// ricardo "rick" fernandez
Ricardo "Rick" Fernandez
Senior Solutions Engineer, Enterprise East @ Cloudflare Inc (NYSE: NET)
12+ years turning complex infrastructure into things that just work.
// about
I started my career in technical support and QA, learned what breaks and why, and spent the next decade working my way through ad-tech, cloud infrastructure, edge computing, and cybersecurity. I've built and led engineering teams, shipped products from scratch, gone from first hire to Director at a startup, and now I spend my days helping some of the largest enterprises in the world architect their security and networking infrastructure at Cloudflare.
My approach is simple: I build what I sell. I run a homelab where I deploy, break, and rebuild the same products I demo to customers. If I'm recommending a Zero Trust architecture or a WAF configuration, I've already tested it in my own environment first.
Outside of work, I collect watches, tinker with my homelab more than I probably should, and spend time with my wife, our baby boy, and our little dog.
// experience
Cloudflare Inc (NYSE: NET)
Senior Solutions Engineer, Enterprise East
2021 - Present
Technical pre-sales for enterprise accounts across application security, Zero Trust, SASE, network services, and the developer platform. Design and execute POCs, deliver technical deep dives, and architect solutions tailored to customer environments. Speaker at Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit, FutureCon, GPSEC, and Atypon/Wiley community events.
Promoted from Senior Customer Solutions Engineer to Senior Solutions Engineer, Sales.
Akamai Technologies
Senior Customer Outcome Engineer II
2020 - 2021
Owned customer outcomes across CDN, edge computing, and web security products including Kona Site Defender, Bot Manager, Ion, and EdgeWorkers. Managed strategic accounts, troubleshot complex issues at the network and application layers, and mentored junior engineers.
Nativo Inc
(Acquired by Life360)Support Engineer → Director, Solutions Engineering
2015 - 2020
Joined as the company's first support engineer. Built and led a team of five. Promoted four times in five years. As Director, managed the solutions engineering team and launched ContentEdge, a new product built on edge computing (AWS Lambda, CloudFront, Route 53). Role ended due to COVID-19 layoffs; stayed on as a consultant to close out key customer onboardings.
Lightspeed Systems
Support Engineer → QA Engineer
2011 - 2015
Web filtering and MDM for K-12 education. Worked across BSD, iOS, and Android platforms. Owned release management, wrote automated test plans with Cucumber BDD, and advised clients on network architecture. Closed 2,500+ support cases in two years. Highest customer satisfaction rating in 2013.
// speaking & events
Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit
National Harbor, MD. 5,000+ attendees. Represented Cloudflare on the expo floor.
Atypon / Wiley Community Meeting
Baltimore, MD. Spoke to researchers and publishers on protecting content from AI crawlers.
FutureCon DC
Speaker. Presented on stacked security models and the importance of multi-layered defense.
GPSEC (GuidePoint Security)
Represented Cloudflare alongside key channel partner GuidePoint Security.
Cloudflare Customer Event @ International Spy Museum
Washington, DC. Executive-level customer event featuring a former CIA Chief of Disguise.
// homelab
I build what I sell. This lab runs live demos for enterprise customers over Cloudflare Tunnel.
Hardware
Platform
Lenovo M720q
Hypervisor
Proxmox VE 8.4
CPU
Intel i5-8400T
RAM
62 GB
Boot Drive
238 GB NVMe
Storage
1 TB SATA SSD
Virtual Machines
Docker Stack
// projects
tech-recon
Website fingerprinting and account research tool. DNS recon, certificate transparency lookups, SEC 10-K filing analysis, competitor vendor detection. Maps findings directly to Cloudflare product opportunities.
cf-slide-maker
AI-powered slide deck generator with official Cloudflare branding, 200+ SVG icons, brand fonts, and a 243-slide SASE master deck index for customer presentation planning.
chat-demo-site
Customer support chatbot running on Cloudflare Workers AI (Llama 4 Scout) via AI Gateway. Deployed to the edge. Built as a live demo for WAF inspection and AI product capabilities.
wiki-publish
Confluence publishing toolkit. Converts markdown to wiki storage format with inline image uploads, Mermaid diagram conversion, Jira auto-linking, and author-only page restrictions by default.
CharSync
Meeting transcription pipeline. Syncs local AI transcription sessions to organized, searchable markdown. Hash-based change detection, launchd automation, macOS notifications.
// certifications
// education
DeVry University
BS, Systems Networking and Communications
2010 - 2013 / GPA 3.8 / Dean's List