How a Shrimp Farmer Grew to become a DevOps Chief
Leo Snetsinger’s story doesn’t observe a straight line. He’s an engineer, a founder, a builder—and, sure, a shrimp farmer. His profession in tech has spanned a long time, however his method has all the time stayed the identical: remedy large issues, keep curious, and preserve transferring ahead.
“Onerous work overcomes all obstacles,” Leo says. It’s a mindset that helped him develop from an adolescent on his personal at 16 to a senior platform engineer operating cloud migrations and constructing instruments for machine studying.
Early Life and the Drive to Be taught
Leo was born in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, and raised in cities like Plymouth and Crystal. His childhood was tough. By age 16, he was residing independently. That have formed his work ethic.
“I needed to work laborious to achieve success,” he says. “I’ve been by myself since I used to be a child.”
That grit led him to IT early. He labored his means up the ladder via hands-on expertise, later incomes a Grasp’s in Info Techniques Administration. He was additionally inducted into the Sigma Beta Delta honor society—recognition for his tutorial efficiency.
Platform Engineering: From On-Prem to Kubernetes
In the present day, Leo is a Senior Platform and DevOps Engineer. He’s labored at corporations like Jun Group, the place he served as the only real platform proprietor.
Leo led their transfer from AWS ECS to Kubernetes (EKS). “It was a giant shift,” he says. “We wished full management and higher scalability.” Later, he set the corporate up for a multi-cloud future with Google’s GKE. Alongside the best way, he added GitOps instruments like ArgoCD and Argo Rollouts to streamline deployment.
Certainly one of Leo’s favourite tasks concerned scaling machine studying workloads. “I constructed out an ML mannequin deployment system utilizing Ray Serve on Kubernetes,” he explains. “It wanted to be quick, dependable, and straightforward for information scientists to make use of.”
What Is Leo Snetsinger Recognized For?
Leo is understood for his means to go deep technically whereas nonetheless seeing the large image. He builds methods that final. “I wrote a truss software program answer that’s nonetheless in use 20 years later,” he says.
He doesn’t depend on developments or hype. “I set my very own requirements,” he says. “You must take pleasure in studying and fixing issues.” That’s why he’s usually the one who will get known as in when one thing breaks or must scale.
Constructing Homeland Shrimp: A Completely different Sort of System
Lately, Leo began one thing new. He based Homeland Shrimp, an indoor shrimp farming enterprise. However even right here, he’s nonetheless considering like a methods engineer.
The setup is complicated: self-heating methods, titanium warmth exchangers, closed-loop oxygenation, and optimized PEX tubing. “I used thermodynamic steadiness to maintain it secure,” Leo explains. “It’s all about animal well being and system effectivity.”
Farming shrimp would possibly appear to be a leap from cloud platforms. However to Leo, it’s one other puzzle. “My profession can also be a significant passion,” he says. “I really like the work I do, so it’s not laborious to spend hours on it.”
Staying Grounded in Neighborhood
Regardless of his success in tech, Leo stays near his roots. He volunteers with the Senior Neighborhood Companies HOME program, serving to with yard work for seniors in Sherburne County.
“I do leaf cleanup in fall and spring,” he says. “It helps folks keep of their houses. That issues.”
He additionally helps native causes like Think about Farm, a nonprofit that promotes sustainable agriculture and inclusive farming practices.
What Drives Leo Snetsinger?
Leo doesn’t dwell on failure, however he doesn’t ignore it both. “Failure is essential to the educational course of,” he says. One main mistake 5 years in the past led him to cease ingesting. “I haven’t had a drink since. It modified my life.”
Now, he retains his head down and retains constructing. “I simply continue learning and rising,” he says. “Loving what you do helps.”
Why Leo’s Story Resonates
For anybody navigating tech or beginning over, Leo’s story hits dwelling. He didn’t have an ideal path. He didn’t depend on luck. He put within the hours, taught himself the instruments, and constructed methods—each digital and organic—that work.
“Take pleasure in what you do and continue to grow,” he says. “It’s easy, however it works.”
Leo Snetsinger is greater than a platform engineer. He’s a methods thinker, a builder, and a reminder that success is commonly quiet, earned via persistence and function.
Whether or not he’s debugging a cluster or balancing a shrimp tank, Leo’s method stays the identical: remedy the laborious issues, do the work, and by no means cease studying.
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