Senior Software Engineer · DevSecOps Enthusiast

Nick Clingan

Security-focused software engineer and technical leader building high-trust teams and high-assurance systems.

This page covers the Software Architecture pillar of my work. I also coach CrossFit (Human Performance) and build things by hand (Physical Craftsmanship) — the same systems-thinking applied to code, movement, and the workshop.

Summary

My career has centered on delivering secure, reliable, and scalable services across air-gapped cloud environments, confidential computing, and enterprise distributed systems. I enjoy building systems that reduce toil, improve reliability, and make complex environments easier to operate.

I believe strong engineering outcomes begin with strong engineering cultures. I invest in mentorship, transparent communication, ownership, and psychological safety while aligning people, process, and technology around secure cloud, distributed systems, and AI-augmented engineering.

Skills

Secure Cloud

  • • Microsoft Azure
  • • Confidential computing
  • • Hardware identity & attestation
  • • RBAC & credential management

Engineering

  • • C# & Entity Framework
  • • Node.js & Angular
  • • Java microservices
  • • RESTful services

DevSecOps & Leadership

  • • Kubernetes & containers
  • • CI/CD automation
  • • Observability & incident response
  • • Technical leadership & mentorship

Experience

Senior Software Engineer

Microsoft · Reston, VA

November 2022 - Present
  • • Deliver and operate foundational security services for confidential computing in air-gapped, sovereign, and regulated cloud environments.
  • • Build across hardware identity and attestation, credential management, and trusted computing base modules to support highly sensitive workloads.
  • • Partner with security, platform, and engineering teams to standardize compliant service delivery across new cloud regions and hardware platforms.
  • • Improved deployment and monitoring for Microsoft Information Protection services and strengthened observability and incident response.
  • • Built full-stack features with Angular, Node.js, C#, and Entity Framework for an internal security and compliance reporting platform.

Site Reliability Engineer

Microsoft · Reston, VA

October 2018 - October 2022
  • • Served as technical lead for deploying and operating Microsoft Teams across multiple air-gapped cloud environments.
  • • Automated Azure provisioning and deployments across 18 services plus web and desktop clients, reducing configuration toil and enforcing RBAC permissions.
  • • Operated core services in Kubernetes and developed a greenfield feature-parity application that reduced toil and improved build times by 30%.

Software Engineer

Booz Allen Hamilton

August 2016 - September 2018
  • • Acted as Scrum Master for a team of 10 developers delivering an enterprise analytics platform for a federal client.
  • • Developed containerized RESTful and Java microservices and deployed them to multiple AWS environments through automated pipelines.
  • • Helped onboard two development teams, supported technical proposals and interviews, and presented the contract DevOps strategy at a firm-wide conference.

Technical Consultant

Tahzoo · Washington, DC Metro Area

October 2013 - July 2016
  • • Built ASP.NET MVC/MVVM applications for Fortune 500 clients using C#, Razor, JSON/XML, AWS EC2, and enterprise content management platforms.
  • • Helped secure a long-term contract by delivering a proof of concept under a tight deadline and establishing strong client relationships.

Education

Master of Information Technology

Virginia Tech

May 2026 - August 2028

Bachelor of Science, Physics/Computer Science

Moravian University

2009 - 2013

Certifications & Awards

  • • Copilot for Microsoft 365 Achiever Badge - Foundational
  • • Microsoft Global Hackathon 2021
  • • Microsoft Security Hackathon 2024 Participant
  • • Consummate Gentlemen Award
  • • Fearless Leader