, scene order, and production state to reduce continuity drift and make AI video workflows easier to direct, review, and trust.

Electron React Three.js AI Video State Management 3D References

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Ramping in public

Technical Learning Labs

I sprint as a learner and pace myself as a sales professional. Learning fast is easy for me; the discipline is in slowing down enough to prove it. These early labs were built in public on purpose: one commit + one tweet/x post per day, so the consistency is visible, not just claimed.

Public build log · daily execution

10-Day Python Sprint

Ten consecutive days of Python, built and documented in public - one folder per day, from core syntax to a working CLI log-analysis tool. A timestamped trail of commits that shows real, progressive growth toward automation-adjacent work.

Why it matters

Consistency, public accountability, and daily execution - the same repeatable process behind the larger projects.

Python Daily Execution CLI Tooling JSON Refactoring Public Build

View the Sprint GitHub

Foundational fluency

Python CLI / Log Analyzer Lab

An early self-directed Python lab: CLI design, parsing, branching logic, file handling, and debugging. Phase-gated learning with earned technical perspective - not tutorial-following.

Python CLI Logs Debugging Foundational Fluency

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Cloud & telemetry

AWS / OpenTelemetry / Observability Labs

Certification-driven, hands-on work across AWS, telemetry pipelines, distributed tracing, and observability fundamentals - the working layer underneath the featured projects.

AWS OpenTelemetry Tracing Cloud Observability

15+ years of hands-on

Home Lab & Systems Background

I’ve run personal systems and home lab environments for more than fifteen years - Windows, Linux, and FreeBSD / TrueNAS-style storage, media services, GPU systems, home networking, and local experimentation, including local AI.

I don’t present this as formal SRE experience. It’s evidence of long-running technical curiosity, troubleshooting discipline, and hands-on systems thinking - the habit of taking things apart, watching them fail, and putting them back together better.

Environment

Windows / Linux / FreeBSD Home networking Storage & media systems GPU experimentation Local AI experimentation Troubleshooting mindset

Perspective, in writing

Field Notes & Articles

I learned a long time ago that the best way to understand something is to teach it. Teaching forces the methodical kind of preparation that survives scrutiny, and a level of polish that actually holds a reader’s interest. I like examining complex topics from both sides of that: as someone learning them, and as someone explaining them. Sometimes that thinking turns into writing. These are those notes.

Observability · Data Platforms

Snowflake × Observe and the Rise of Data-First Understanding

A reflection on what Snowflake’s Observe acquisition signals about AI-native, data-first observability - and the role of understanding in platform value.

Observability AI Data Platforms Technical Strategy

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Data · Execution Systems

The Elephant in the Room: The Data Execution Layer

A field note on why data strategy cannot stop at storage, dashboards, or insight - the real leverage comes from connecting understanding to execution.

Data Execution Layer Systems Thinking Business Value

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AI · Reasoning

DiffusionGemma, Memory Palaces, and the Shape of Thought

An exploration of text diffusion, pattern coherence, and what alternative model foundations may suggest about the future of language interfaces.

AI LLMs Reasoning Technical Writing

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Seeing what matters

Visual Storytelling

Selling and teaching, done at their peak, are storytelling. Storytelling is a craft: the art of pacing a thing so people lean in, framing it so they feel the stakes, and telling it so they end up inside it instead of watching from outside. In the end, the audience is a partner, not a spectator.

I earned a Certificate in Digital Animation & Media Arts in 2000, and it shaped how I make complex systems clear. Photography and animation, sales calls and technical demos: every tool has its own learning curve, but the medium is not the craft.

The same discipline shows up in Solutions Engineering. The job is partnership and collaboration, working toward the ends that matter.

Photography Portfolio

A visual body of work built on the same principles as customer-facing technical work: signal, composition, clarity, and story.

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Get in touch

Let’s Connect

Open to Solutions Engineering conversations, demos, and technical storytelling problems worth solving.

Email Eric LinkedIn GitHub Download Resume

Eric Harris·San Antonio, Texas·[email protected]