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Alex Alvord

Advisory Solutions Architect, Hybrid Multicloud · Nutanix

Principal Architect · CloudLab Works

Duvall, Washington · Pacific Northwest, remote-first

alex@cloudlabworks.dev
linkedin.com/in/alexalvord
cloudlabworks.dev
github.com/issaquahd · github.com/cloudlabworks

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Profile

Solutions architect who puts AI systems into real infrastructure and explains them to the people who have to run and pay for them. Twenty years on both sides of the table: seven as a finance and operations controller, thirteen designing, selling and running cloud, OpenStack and bare metal, the three hyperscalers, and since 2019 Nutanix hybrid multicloud, on NC2 from an incubation team of fewer than twelve to more than 250. Since 2025, hands-on with production agentic systems: a multi-agent operations stack with harnesses, tool policy, memory and local inference, run daily from a home lab and published as CloudLab Works, a place to collaborate live on projects, on his own time and equipment. Every design is grounded in what it costs to operate, GPUs included.

Selected work

Agentic operations stack: CloudLab Works

2025 – present github.com/issaquahd · github.com/cloudlabworks · Invisible Wires: Agentic Cloud
  • Multi-agent systems: a principal agent with sub-agents, each kind of work routed to a hosted or local model.
  • Agents that run infrastructure: sites deployed by agent, a post-to-email pipeline, and Infrastructure as Music (lab state rendered as a live instrument, with a sound graph per recording).
  • Verification as code: a per-task ledger where every "done" carries a receipt checked against the system, never against the transcript.

NC2 on AWS and on Azure, as code

2026 Nutanix: Invisible Wires: Agentic Cloud · v4 APIs, OpenTofu, Flow Virtual Networking · Bicep, Microsoft Graph, the NC2 v2 API
  • AWS: end-to-end from the NC2 console to the first VM with every block verified against the provider. Azure: the console taken out of the loop, Bicep for the landing zone (custom role, app registration, delegated subnets, NAT, peering, Route Server) and the NC2 v2 API for the organization, the cloud account and the cluster; the pattern used in customer PoCs and lab sessions.

Why these companies

A career is a sequence of bets on where infrastructure was going. These were the bets.

  • RightScale (2013): early to cloud when "cloud" still meant one vendor. RightScale's thesis was that orchestrating resources through APIs would matter more than owning them: multi-cloud management, ServerTemplates, automation across AWS, Azure, SoftLayer, Rackspace and Google Compute Engine years before "multicloud" was a category. Its co-founder and CTO, Thorsten von Eicken, had been a Cornell computer-science professor who co-authored the U-Net work with Werner Vogels, later Amazon's CTO. Working the AWS alliance from inside that company was a front-row seat to the API-first, orchestrate-don't-own model everything since has been built on.
  • Smartsheet (2014): SaaS at enterprise scale before it was assumed: rollouts from 2,000 to 200,000 seats, API partners as the growth channel, SSO and governance as the buying criteria. The playbook for how software actually lands in a large company.
  • Internap / INAP (2015 – 2018): a monster in networking: a global backbone with route-optimized transit and high-density data centers, plus OpenStack, bare-metal cloud and colocation on top. It is where Layer 2–7, peering, latency and the physical substrate under "the cloud" became first-hand knowledge, the part most cloud architects never touch.
  • Rubrik (2018 – 2019): the data layer reinvented as a cloud-native, API-first platform: backup, recovery, replication and search as one distributed system with an open API, at the moment ransomware made data management a board-level problem. As the Systems Engineer for the Pacific Northwest channel, the job was teaching the ecosystem how orchestration and Open APIs change operations.
  • Nutanix (2019 –): the hybrid multicloud bet made real: the same platform on-prem and in AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, with NC2 taken from an incubation team of fewer than twelve to an organization of more than 250. The v4 APIs, Flow Virtual Networking and infrastructure-as-code on top of it are the current chapter; AI infrastructure, GPUs, storage and the cost model next to the data, is the next one.

Experience

Nutanix

2019 – present Seattle, WA · Americas Solutions Architecture, Hybrid Multicloud Advisory Solutions Architect, Hybrid Multicloud (2023 –) · Hybrid Multi Cloud Product Specialist (2022 – 2023) · Sr. Systems Engineer (2020 – 2022) · Systems Engineer (2019 – 2020)
  • Subject-matter expert for Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, from the incubation team to an organization of more than 250; owns the NC2 on AWS lab sessions at Global Tech Summit since 2023 and presents on the XTour since 2022.
  • Solutions Engineering leadership team for Nutanix Validated Designs, best practices guides and tech notes, and an active contributor to the Validated Designs (NC2 included); 1,100+ solution designs in Nutanix Sizer, including the sizing behind large wins in higher education, financial services and energy.
  • Runs the field motion end to end: PoC/PoV, multi-phase migration journeys, FinOps and TCO/ROI, solution demos, and partner and channel enablement across the Americas; delivers the design and deployment professional-services engagements himself, as an SA rather than through Professional Services.
  • AI infrastructure engineering for customers moving models next to their data: GPU node sizing, storage and network substrate, and the cost model that decides on-prem vs. cloud for inference and fine-tuning.
  • Built the "Commercial TCO/ROI light" that any AE/SE can run in front of a customer; trained partners and account teams on it; a core differentiator that shortened time to purchase.
  • First Commercial SE hired in the Pacific Northwest; supported WA, OR, ID and AK, closed the largest Oregon Commercial and Alaska deals of the time, and onboarded every Commercial AE in the region. Mentored four Systems Engineers directly.
  • Founder and champion sponsor of the Seattle Nutanix User Group (2020 –); founded the Anchorage NUG (2020 – 2022).

