Richard Smith

• Spearheaded development of innovative AI tools, including some very hands on, including AI RAG Solution in Azure to create sophisticated AI chatbot designed to streamline legal document processing.
• Acted as Technical SME to audit Azure HPCC appliance, ensuring compliance and best practices in IT governance for best practice and operations. ISO 27001, cross referencing.
• Wrote governance whitepaper on datacenter migration for financial sector FinOps client, covering risks from BOE & Prudential regulation perspective.
• Presented information clearly and concisely to engage technical and non-technical audiences.
• Provided strategic direction for desktop and mobile transformation initiatives in Energy client, Intune, Entra etc.
• Government Health and Infrastructure projects orientated around Dynamics CRM installation practices.
• Managed transition of PY processes and services over to EY following acquisition.
• Developed technical documentation and resources to support learning and development.
• Promoted to Manager in 2023

• Pythagoras was a Microsoft Gold Partner specialising in CRM and SharePoint.
• Architectural development and technical delivery of internal projects and infrastructure management.
• Most noted projects were delivery of System Centre 2012-2019 stack comprising of VMM, SCOM, SCCM, SCORCH and SCSM, MBAM encryption and Windows 10 automated deployments using CM\MDT.
• Delivered cutting edge technology projects like Server 2016-2019 Hyper- Converged Clusters using Storage Spaces Direct and Proof of Concept SDNv2.
• Due to Pythagoras' rapid expansion and new client acquisitions, manual provisioning of customised virtual machines for developers needed to be replaced with automation to improve deployment speed and reduce turnaround time.
• Migrated existing aging 2012 R2 clusters and replication over to 2016 storage spaces solution on HP.
• Delivering bleeding edge tech, eg, RDMA networking, SET switches, physical switch configuration for RoCE and new MS storage technology.
• Objectives included creating self-service portal in Service Manager for non-IT users and automating deployment of customised VMs with OS (2012–2019), Kingsway, Visual Studio, SQL, and CRM to mirror client environments.
• Using Orchestrator to design run-books to deliver software, query AD, backup solutions and VM customization.
• Proficient in PowerShell to achieve tasks and day to day use of Server 2016-2019 Core edition deployments.
• Automated daily IT services like requests for VM start\stop, replication repair, Hyper-V health, snapshot monitoring and HR functions to aid new starter IT tasks.
• Highly technical role with continuous, complex daily challenges.

• Key Responsibilities:
  Provided 3rd line Wintel and CCTV support, ensuring adherence to strict SLAs, aligned with offshore.
• Managed an estate of 2,000 physical and virtual servers (ESX v5)
• Oversaw CCTV infrastructure for T2 (Tyco)
• SME for SafeCom ID printing solution, supporting 1,500 users
• Managed end-to-end project lifecycle for hardware upgrades and deployments
• Conducted daily administration for critical systems
• Automated processes via PowerShell scripting

Contract\Perm History : Capgemini (May 2011 – April 15)

Contracted BAA : (December 2007 – June 2009)

I began my career in desktop component sales, but quickly discovered my passion for supporting users, which led me to desktop support. Over time, I realised my true strength lay in infrastructure, leading to seamless progression into server support and infrastructure management. For more detailed overview of my career journey, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.