Garrard Kitchen
About Garrard Kitchen
Garrard Kitchen serves as the Head of Cloud Platform at CarFinance 247, focusing on observability and cost reduction through technology solutions. With extensive experience in cloud technologies and team development, he has held various leadership roles in the tech industry since 2007.
Work at CarFinance 247
Garrard Kitchen has been serving as the Head of Cloud Platform at CarFinance 247 since 2021. In this role, he focuses on observability, which includes logging, metrics, and tracing. He aims to identify and reduce operating costs through technology solutions. As a solution/problem domain owner, he establishes best practices and guidelines to enhance the efficiency of cloud operations. Prior to this position, he worked as a Principal Engineer at the same company from 2019 to 2021.
Previous Experience at Qualtrak Solutions Ltd
Before joining CarFinance 247, Garrard Kitchen worked at Qualtrak Solutions Ltd for over a decade. He held the position of Chief Technology Officer, where he was involved in development, strategy, and mentoring from 2008 to 2019. His earlier role at the same company was as a Contractor from 2007 to 2008. This extensive experience allowed him to develop a strong foundation in technology leadership and strategic planning.
Education and Expertise
Garrard Kitchen studied Business Information Systems at Liverpool John Moores University, where he earned a B.Sc. (Hons) from 1990 to 1994. He specializes in serverless technologies and adopts a cloud-first approach in his work. His expertise includes developing and deploying serverless solutions on AWS and Azure platforms, as well as migrating enterprise solutions and web applications to serverless and containerized environments.
Technical Skills and Specializations
Garrard Kitchen possesses a range of technical skills that are essential for modern cloud computing. He is proficient in architecting cloud solutions and modernizing technology stacks and CI/CD processes. Additionally, he has experience in system integration and has successfully integrated various systems. He is capable of designing and shipping HTTP APIs and cloud-centric solutions, which are critical for scalable application development.
Team Building and Mentorship
In his professional career, Garrard Kitchen has demonstrated the ability to build and mentor development teams that align with DevOps practices. His leadership in this area contributes to the overall success of technology initiatives within organizations. His focus on best practices and guidelines helps in fostering a collaborative and efficient working environment.