Operator · bio

I run infrastructure like it has to last.

I'm Nick Wharton - an IT Director focused on infrastructure and AI. I design self-hosted systems, ship full-stack product, and keep a 22-machine fleet running like a single, well-behaved organism.

Most of my work happens a few layers below the product surface - the kernel, the cluster, the mesh, the backup plan. It is the quiet part that decides whether the loud part works.

The fleet lives in a closet in Independence, MO: servers, GPU boxes, workstations, and laptops, all on a self-hosted mesh, orchestrated with k3s, and watched by real telemetry. It runs every property in the network - commerce, data engines, and AI - from one operator desk.

Day to day I run IT, DevOps, and systems for Strange Music Inc - on-prem Mac Studios for production and the 128TB "Strainge-Backup" UNAS Pro that keeps every session safe. The same discipline shows up in everything else I ship.

Doctrine

How the fleet stays in agreement.

One operator, one source of truth

No platform team, no on-call rotation to hide behind. Every machine reports into the same doctrine, so the whole fleet can be reasoned about by one person.

Own the metal

Local models on owned GPUs, data that never leaves the building, and no monthly bill that scales with success. Control beats convenience when the work is serious.

Memory over instructions

Long-running agents that act on intent and carry identity between sessions. The next run picks up where the last one stopped, with guardrails that hold.

Signals, not dashboards

Telemetry exists to wake someone up when the right thing breaks - not to look impressive on a screen nobody reads.

At a glance

Role: IT Director
Focus: Infra & AI
Based: Independence, MO
Fleet: 20 machines