Bryan Finster

Engineering leader driving enterprise-scale continuous delivery through secure internal developer platforms and modern application architectures. Deep DevOps/DevSecOps expertise with a record of reducing release lead time from months to days and mentoring teams for safe, repeatable delivery.

Experience

Engineering Manager

Defense Unicorns

April 2024 - September 2025
1 year, 5 months

Lead developer of the team of designers and engineers responsible for Defense Unicorns' web assets. Responsible for improving UX and SEO for both human and AI-driven search to increase discoverability and engagement.

Principal Engineer - Product & Growth

Defense Unicorns

January 2021 - April 2024
3 years, 3 months

Worked with Department of Defense customers and other DoD contractors to design secure, air-gapped software delivery solutions. Aided in discovery efforts to identify process and tooling gaps that hindered the Authority To Operate approval process.

  • Co-created Linux Foundation's free 'Intro to DevSecOps for Managers' training.
  • Led workshops to grow product interest; shared lessons with DoD programs and primes.
  • Advised programs on roadblocks to continuous delivery and remediation approaches.

Principal Engineer - Platform One

Defense Unicorns

March 2021 - January 2022
10 months

Worked closely with USAF Platform One's commanding officers and government leadership team on the changes needed to scale their delivery platform service to meet DoD-wide needs.

  • Delivered open-source development metrics with a standard API and self-service training.
  • Partnered with DoD Office of the CIO and USAF Chief Software Officer on a DoD-wide metrics strategy.
  • Provided user feedback and OKR suggestions to close process/automation/security gaps to help Platform One delvier Day 1 Certificate to Field for platform users.

Staff Engineer / Product Owner: DevOps Dojo

Walmart Software Delivery Enablement

Bentonville, AR

January 2018 - March 2021
3 years, 2 months

Founded Walmart's DevOps Dojo as a delivery platform service to help product teams learn the teamwork and development practices needed for continuous delivery. This was part of a broader enterprise strategy to use CD to transform Walmart Global Tech engineering practices.

  • Launched DevOps Dojo to teach CD practices as a platform service.
  • Built a six-week engagement model moving teams toward daily delivery.
  • Created CD playbooks to help self-service learning; later open-sourced via DojoConsortium.org.
  • Developed metrics tooling and an enterprise strategy to inform improvement without weaponizing metrics.
  • Developed a scaling strategy to roll improvements to over 1,800 without growing Dojo budget by training and certifying senior engineers in Dojo techniques.

Staff Engineer / Product Owner: Delivery Metrics

Walmart Software Delivery Enablement

Bentonville, AR

July 2017 - January 2018
6 months

Responsible for leading product development for the global collection, aggregation, visualization, and gamification of delivery metrics for the enterprise.

  • Refined gamified metrics to encourage trunk-based development, CI, and CD while avoiding perverse incentives.
  • Designed aggregation for SVP/CTO-level summaries tracking enterprise delivery goals at the manager and SVP level.

Solutions Architect & Tech Lead - Walmart Logistics

Walmart Global Logistics

Bentonville, AR

December 2000 - July 2017
16 years, 7 months

Supported Walmart's grocery distribution centers, both domestic and international, in various roles from Programmer Analyst to Staff Software Engineer

  • Implemented a large-scale modernization of Walmart's main global logistics systems, leading the transition from quarterly releases to true continuous delivery by decoupling the application using a reverse Conway maneuver by reorganizing teams from feature teams executing projects into product teams owning business capabilities.
  • Led the discovery and implementation efforts to execute the extreme programming practices and testing methods required for teams to achieve daily production delivery.

Senior Engineer - Customer Customizations

EXE Technologies, inc.

March 1996 - October 2000
4 years, 7 months

Technical lead responsible for gathering requirements and implementing customizations for customers using EXE's warehouse management system, including Sun Microsystems, Whole Foods, Publix, and many others.

Skills

Internal PlatformsSelf-Service CI/CDContinuous DeliveryTrunk-Based DevelopmentSecure Supply ChainFlow/DORA MetricsArchitectureTeam MentoringOKRs/KPIsChange Management

Publications

5 Minute DevOps Blog

Medium

Present

Short articles on improving teamwork, testing, workflow, leadership, metrics, and everything else in the value stream to enable continuous delivery.

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Platform as a Product

IT Revolution

January 2023

Experience report from Walmart and John Deere on developing internal platforms, the impact of leveraging platforms to encourage CD, and the importance of both disciplined product management and training for internal platforms.

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Introduction to DevSecOps for Managers

Linux Foundation

January 2022

Free online video training series targeted at leadership to introduce DevSecOps principles and practices to people new to the topic.

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How to Misuse and Abuse DORA Metrics

IT Revolution

January 2022

A deeper look into popular metrics used for measuring software delivery, how they are being used destructively, and suggestions to improve how we measure delivery based on experiences implementing metrics driven improvement.

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Modern Cybersecurity: Tales from the Near-Distant Future

JupiterOne

January 2021

Author of a chapter on the importance of continuous delivery to all aspects of quality, including security and compliance.

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An Integrated Approach to Enterprise Improvement

IT Revolution

January 2021

A holistic strategy for improving delivery performance at enterprise scale based on the outcomes from Walmart.

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Patents

US Patent 9015069

System and method for prioritizing store order processing using customer location information

United States Patent and Trademark Office Patent #9015069 Issued: April 2015

A system and method for prioritizing store order processing using customer location information to optimize retail fulfillment operations.

Community

Co-author / Maintainer

MinimumCD.org

January 2021 - Present

Community project to establish a set of minimum practices for safe and effective continuous delivery in every delivery context.

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Member

Enterprise Dojo Consortium

January 2018 - January 2025

Organization of individuals from several Fortune 100 companies sharing good practices for helping teams improve delivery.

Maintainer

DojoConsortium.org

January 2019 - Present

Repository of open-source playbooks from the Enterprise Dojo Consortium to help the broader community learn from the Dojo community.

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