Houston, TX • Available now

Phong Hoang

Cloud Support / IT Operations Engineer

4+ years in IT, spanning MSP support and recent cloud-native delivery. Maintained 95% first-contact resolution across 200+ users supported, owned Active Directory + Microsoft 365 / Entra ID for 100+ employees at a Houston MSP, and ran GitHub + Vercel production deployments end-to-end as a founding tech hire. Multilingual: EN · VI · Cantonese · Mandarin.

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95%First-contact resolution
200+Users supported
6Certifications
4Languages
Phong Hoang

About

From MSP support to cloud-native delivery.

I'm a Cloud Support / IT Operations Engineer based in Houston. My career started in graphic design at Venti Air Products, where I picked up the IT and operations work nobody else wanted — managing inventory systems, handling vendor coordination, and keeping the office running.

That detour turned into a deliberate pivot. I went through MyComputerCareer's IT program, stacked CompTIA A+, Network+, Security+, CIOS, CSIS, and Linux Essentials, and joined IronEdge Group, one of Houston's largest MSPs. Over 15 months I went from Onboarding Technician to IT Support Technician — running 100+ employee AD/M365 administration, Tier-2 escalations, and 50+ tickets a week with a 95% first-contact resolution rate.

In late 2025 I joined CIRculate, a stealth startup, as the founding technical hire. I shipped a full-stack web app (Next.js + React on Vercel, Neon Postgres, Auth0) in 60 days, ran the production environment end-to-end, and handled tooling decisions across the SaaS stack — Stripe, Resend, and others. Real ops work in a startup setting.

Now I'm looking for the right opportunity — whether that's Cloud Support, IT Operations, Technical Ops, or something else where my MSP fundamentals, cloud-deployment experience, and multilingual range can all pay off. Houston metro preferred — open to onsite, hybrid, or remote.

Profile Video

Everything you need to know.

A quick overview of my background, skills, and what I bring to your team.

Experience

Where I've worked.

Aug 2025 – Apr 2026 Startup

Founding Technical Operations Engineer

CIRculate LLC · Pinehurst, TX

  • MVP Delivery — Built and shipped a full-stack web app (Next.js + React on Vercel, Neon Postgres, Auth0) from zero to demo-ready in ~60 days as the sole technical hire.
  • AI-Assisted Development — Used Claude Code, Codex, and ChatGPT to implement, test, and debug features; reviewed all generated code before merge and owned the prompts, specs, and acceptance criteria.
  • Deployment & Ops — Managed GitHub branching, Vercel preview/prod deployments, secrets/env vars, and rollbacks; resolved deploy failures and runtime errors to keep the demo build live.
  • Stack Selection — Selected and integrated SaaS components for the stack — Stripe (payments), Resend (transactional email), Auth0 (auth), Neon Postgres (database) — with short trade-off notes the founder used to lock in choices.
Apr 2024 – Jul 2025 MSP

Onboarding Technician → Service Coordinator → IT Support Technician

IronEdge Group · Houston, TX

  • Endpoint & Account Management — Provisioned, updated, and deprovisioned user accounts across Active Directory and Microsoft 365 for 100+ employees, enforcing RBAC policies.
  • Remote Troubleshooting — Resolved hardware, software, network, and mobile device issues via ScreenConnect and Dialpad in a high-volume MSP environment.
  • ITSM & Documentation — Managed 50+ weekly support tickets in ConnectWise Manage; authored and maintained runbooks in IT Glue.
  • Escalation Handling — Worked directly with the network/sysadmin team on Tier-2 escalations (AD replication, M365 mail flow, VPN/firewall) — owned the ticket from handoff to resolution.
  • Coordinator Onboarding — Mentored new Service Coordinators, cutting their ramp-up time by 30%.
  • Automated Endpoint Deployment — Used ImmyBot to image, configure, and validate 20+ new client machines per week with 100% build-standard compliance.
Nov 2023 – Dec 2023 Contract

PC Technician

Robert Half · Harris County, TX

  • Election Infrastructure — Deployed and QA-tested 30+ electronic voting machines across Harris County polling locations; resolved all technical issues on election day with zero machine failures reported.
May 2023 – Jul 2023 Healthcare IT

IT Help Desk Support

Merit Medical · Houston, TX

  • Help Desk Operations — Triaged and resolved hardware, software, and access issues end-to-end in a fast-paced medical environment; maintained thorough documentation on every ticket to reduce repeat incidents and accelerate future resolution.
Jun 2021 – May 2023 Design + Ops

Operations & Design Coordinator

Venti Air Products · Houston, TX

  • Design Work — Produced brochures, posters, business cards, and other marketing collateral using Adobe Creative Suite.
  • IT & Operations Support — Supported office IT, managed inventory systems, and processed orders and invoices — first hands-on IT experience that led to the career pivot.

