Austin Crider — IT Leader for the Enterprise

Selected work

Things LinkedIn bullets can't hold.

Identity · Greenfield

Zero to IdP: standing up identity & MDM from scratch

Sendero had no identity provider and no device management when I arrived. I designed and shipped the company's first IAM and MDM stack — Okta, Entra ID, Intune, and Apple Business Manager.

How it came together

The constraint wasn't technology — it was sequencing. Identity had to land before device management could mean anything, and neither could disrupt a workforce mid-season. I rolled out Okta as the source of truth, federated Entra ID behind it, then brought endpoints under Intune and ABM in waves. Security posture went from zero to enforced SSO + managed devices without a single day of lost productivity.

Automation · IAM

User lifecycle automation with n8n

Onboarding and offboarding were manual, multi-system checklists. I'm building n8n workflows that provision, update, and deprovision accounts across the stack automatically.

How it came together

Every hire touched a half-dozen systems by hand — and every termination was a security race. The automation treats the IdP as the trigger and fans out from there: accounts, groups, licenses, and notifications flow from one workflow. The end state is a common core where onboarding, updates, and termination share the same plumbing, so new systems get lifecycle coverage by default.

Migration · Collaboration

Google Chat → Slack, company-wide

Migrated the entire company to Slack to unlock cross-team productivity — planned, communicated, and executed by a department of one.

How it came together

Chat migrations fail on people, not packets. The rollout leaned on channel architecture designed before day one, champions in each team, and integrations that made Slack the place where work already lived. Adoption stuck because the new tool was better on day one, not because the old one was turned off.

Open Source · Cloudflare

CF New Hire Portal — open-source preboarding

A bilingual (English/Spanish) preboarding portal that runs entirely on Cloudflare's free tier. It replaces the emailed-temporary-password habit with expiring invite links and the IdP's own activation flow — no credentials ever touch the portal or email. GPL-licensed and free for anyone to use and customize.

How it came together

Zero runtime dependencies: a Cloudflare Worker for routing and rendering, Workers KV storing only SHA-256 token hashes with self-expiring records so PII never accumulates, and Cloudflare Access protecting the admin console with fail-closed JWT verification. Ships with a full test harness and a one-file config so any org can rebrand it in minutes. View on GitHub ↗

Network · Telecom

Supporting the largest 5G trial in North America

At Magnolia, I assisted AT&T with their landmark 5G wireless trial (2017) — supporting the network side of a first-of-its-kind deployment at a high-traffic retail destination.

How it came together

Millions of annual visitors, a live retail network, and a carrier trial that couldn't interfere with either. My job was making sure our infrastructure — VLANs, SD-WAN, wireless — coexisted cleanly with the trial while keeping the business online. Local news coverage ↗

Career

16 years, four industries, one throughline: invisible IT.

- Lead all aspects of IT as a one-person department — designing, implementing, and managing a resilient technology ecosystem built for operational maturity and long-term scale.
- Own the IT roadmap and department budget: initiatives, renewals, hardware refreshes.
- Implemented the company's first IdP and MDM systems: Okta, Entra ID, Intune, and ABM.
- Migrated the company from Google Chat to Slack.
- Full help desk coverage alongside strategy — the whole stack, desk to cloud.
- Oversaw daily IT operations and infrastructure organization-wide.
- Managed IT staff: hiring, training, performance evaluations.
- Developed IT policies, procedures, and best practices; implemented DR and business continuity plans.
- Owned system availability, reliability, security, vendor relationships, and the IT budget.
- Traveled to production facilities across the US for on-site support and new-plant standups.
- Installed, upgraded, and configured network equipment for new plants and line expansions.
- Walked construction punch lists with plant managers and sub-contractors, prioritizing the work that gated first production.
- Triaged and delegated tickets to help-desk technicians so support scaled across sites without a technician on every floor.
- Built SaaS data integrations across the district — IDAuto RapidConnect, OneRoster, and Clever — with the OAuth and SAML connections that became the backbone of district-wide single sign-on.
- Rostered digital curriculum and integrated learning platforms using the latest OneRoster and LTI standards.
- Automated Finance, HR, and PEIMS processes with PowerShell, Python, and JavaScript, replacing manual data prep.
- Hardened district email with DMARC, DKIM, and SPF; administered Azure, Exchange, M365, and Cisco Email Security, and handled eDiscovery for public-information requests.
- Maintained the identity and access management behind the district's 1:1 device program.
- Maintained PowerSchool and the Student Information System that state PEIMS reporting depended on.
- Ran SQL queries and yearly data rollovers for Finance and HR.
- Configured visitor- and emergency-management systems (Raptor) and routed emergency alerts to SROs and campus administrators.
- Supported specialized systems across transportation and food service — Versatrans, Nutrikids, and Follett Destiny.
- Served as the escalation point for district technician staff.
- Planned physical and virtual infrastructure for every new Magnolia business unit — real estate, restaurant, retail, hospitality, and warehouse.
- Built VLANs and subnets across Cisco Meraki, Sophos UTM, and Ubiquiti; implemented RADIUS via SCEP and NDES.
- Ran MDM (Intune) across iPads, PCs, and Macs; monitored ISP uptime, IPSec VPNs, and network hardware.
- Maintained retail-traffic and security-camera systems (Avigilon, RetailNext) and self-certified PCI compliance.
- Managed hybrid Azure and on-prem Active Directory, O365, and SharePoint.
- Supported day-to-day operations across the floor — POS (Shopify, Aloha, NCR), barcode scanners, VOIP, and warehouse systems — and assisted AT&T's landmark 5G trial at the Silos.
- Front-line hardware and software support for K-12 staff and students across multiple campuses, on-site and by phone.
- Configured Cisco switches and wireless access points; planned and fine-tuned district wireless with Cisco Prime and Ekahau Site Survey.
- Installed security cameras district-wide.
- Set up classroom and facility technology — Apple TVs, iPad repairs, and BrightSign digital signage.

