I’m Lester Barahona. A Senior Site Reliability Engineer with 20 years of experience making systems reliable, scalable, and automated. Based in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, I help companies build infrastructure that just works.
Two Decades of Building Things
I started my career in 2006 as a software developer. For eight years, I built web applications, learned what makes systems break, and developed an obsession with automation. Every repetitive task felt like a personal challenge. If I had to do something twice, I’d write a script to do it forever.
In 2014, I made the shift to Site Reliability Engineering and DevOps. It was a natural evolution. I’d always been the developer who cared too much about deployment pipelines, server configurations, and why things went down at 3 AM. Now I do that full-time, and I love it.
What I Do Now
Currently, I’m a consultant for Fueled, where I help build and maintain reliable infrastructure. My day-to-day involves:
- Kubernetes orchestration. Designing, deploying, and managing production clusters
- Infrastructure as Code. Terraform, Helm, and GitOps workflows
- Cloud architecture. AWS, Azure, DigitalOcean. Choosing the right tool for the job
- Automation. CI/CD pipelines, deployment automation, anything that reduces toil
- Reliability. Monitoring, alerting, incident response, and building systems that heal themselves
My Philosophy
Automate everything possible. Humans are great at creative problem-solving. We’re terrible at repetitive tasks. Every manual process is a bug waiting to happen.
Infrastructure should be invisible. When I’ve done my job well, developers don’t think about infrastructure at all. They push code, it deploys, it scales, it works. That’s the goal.
Simplicity scales. Complex systems break in complex ways. I prefer boring, well-understood technology over shiny new tools. Kubernetes is exciting until it’s 3 AM and your pods won’t schedule.
Companies I’ve Worked With
Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of building infrastructure for some incredible companies: Fueled (current), 10up, Sandals Resorts, Beaches Resorts, Pinterest, Microsoft, and InvestorPlace.
Beyond the Terminal
When I’m not wrangling containers or writing Terraform, you’ll find me:
- Playing guitar and bass. Music is my reset button. There’s something meditative about learning a new riff.
- Watching soccer. Passionate fan. Don’t ask me about my team’s last season.
- Hanging out with my dogs. A Golden Retriever and a Beagle. They’re better at work-life balance than I am.
Let’s Connect
I write about SRE, DevOps, AI, and occasionally investing (stocks and crypto) on this blog. If you want to work together or just chat about infrastructure, reach out:
- Email: [email protected]
- GitHub: github.com/lbarahona
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lesterbarahona
- Twitter: twitter.com/lesterbarahona