Skills

What I work with.

IT Operations & ITSM

Technical Support · Ticket Management (ConnectWise) · Remote Assistance (ScreenConnect) · SLA Compliance · RBAC · Endpoint Management · PC Hardware · Diagnostics & Repair

Systems & OS

Windows 7–11 Administration · Active Directory · Microsoft 365 · Entra ID / Azure AD · Intune (MDM) · ImmyBot · IT Glue · Dialpad · VPN Configuration

Networking

Network Setup & Maintenance · Routers & Switches · Infrastructure Monitoring · Access Control · DNS/DHCP · SSL/TLS troubleshooting

Cloud & DevOps

GitHub / Git · Vercel · Next.js · React · Neon Postgres · Auth0 · Stripe · Resend · CI/CD pipelines · Secrets management · REST APIs · SQL · PowerShell · VS Code · AI-assisted tooling (Claude Code, Codex, ChatGPT)

Creative

Adobe CC (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign) · Video Editing · Print Design

Languages

English · Vietnamese · Cantonese · Mandarin — strong asset for customer-facing support and APAC-facing teams.

Certifications

Stacked on the fundamentals.

CompTIA A+
Hardware, software, troubleshooting
CompTIA Network+
Networking fundamentals & infrastructure
CompTIA Security+
Security operations & risk
CompTIA CIOS
IT Operations Specialist
CompTIA CSIS
Secure Infrastructure Specialist
Linux Essentials
Linux fundamentals

Education

  • MyComputerCareer — Information Technology and Security Administration · 2024
  • University of Houston — B.S. Digital Communication & Media · Dean's Honor List · 2020
  • Houston Community College — A.S. Computer Science · 2016

Creative work

A second life as a designer.

Before the IT pivot, I worked as a graphic designer at Venti Air Products, producing marketing collateral, print design, and video. I still take on design-adjacent work and keep Adobe Creative Suite sharp. This isn't the lead anymore, but it's part of what I bring.

Graphic Design

Brochures · Posters · Business cards · Print collateral. Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign.

Video Production

Short-form video editing, motion, and post-production for marketing and personal projects.

Animation

2D and 3D animation experiments — kept current as a personal interest.

Selected projects

Graphic Design

Cereal Box — Pikachu

Cereal-box concept in Adobe Illustrator. Vector character drawn with the pen tool, paired with custom type and supporting imagery.

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Graphic Design

Detective Comedy Poster

Movie poster for a fictional detective comedy — composited a dog protagonist, actor, crime scene, and weapon iconography into one layout.

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Live Action + 2D

Beyond The Apex

Short film blending filmed footage with 2D animated elements — production, editing, and frame-by-frame animation in one pipeline.

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3D Animation

Sports Balls Store

Stylized 2D animated commercial — character motion, timing, and a short narrative around a sports-equipment storefront.

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Animation

A Can of Animated Coke

Product animation bringing a Coke can to life with motion design principles — easing, timing, and squash/stretch.

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Flip Book

Flip Booklet Animation

Hand-drawn, frame-by-frame animation produced entirely with pen and paper — a study in motion fundamentals.

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Video Production

Venti Air Products — Moving Day

Documentary-style video of Venti Air Products relocating to a new facility — filmed and edited on-site across two days.

View project

Contact

Let's talk.

Have a role where IT, cloud ops, or technical operations experience matters? I'd love to hear about it.

Email hsteven2008@gmail.com LinkedIn in/pqhoang90 Phone (832) 641-2959

Resume (.docx and .pdf) sent on request. Based in Houston, TX — open to onsite or hybrid.