Stack

Tools, grouped the way I actually think about them.

Okta identity Entra ID identity SAML / OAuth identity Intune endpoints Apple Business Manager endpoints Iru endpoints Action1 endpoints BlueTally endpoints BlueFletch endpoints UniFi Network network UniFi Protect network UniFi Access network Cisco Meraki network Cisco IOS network Microsoft 365 cloud Azure cloud NetSuite cloud Google Workspace collab Slack collab Microsoft Teams collab Dropbox collab Monday.com collab Jira Projects collab Jira Service Management collab n8n automation Celigo automation PowerShell automation Python automation JavaScript automation Okta Verify security Microsoft Conditional Access security Cloudflare Zero Trust security Cisco Email Security security Claude Cowork ai Claude Code ai OpenAI Codex ai

Showing all 36 tools

Operating principles

How I run a department of one.

Good IT is invisible IT

If users are thinking about the technology, something's wrong. The goal is systems that work so quietly people forget they exist.

Triage by urgency, always

Multi-user outage or executive impact? Fastest workaround first, root cause second. Lower stakes? Research before acting. Never confuse the two modes.

Communicate before you have the answer

An acknowledgement beats a perfect answer that arrives late. Users can handle "working on it" — they can't handle silence.

Security and usability are one problem

Security that creates friction gets bypassed; convenience without controls gets breached. Every control I ship has to survive contact with real users.

Remote-first resolution

If it can be fixed without touching hardware, it should be. Self-service and remote tooling scale; driving to a desk doesn't.

Build for the day you're not in the room

A one-person department can't be a single point of failure. Automation, documentation, and defaults that hold up on their own.

Education & honors

Education & recognition.

B.S. Business Administration

Tarleton State University · 2016

4.0 GPA

AAS — Computer Networking & System Administration

Texas State Technical College · 2009

3.9 GPA

AAS — Network Security Technology

Texas State Technical College · 2009

3.9 GPA

Certifications

n8n101 — Essentials: Your First Workflows

n8n GmbH · 2026

n8n Foundations program Verify credential ↗

Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society — 2008
Delta Mu Delta International Honor Society in Business — 2015
Tarleton State University Dean's Honor List — 2016

Contact

Let's talk systems.

The best way to reach me is email. Based in the Waco, TX metro — building things that outlast the conversation.

austincrider@gmail.com LinkedIn ↗ GitHub ↗

Austin Crider.

Things LinkedIn bullets can't hold.

Zero to IdP: standing up identity & MDM from scratch

User lifecycle automation with n8n

Google Chat → Slack, company-wide

CF New Hire Portal — open-source preboarding

Supporting the largest 5G trial in North America

16 years, four industries, one throughline: invisible IT.

Tools, grouped the way I actually think about them.

How I run a department of one.

Good IT is invisible IT

Triage by urgency, always

Communicate before you have the answer

Security and usability are one problem

Remote-first resolution

Build for the day you're not in the room

Education & recognition.

Certifications

Let's talk systems.