Cloud Lab Works LLC

2026 – present Duvall, WA · working lab, open collaboration on projects Principal Architect (2026 –)
  • A working lab and a place to collaborate live on projects: agentic operations, AI infrastructure sizing (GPU, storage and network substrate), open-source repos, technical writing, speaking and mentoring. Own time, own equipment, public information only.
  • Writes Invisible Wires: Agentic Cloud and Nutanix: Invisible Wires: Agentic Cloud; sixty-plus conference-years of field work since 2011, staff on site at re:Invent, Ignite and Google Cloud Next.

KidsCast Native

2026 – present Seattle, WA · cartoon podcast: cloud-native and AI concepts for kids Creator & Executive Producer (2026 –)
  • Created and produces KidsCast Native: one cloud-native or AI concept per episode in two to five minutes, hosted by Waku the orca; picks each topic, sets the story and approves every episode.
  • Produced as an agentic pipeline in code (a Python and Pillow animation rig, a built-in system voice, ffmpeg), with every episode fact-checked against primary documentation. Successor to The Elastic Cloud Cast (2021 – 2026), which brought CNCF and cloud-native technology to a podcast audience for five years.

Rubrik

2018 – 2019 Seattle, WA · Systems Engineer, Pacific Northwest channel
  • Technical lead for cloud data management across hybrid and multicloud, Open API integrations, SaaS (O365), orchestrated DR and ransomware analytics.
  • Enabled the channel (VARs, LARs, SIs, consultancies) through instructor-led sessions, QBRs and the LMS; drove the ecosystem: ServiceNow/ITSM, Ansible, Chef, Puppet, SaltStack, containers, HashiCorp.
  • 2018 quota attainment: 175% Q1, 210% Q2, 195% Q3, 220% Q4.

Internap (INAP)

2015 – 2018 Seattle, WA · Cloud Solutions Architect
  • Owned technical feasibility and design for large hybrid solutions: OpenStack, bare-metal cloud, VMware, Hyper-V and KVM private cloud, colocation, managed hosting, Layer 2–7 networking and compliance.
  • Migration strategy, interoperability, orchestration and API management across OpenStack, AWS, Azure and Google Cloud; Equinix Cloud Exchange hybrid designs.
  • Trained partner SE communities at AWS, Azure, VMware, New Relic, NGINX, OpenStack, NetApp and Aerospike; ran the labs and wrote the whitepapers and case studies. President's Club 2015, 2016, 2017 (top 5% revenue attainment).

Smartsheet

2014 Bellevue, WA · Strategic Accounts (technical + sales)
  • Enterprise-wide SaaS rollouts from beachhead to site license for organizations of 2,000 to 200,000 seats; co-selling with API partners; scope covered Open APIs, compliance, security, governance and SSO. Completed M3 Proactive Selling with its author.

RightScale

2013 Fremont, Seattle, WA · Technical Account Manager
  • Partner alliances with AWS, Azure, IBM SoftLayer, Rackspace and Google Compute Engine; ran the AWS west-coast joint enablement cadence: leads up 310%, close rate up 23%, sales cycle 19 days shorter.
  • Multi-cloud PoCs on the RightScale platform: portability via orchestration and automation; a multi-cloud Open API Wi-Fi framework for what became South America's largest airline group.

Zones

2007 – 2013 Seattle, WA · Enterprise Solutions Architect, Expert Connect
  • Complex solutions for strategic and large enterprise accounts (cloud, HPC, networking, analytics) with project management through delivery. Top 1% in revenue and margin; employee of the quarter three times.
  • Certified Zones to sell enterprise technologies it had not been authorized for (public cloud, JD Edwards); "Insight Selling" cut the net-new sales cycle to 36 days.

Earlier

2001 – 2007 The HN BBPII LLC, Seattle: Controller, Finance & Operations (2001 – 2007) · Invisible Wires Inc., Seattle: Project Manager, Business Analytics (2005)
  • Ran finance and operations reporting to the executive team: forecasting, asset management, cost control; redesigned operations for a 22% year-over-year margin gain and double-digit revenue growth; brokered the company's sale and led through the acquisition.
  • Launched a SaaS analytics stack integrated with POS and CRM: real-time view of customer behaviour and variable cost, double-digit reduction in variable costs. The name lives on as the blog.

Education

Pacific Lutheran University

2001 – 2006 Bachelor of Business Administration, Information Technology Management · AACSB-accredited

University of Washington

2026 Business Analytics, with AWS · certificate of completion

University of Washington

2013 – 2014 Cloud Data Management & Analytics

Peking University, Beijing

2001 Mandarin Chinese

This is the living résumé; it changes as the work does. References on request; send an inquiry. © Alex Alvord.