Resume
John Lam
5G Cloud Solutions Architect
Professional Summary
Distinguished Member of Technical Staff (DMTS) and two-time Nokia President's Award winner with 10+ years designing and delivering first-of-their-kind 5G cloud networks across public-cloud and on-prem environments. Expert in cloud-native architecture, multi-cloud automation, GitOps, and large-scale Kubernetes platforms that slash time-to-market and unlock new revenue for Tier-1 operators. Recognized for translating complex telecom requirements into elegant, reliable solutions and for mentoring global teams in cutting-edge DevSecOps practices.
Professional Experience
Solutions Architect
Nokia
Distinguished Member of Technical Staff (DMTS) leading cloud-native 5G architecture for major telecommunications providers.
- Architected 20+ cloud-native 5G cores for Dish, AT&T, T-Mobile, Comcast & federal agencies, cutting full network stand-up from weeks to < 24 hrs via IaC and GitOps pipelines
- Designed and deployed production-grade RAG system for Nokia 5G Core documentation on OpenShift with 4x NVIDIA H100 GPUs, supporting 70-120B parameter LLMs (Llama 3.3, GPT-OSS, Qwen 3) with dynamic model switching
- Implemented advanced RAG techniques including hybrid search (BM25 + vector), Reciprocal Rank Fusion, query decomposition, multi-hop reasoning, and contextual compression for 50+ internal users
- Developed CCHCTL & ncpctl toolchains (python) adopted in Nokia blueprints; automated multi-cluster Kubernetes provisioning, saving > 3,000 engineer-hours annually
- Built custom Kubernetes controllers & mutating admission webhooks (Go) to enforce telco networking standards
- Designed secure SSO bastion architecture leveraged by 120+ engineers, meeting FedRAMP & Nokia CyberSec controls while accelerating privileged access workflows
- Led first-in-market deployments: OCP/NCP on NFV 4.1 for T-Mobile; NCD on Azure for AT&T; CNCS on AWS; 5G roaming PoCs that secured multi-million-dollar contracts
- Serve as regional lab manager (budget $2M) maintaining 99.9% availability across 50+ clusters; instituted automated patching and observability
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Southern Methodist University
Teaching assistant for graduate-level data center and network engineering courses.
- Designed & launched the DCNE graduate course, covering OpenStack, SDN, and Kubernetes; facilitated labs for 40+ students each semester
- Built research Kubernetes clusters (500+ NF pods) and automated provisioning with Terraform/Ansible, reducing setup time by 80%
Network Engineer
Avaya
Network engineer providing high-severity support for Fortune 500 customers.
- Resolved high-severity outages for Fortune 500 customers, achieving 100% case-resolution satisfaction and earning the Avaya Client Choice Award
- Diagnosed & remediated complex L2/L3 issues (STP, BGP, OSPF, SPB-M) and QoS policy mis-configurations across global carrier networks
- Led disaster-recovery engagements with Emergency Recovery Team, restoring critical voice/data services within SLA windows
Education
M.S. Telecommunications & Network Engineering
Southern Methodist University
Telecommunications & Network Engineering
B.S. Computer Science
Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University
Computer Science
Technical Skills
AI/ML & LLMs
RAG Techniques
Vector Databases
Cloud & Platforms
Containers & Orchestration
DevOps & Automation
Telco Networking
Programming & APIs
GPU Computing
Observability & Caching
Certifications
AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Amazon Web Services
Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP)
Cisco
Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA)
Cisco
Selected Projects & Open-Source Work
Enterprise RAG System for 5G Documentation
Production-grade Retrieval-Augmented Generation system serving as intelligent knowledge base for Nokia 5G Core documentation on OpenShift
- Multi-LLM orchestration supporting 70-120B parameter models with dynamic switching and load balancing
- Hybrid search with BM25 + vector retrieval and Reciprocal Rank Fusion for optimal relevance
- GPU-accelerated ingestion pipeline with IBM Docling, semantic chunking, and SHA256 deduplication
- Sub-second retrieval latency on 500GB vector DB with 16K+ document chunks
- Redis semantic caching reducing LLM inference costs by 40%+ on repeated queries
- Open WebUI integration providing chat-based access for 50+ internal users
Telco-Grade EKS (AWS CDK)
One-click deployment framework for multi-interface, performance-tuned EKS clusters; open-sourced with 400+ stars
- Enables one-click deployment of telco-grade clusters
- Multi-interface and performance-tuned architecture
ClusterAPI GitOps Helm Stack
Helm-driven GitOps reference for managing ClusterAPI providers via Argo CD
- Reference implementation for GitOps workflows
- Automated cluster lifecycle management
- Integration with Argo CD for continuous deployment
AWS Multi-ENI Controller for Telco CNF Deployments
Kubernetes controller enabling dynamic ENI provisioning and management for multi-network telco CNFs on AWS EKS
- Eliminates complex CloudFormation templates for ENI provisioning
- Supports three deployment modes: regular ENI, SR-IOV, and full DPDK integration
- Enables declarative multi-network configuration for 5G UPF and control plane functions
- Provides Helm chart deployment with v1.3.5 release on GitHub Container Registry
- Integrates seamlessly with Multus CNI for telco workload network isolation
Awards & Honors
Distinguished Member of Technical Staff (DMTS)
2025Top < 0.1% of 35K R&D staff
President's Award
2020 & 2021Two-time recipient
Market Services Excellence Award
2022For extreme automation innovations
CS&C "WOW" Award
2019For Dish 5G trial
Avaya Client Choice Award
2015For outstanding customer support
Publications & Patents
SMS-Driven Configuration Management for Cloud Infrastructure
Patent Application (NC325212)