I'm Andrew Mills, Owner/Operator of Mills IT Consulting LLC. I've been intrigued by technology since I was a kid and have been doing it professionally since 2007. I have a quick, curious, and creative mind with a passion for problem solving.

I'm focused on event streaming, specifically leveraging Kafka and the surrounding ecosystem. I have been successful at designing, implementing, and managing enterprise scale systems to ingest, transform, and move large amounts of data in near real time. I've installed and managed Apache Kafka from the open source repository, using DataStax Enterprise and Hortonworks Data Platform (now CDP), projects like Strimzi to deploy Kafka on k8s, SaaS providers like Instaclustr and HD Insights, as well as migrated a large deployment to Confluent Cloud. I've also built many applications in C#, Go, Java and Scala which produce and consume from Kafka endpoints, leveraging the Kafka Streams API's when I could.

My background is diverse and includes time in nearly every part of the SDLC. For a more complete picture, check out my LinkedIn profile. To summarize:

• Senior Solutions Architect for an open-source managed services offering, including Kafka, discussing technical fitment for potential clients and supporting them as they migrate to the platform

• Senior Developer/Architect working on Enterprise scale systems

• Product Owner/Manager, charged with client relations, issue/feature design and prioritization, vendor integrations, and business partnerships.

• MSSQL Administrator, data mining, report writing, software QA and a phone-based Technical Support rep.

The roles outside of a typical developer set me apart from most career developers, allowing me to see the bigger picture. Solving technical problems can often be looked at only through the lens of the technical person, but a wider angle should be taken that accounts for business needs and the humans involved.

Last but not least, I'm a devoted husband, father, DIY expert, outdoorsman, and woodworking hobbyist rooted in South Central USA.

If you need help wrangling your event streams, let me know!

-- Andrew