TomMelchionna
Contact

Capability

Technical Operating Range

My background spans the customer-facing, infrastructure, networking, application, data, and AI layers. I use that range to understand complete systems rather than treating each integration problem as an isolated component.

Stack map

Where I operate in a system.

Read top to bottom: the customer boundary down to the packets. Field work started at the bottom layer; the range grew upward.

Architecture / Governance

Spans every layer

Defines how the layers relate, change, and remain understandable.

System designContractsSchemasOpenAPIADRsFailure domainsControl / data / policy planes
L6

Customer / Field

DiscoveryRequirementsMigrationQA / UATGo-liveIncident response

Customer environment, business constraints, deployment ownership, production acceptance, and technical handoff.

L5

AI / Agent Systems

OpenAIClaudeGeminiLiteLLMMCPRAGLocal inferenceAgent orchestration

Model integration, routing, agent coordination, context, evaluation, and local/cloud execution.

L4

Application / Integration

GoPythonRustTypeScriptREST / OpenAPIWebhooksMiddleware

Application logic, APIs, automation, interfaces, service integration, and implementation tooling.

L3

Data

PostgreSQLSQLiteSupabasepgvectorPocketBaseDuckDBData pipelines

Relational data, schemas, ingestion, vector retrieval, persistence, and data movement.

L2

Platform / Infrastructure

LinuxDockerPodmanKubernetesProxmoxCloudflareAWS / GCP

Operating systems, containers, orchestration, virtualization, cloud, edge, and compute environments.

L1

Network / Communications

TCP/IPSIPDNSBGP / OSPFMPLSSBCWireshark / PCAP

Network transport, communications systems, routing, protocol analysis, and production troubleshooting.

Reliability / Security / Observability

Spans every layer

Determines whether the complete system can be trusted, operated, diagnosed, and recovered.

LoggingHealth checksTraceabilityHA / DRLeast privilegeSecretsPolicyIncident response

Operating model

How I move through a problem.

Forward-deployed work moves from understanding the customer's environment to engineering the solution, shipping it into production, and turning what was learned into a better repeatable system.

  1. 01

    Understand

    Discover · Scope · Diagnose

    Understand what actually exists, what the customer needs, where the constraints are, and what can fail before changing the system.

  2. 02

    Engineer

    Architect · Build · Integrate

    Design the path forward, build or automate what is missing, and integrate with the environment that already exists.

  3. 03

    Ship

    Validate · Deploy · Operate

    Validate the complete system, move it safely into production, observe its behavior, and own the path through go-live.

  4. 04

    Improve

    Troubleshoot · Automate · Codify

    Resolve what breaks, identify the pattern behind the failure, and turn the lesson into better tooling, architecture, documentation, or process.

Inventory

Detailed Technology Inventory

Explore the specific languages, platforms, protocols, infrastructure, AI systems, data technologies, and engineering practices behind the operating range above.

Select a domain to expand

Software Engineering

28 technologiesExpand →

Languages · backend services · automation · systems programming · configuration

Services, tooling, and automation written to be read, tested, and handed off.

DESIGNBUILDINTEGRATE

Languages / formats

GoPythonRustBash / shellSQLJavaScript / TypeScriptSwiftZigHTMLCSSMarkdownYAMLTOMLJSON

Frameworks / application technologies

Go net/httptemplHTMXReactTanStack StartViteTailwind CSS

Engineering

Backend servicesCLI toolingAutomationMiddlewareEvent-driven systemsStructured configurationDeterministic workflows

APIs & Integration

22 technologiesExpand →

REST/OpenAPI · contracts · gateways · middleware · auth · webhooks

Contract-first interfaces between systems that were never designed to meet.

DESIGNBUILDINTEGRATETROUBLESHOOT

Protocols & contracts

HTTP / HTTPSRESTOpenAPIRPC conceptsWebhooksJSON Schema conceptsContract-first designSchema-first designVersioned APIs

Infrastructure

API gatewaysReverse proxiesMiddlewareAuthentication / authorizationCaching architectureService integration

Verification & tooling

BrunoPostmanAPI contract testingRequest / response validationStructured outputsFunction callingTool calling

AI, LLM & Agent Systems

42 technologiesExpand →

Providers · routing · local inference · RAG · agents · evaluation · context

Model routing, retrieval, orchestration, and the gates that keep output trustworthy.

DESIGNBUILDINTEGRATERESEARCH

Providers / tools

OpenAICodexAnthropic ClaudeClaude CodeGoogle GeminiGoogle AntigravityOpenRouterTogether AIOllamaOpenCodeLiteLLM

Agent & context infrastructure

Model Context Protocol (MCP)Google Open Knowledge Format (OKF)RAGEmbeddingsSemantic searchVector searchContext engineeringStructured outputsFunction callingTool callingAgent skillsSub-agentsMulti-agent orchestrationProvider abstractionModel routingModel fallbackEvaluation gatesLocal / cloud routingLocal inferenceCapability boundariesTrust tiersAgent policy

Model serving / compute

vLLMSGLangCUDANVIDIA GPU computingGPU inferenceGPU resource managementLlama-family modelsQwenGemma

Data & Storage

31 technologiesExpand →

Relational data · vector retrieval · schemas · pipelines · persistence · replication

Schemas and pipelines sized to the questions the system actually has to answer.

