Mark Ellis

About Mark Ellis

I’m an Engineering Manager focused on building reliable systems, scalable observability platforms, and high-performing teams.At Chipotle, I founded and scaled the company’s enterprise observability function, defining what observability means across in-restaurant technology, digital ordering platforms, networking, and analytics systems. Our work has helped improve digital order delivery success from ~98% to 99.9%+, directly improving guest experience.I lead with a product mindset—balancing reliability, cost, and long-term platform strategy. I’ve helped standardize telemetry collection using OpenTelemetry, expand Grafana as a core visualization platform, and optimize Datadog and Splunk usage while improving the cost efficiency and sustainability of our observability ecosystem.I care deeply about developing engineers. Through weekly 1:1s, collaborative goal setting, and targeted growth plans, I’ve helped engineers become subject-matter experts and grow into larger technical leadership roles.I enjoy partnering across SRE, application development, DevOps, and infrastructure teams to turn observability into a proactive advantage rather than a reactive necessity.

Experience

1. Manager, Observability and Monitoring

   Chipotle Mexican Grill

   Oct 2021 — Present · Columbus, OH, US

   Founded and scaled Chipotle’s enterprise observability function, defining platform strategy, architecture, and operating model.• Own observability roadmap across in-restaurant technology, digital ordering platforms, networking, and analytics systems.• Led adoption of OpenTelemetry and modernization of Kubernetes telemetry pipelines.• Expanded Grafana as a core visualization platform and optimized Datadog and Splunk usage.• Improved digital order delivery success from ~98% to 99.9%+, directly improving guest experience.• Hire, mentor, and develop engineers through weekly 1:1s and collaborative goal-setting.

Education

• The University of Findlay

  Bachelor of Science, Computer Science

  2009 — 2012