Daniel Williams

About Daniel Williams

Driving Scalable Security, Automation, and Networking InnovationAs a Senior Engineer specializing in automation, cloud security, and networking, I bring over 10 years of experience designing and validating high-performance systems. My expertise spans security architecture, DevOps automation, and networking protocols, with a focus on scalable, secure, and efficient systems. Automation & DevOps: Spearheaded automation-driven system validation to optimize efficiency, reducing manual overhead by 90%. Regularly analyze Jenkins automation results for deeper testing insights. Cloud & Security Expertise: Led validation of PKI-based mutual TLS authentication in a public AWS cloud implementation, ensuring robust encryption, certificate management, and secure authentication across distributed systems. Networking Protocols & Security: Led validation of EAP-TLS authentication to spearhead a new 802.1X implementation for prplOS, ensuring secure network authentication. This effort involved the Optical Line Terminal (OLT) and Central Office within a lab network, enhancing secure access control. Comprehensive Protocol Expertise: Conducted extensive validation of IPv4, IPv6, IPSec, BGP, MPLS, UDP, TCP, DNS, DHCP, and SIP to optimize network security and performance across WAN, xDSL, GPON, and XGSPON infrastructures. Technical Leadership & Feature Review: Reviewed, approved, and implemented 20+ high-impact features, working cross-functionally with architecture, DevOps, and security teams to enhance testing frameworks and security protocols. Strategic Growth: Proactively aligning technical leadership, automation, and security expertise to transition into a engineering leadership role focused on scalable network and security architectures. Passionate about solving complex security, automation, and networking challenges. Always open to connecting with like-minded professionals and exploring opportunities to drive large-scale impact.

Experience

1. Principal Member of Technical Staff

   AT&T

   Oct 2025 — Present

   Validate & certify optical/IP platforms (PON, Broadband, DWDM) with rigorous test plans & PoCs. Automate lab workflows (Python/shell); enforce security & performance across L1-L3. Partner cross-functionally to de-risk releases and scale new network capabilities

Education

• Georgia Institute of Technology

  Masters, Computer Science

• The University of Texas at Dallas

  Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Electrical Engineering