About
I'm Matthew Pollock, a senior cloud and infrastructure engineer based in the UK. My career spans cloud engineering, infrastructure management, and systems administration across Azure and AWS -- leading cloud migrations, building out identity and security platforms with the Microsoft stack (Entra ID, Defender, Intune, Sentinel), and managing infrastructure teams. More recently, I've been focused on integrating AI tooling into engineering workflows and exploring DevOps practices.
This blog documents that work. It started as personal notes on using AI assistants for cloud operations, scripting, and troubleshooting, and turned into something I thought others might find useful. Most of the content reflects real problems I've solved or approaches I've tested, rather than theoretical walkthroughs. I also run a home lab where I experiment with tools and patterns before committing to them professionally -- Terraform deployments, container experiments, and whatever else I'm tinkering with at the time.
Away from the keyboard
When I'm not working with cloud infrastructure, I'm usually outdoors. I'm a keen patch birder -- most of my birding is done by bike, on foot, or by public transport, following the low-carbon birding approach. I'm passionate about birds and the environment more broadly, and I'd love to find a way to blend my tech skills with conservation work one day.
I also spend a lot of time in the garden, where the focus is on wildlife -- native planting, nest boxes, and making the space as useful as possible for birds and pollinators. Jogging rounds out the routine, ideally on routes where there's something worth stopping to look at.
You can find my birding posts on Bluesky.
Certifications
- Microsoft Certified: Azure DevOps Engineer Expert (AZ-400)
- Microsoft Certified: Azure Security Engineer Associate (AZ-500)
- Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305)
- Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104)
- AWS Certified: Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-C02)
- AWS Certified: Cloud Practitioner (CLF-C01)
- Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900)
- Legacy Microsoft certifications: MCP, MCSA, MCSE, MCTS, MCITP
Skills
Cloud and infrastructure: Azure, AWS, hybrid cloud, Azure Functions, Azure Data Explorer, Cosmos DB, Application Insights, Log Analytics, Power BI, Windows Server, Active Directory, Entra ID, Exchange Online, Microsoft 365, networking, DNS, firewalls, SD-WAN.
Security and compliance: Defender for Endpoint, Intune, Sentinel, Conditional Access, Zero Trust, KQL, Microsoft Graph API, Mimecast.
DevOps and automation: Terraform, Bicep, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, Azure Pipelines, CI/CD, PowerShell, Python, Bash, C# (.NET 8), Docker, Git.
Data and integration: Azure Data Explorer (Kusto), Cosmos DB vector search, Event Grid, Blob Storage, REST API integration, CXone real-time data APIs.
AI and tooling: Azure OpenAI, Claude Code, Claude Cowork, Codex, ChatGPT, Gemini, Ollama, RAG pipelines, vector embeddings, prompt engineering, AI-assisted development workflows, LLM integration.