DESIGNBUILDOPERATE

Databases

PostgreSQLSupabasepgvectorSQLitePocketBaseTrailBaseDuckDBSnowflake

Data systems

Relational architectureSchema designMigrationsReplicationETL / ELTData ingestionData pipelinesData modelingVector dataGraph conceptsSemantic retrievalDeduplicationMetadataData provenanceData lifecycleData quality

Persistence / storage

LitestreamZFSNASNVMeSSDSnapshotsBackup / recovery

Platform, Compute & Operating Systems

41 technologiesExpand →

Linux · containers · orchestration · virtualization · cloud · edge · local compute

Reproducible environments from bare metal to hybrid cloud and the edge.

DESIGNBUILDOPERATETROUBLESHOOT

Operating systems

LinuxmacOSFedoraFedora CoreOSFedora Atomic / rpm-ostreeBazziteUniversal Blue / uBlueBluefinuCoreTalos LinuxDistroboxsystemdUEFIGRUB

Containers / orchestration

DockerDocker ComposePodmanOrbStackOCI containersKubernetesK3sKustomizeContainer networkingPersistent volumes

Virtualization / local infrastructure

Proxmox VEUnraidZFSBare-metal computeARM64x86-64

Cloud / edge

CloudflareCloudflare WorkersAWSGCPRunPodHetznerLinodeHybrid cloudEdge computingServerless GPU infrastructureLocal / cloud workload partitioning

DevOps & Engineering Operations

37 technologiesExpand →

Git · CI/CD · testing · release gates · supply-chain checks · reliability

Delivery pipelines, verification gates, and the operational discipline behind them.

BUILDINTEGRATEOPERATE

Source control

GitGitHubForgejoBranchingWorktreesMerge workflowsConcurrent repository workflowsConventional Commits

CI / delivery

GitHub ActionsCI/CDAutomated testingContract testingValidation gatesRelease gatesBuild pipelinesDeployment pipelinesReproducible environments

Verification / supply chain

Secret scanningDependency scanningVulnerability scanningSBOMAPI parity checksSmoke testingRead-only verification

Reliability

ObservabilityLoggingHealth checksRetry / exponential backoffFault isolationGraceful degradationRollbackDisaster recoveryHigh availabilityCapacity planningResource utilizationProduction incident responseChange management

Networking & Communications

26 technologiesExpand →

TCP/IP · SIP · routing · contact center · MPLS · carrier systems · packet analysis

Where fifteen years of field work still decides how fast a failure gets isolated.

DESIGNINTEGRATEOPERATETROUBLESHOOT

Transport & routing

TCP/IPOSI modelHTTP / HTTPSDNSDHCPOSPFBGPMPLSMulti-site networks

Real-time communications

SIPVoIPUCaaSCCaaSContact-center architectureSession Border ControllersCPEDNISCall routingIVRCarrier coordination

Diagnosis

Packet analysisWiresharkPCAPProtocol tracingSIP ladder analysisNetwork troubleshooting

Security & Trust Architecture

24 technologiesExpand →

Least privilege · RBAC/RLS · isolation · policy · trust boundaries · cryptographic integrity

Assume failure and unauthorized access; design the blast radius before shipping.

DESIGNOPERATETROUBLESHOOT

Access & isolation

Zero Trust conceptsLeast privilegeRBACRLSAuthentication / authorizationSecrets managementNetwork isolationNetwork policiesSandboxingTrust boundariesCapability isolation

Application & agent safety

CSPCSRF protectionHttpOnly session conceptsPolicy enforcementPrompt-injection mitigationData sovereigntyZero Data Retention concepts

Integrity & supply chain

Cryptographic integritySHA-256Ed25519Signed manifestsSupply-chain securitySBOM

Systems Architecture & Governance

38 technologiesExpand →

Distributed systems · integration · control/data planes · ADRs · contracts · documentation

Structure, decision records, and the diagrams that survive the handoff.

DESIGNRESEARCH

Architecture

Distributed systemsSystems architecturePlatform architectureAPI architectureIntegration architectureData architectureAI architectureInfrastructure architectureSecurity architectureEvent-driven systemsService-oriented architectureMicroservicesLocal-first systemsHybrid architecturesControl plane / data plane separationPolicy planesFailure domainsCircuit breakersDeterministic workflowsReproducible systemsSchema-first architectureContract-driven architectureProgressive disclosure

Documentation / governance

Architecture Decision Records (ADR)Product Decision Records (PDR)System design documentsTechnical specificationsOpenAPI contractsContract testingMermaidSequence diagramsData-flow diagramsNetwork topology diagramsSIP ladder diagramsFailure-mode analysisTechnical decision matricesArchitecture reviewsTechnical roadmapping

Engineering Tooling

14 technologiesExpand →

Development environments · API tooling · AI coding tools · documentation · workflow systems

The daily working set.

BUILD

Tooling

VS CodeCursorClaude CodeCodex CLI / AppGoogle AntigravityGitHubGitHub ActionsBrunoPostmanObsidianLinearNotionHomebrewPackage / environment management

Applied research

Luthier, end to end.

The independent research project where these layers get exercised together.

  1. 01

    Providers

    Multi-provider model access, local and cloud, behind one interface.

  2. 02

    Routing

    Provider-independent routing and fallback based on task and constraints.

  3. 03

    Execution

    Agent coordination, repository state, and trust boundaries.

  4. 04

    Observability

    Traces, evaluation gates, and reproducible runs.

Certifications

Earned credentials.

Cisco CCNA — 2022CompTIA Security+ — 2021CompTIA Network+ — 2021

East Valley Information Technology School — High School Diploma, concentration in Information Technology