Elaine W.

About Elaine W.

Principal-level Platform Engineer specializing in large-scale Cloud & On-Prem Data Platforms, AWS database ecosystems, and enterprise automation. I bring 20+ years of experience architecting mission-critical platforms that support global applications, combining deep hands-on engineering with strategic technical leadership across complex organizations.At Mastercard, I serve as the technical lead and principal architect behind the company’s internal Amazon DocumentDB and MongoDB on EC2 platforms. I design and drive end-to-end platform strategy—from architecture standards and IaC automation to observability, governance, and multi-region resiliency. My work includes:* Defining global NoSQL platform standards adopted across business units* Building enterprise-grade automation frameworks using AWS Service Catalog, CloudFormation, and CDK* Engineering secure, compliant architectures using PrivateLink, IAM guardrails, backup retention, and audited CI/CD pipelines* Leading multi-team initiatives that reduce operational overhead by 60–80%* Delivering high-availability MongoDB deployments in both cloud and new data center environmentsPreviously as a Technical Architect at Perficient, I led multiple cross-functional data engineering teams delivering cloud data platforms for large healthcare and energy clients. I owned solution design for Databricks, Redshift, Aurora PostgreSQL, and DynamoDB ecosystems; implemented scalable ETL pipelines; and set architectural direction while mentoring engineers and improving delivery quality.Across all roles, I operate as a principal-level engineer: defining technical vision, driving architecture decisions, influencing engineering culture, and delivering platforms that are secure, automated, observable, and built for scale. I’m passionate about raising engineering excellence, enabling teams to move faster with higher reliability, and creating data platforms that last.If you\'re working on cloud platform modernization, database architecture, or large-scale data infrastructure, I’d love to connect.

Experience

1. Lead Platform Engineer

   Mastercard

   Nov 2022 — Present · New York, NY, US

   Designed and delivered company internal Amazon DocumentDB product using AWS Service Catalog & CloudFormation, and CDK; built standardized, scalable deployment patterns across business units; created reusable constructs integrated into enterprise Jenkins CI/CD workflows-Implemented automated backup retention, log groups in CloudWatch, Performance Insights, and secure configuration orchestration-Built fully automated pipelines for provisioning, governance, linting, testing, and production rollout-Engineered MongoDB cluster and Ops Manager on EC2, including automated provisioning, cluster scaling, HA/DR design, and operational hardening-Established AWS PrivateLink connectivity between Ops Manager and MongoDB clusters to ensure secure, compliant, low-latency communication-Automated Ops Manager installation and MongoDB cluster creation/configuration with Ansible & API workflows—reducing deployment time by 60–80%-Installed, configured, and upgraded MongoDB (4.4 → 5.0 → 6.0 → 7.0 → 8.0) and Ops Manager (6.0 → 7.0 → 8.0); set up TLS/certificates, LDAP, backup strategies, and performance tuning-Designed multi-region architectures using EC2 Auto Scaling, Route 53, PrivateLink, S3 backups, SSM, and secure cross-VPC connectivity-Built new MongoDB infrastructures in newly established data centers and led localization project-Created Github repos for MongoDB/DocumentDB primitives/templates and integrated DB builds into CI/CD pipelines-Developed post-build test cases and performance validation; automated infrastructure provisioning with CloudFormation-Collaborated with Cloud Platform, CloudOps, Security, Application, and DBA teams to align with Mastercard resiliency, IAM, observability, and security standards-Provided data modeling guidance, migration solutions, technical leadership, and internal MongoDB training-Defined company standards for MongoDB and DocumentDB NoSQL architectures; acted as primary engineer for all MongoDB/DocumentDB initiatives.

Education

• Puppet

  Puppet

  2019 — 2019

• MongoDB University

  DBA

  2016 — 2017

• University of Southern California

  Multimedia

• California State University San Marcos

  Master of Science - MS, Computer Science

• Peking University

  International Finance

• Oracle University

  OCA training, OCP training, RAC training

  2007 — 2013