James Mc Donald
About James Mc Donald
James McDonald is a Senior Site Reliability Engineer and Team Lead at Nationwide Building Society in London, where he has worked since 2024. He has extensive experience in IT infrastructure management, application deployment, and a strong background in engineering and technology.
Work at Nationwide Building Society
James McDonald serves as a Senior SRE Engineer and Team Lead at Nationwide Building Society. He has been in this role since 2024, contributing to the organization's operations from the London area in a hybrid work environment. His responsibilities include overseeing site reliability engineering practices and leading a team to ensure the stability and performance of critical systems.
Previous Experience at BT Group
Before joining Nationwide Building Society, James McDonald worked at BT Group from 2019 to 2024. In his role as Application Support Owner and DevOps/SRE Team Lead, he was involved in managing application support and leading site reliability engineering efforts. His tenure at BT Group spanned five years and was conducted in a hybrid setting in Ipswich, England.
Education and Expertise
James McDonald holds a Master's Degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Loughborough University, which he completed from 1994 to 1999. He also achieved A Levels in Maths, Physics, German, and Music at Godalming College between 1992 and 1994. Additionally, he completed his GCSEs at Glebelands, Cranleigh from 1988 to 1992. His educational background supports his extensive technical expertise in areas such as containerized application deployment and IP networking.
Technical Skills and Interests
James possesses extensive skills in deploying and migrating applications to containerized platforms, utilizing Docker and Kubernetes technologies. He holds IP networking skills to Cisco CCIP level and IP telephony skills to Cisco CCNA Voice level. His interests include Quality of Service (QoS), particularly in voice quality, automation, and monitoring, reflecting his commitment to enhancing system performance and reliability.
Management of IT Infrastructure
James McDonald has managed IT infrastructure that encompasses 12 application platforms and over 400 servers. He has expertise in IT Service Management, holding an ITIL Expert level certification. His experience includes managing carrier-scale platforms with high availability requirements, supporting over 100,000 end users, and collaborating with a diverse range of vendors such as Cisco, Ericsson, and VMware.