# Dan Michael

**Lead Technical Support Engineer, Dynatrace** | OneAgent and Kubernetes/OpenShift SME | CKA

Grand Rapids, MI | [dcmichael.com](https://dcmichael.com/) | [linkedin.com/in/dcmichael](https://www.linkedin.com/in/dcmichael/) | [github.com/averagenative](https://github.com/averagenative)

## Summary

Support engineer with 15+ years in enterprise technical support, the last 5 as a go-to engineer at Dynatrace for OneAgent injection and Kubernetes/OpenShift (Dynatrace Operator, CSI driver, webhook, ActiveGate). I take the cases that no runbook covers. Then I write the runbook, build the diagnostic, or send the fix upstream, so the next engineer can solve the case without me. One example: a recurring class of "OneAgent pods missing from nodes" cases became a troubleshooting guide, then a checker, and then a node-taint collector that was merged into the [Dynatrace Operator](https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator) support archive. I helped onboard and train new hires early on, I lead the Support technical interview team, and I've posted more than 1,000 responses in our internal swarm channels to help other engineers work their cases.

## Expertise

- **Product areas:** OneAgent (process injection, code modules, Linux and Windows, .NET, Java, Go), Dynatrace Operator on Kubernetes and OpenShift (cloudNativeFullStack, applicationMonitoring, classicFullStack, CSI driver, webhook, ActiveGate), cloud platforms (AKS, EKS, GKE, Azure Container Apps, GCP Monitor).
- **Core technology:** Linux internals (dynamic linking and `ld.so.preload`, musl and glibc, overlay filesystems, cgroups and CPU throttling, seccomp, AppArmor, OpenShift SCCs), container runtimes (containerd, CRI-O), Kubernetes scheduling and admission control, networking (proxies, TLS and CA chains, L4 and L7 load balancing), Windows containers and IIS/.NET profiling.
- **Engineering:** Go (Dynatrace Operator contributions), Bash, Python, JavaScript (browser extensions), C#, SQL, DQL, AI agent skills for support workflows.
- **Tooling:** Salesforce Service Cloud, Jira, Confluence, Slack, Stack Overflow for Teams, GitHub, Bitbucket.
- **Certifications:** Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA, 2024), Dynatrace Associate.

## Experience

### Dynatrace | Apr 2021 - present | Remote

- **Lead Technical Support Engineer**, Jun 2024 - present
- **Senior Customer Solutions Engineer**, Jun 2022 - Jun 2024
- **Customer Solutions Engineer**, Apr 2021 - Jun 2022

OneAgent specialist in Global Support, focused on Kubernetes, OpenShift, and container injection issues across all geos.

**Complex investigations and escalations**

- Identified the cause of a critical incident in which an Operator upgrade caused communication issues on Red Hat OpenShift clusters installed through OperatorHub, and wrote the mitigation steps.
- Brought a global financial services customer's production back during a weekend cluster-down outage, inside the customer's maintenance window.
- Resolved a critical issue for a major airline live on the customer call.
- Designed a temporary CSI driver workaround with a global hardware manufacturer that kept production stable while the root cause was worked. Kept two issues for a large health insurer (CSI driver, Kubernetes API visibility) from becoming escalations.
- Led Support's technical assistance for a security software company's migration to Dynatrace from another observability platform. Recognized twice at the Global Support meeting.

**Pattern analysis, RFA review, and R&D contributions**

- Turned a recurring class of cases, OneAgent and CSI pods missing from nodes, into a permanent diagnostic. I wrote a taint/toleration troubleshooting guide, then authored a node-taint analysis collector for the Operator support archive, merged in August 2026 ([PR #7207](https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/pull/7207)). Support archives now report, for each DaemonSet, which nodes have taints the pods don't tolerate.
- Reviewed agent escalations to R&D (RFAs) daily for about a year as part of the agent specialists group.
- Found that clusters that require a seccomp profile (Gatekeeper, Azure Policy) reject OneAgent pods, because a DynaKube can't set `RuntimeDefault`. Proposed a fix upstream ([PR #6293](https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/pull/6293)). R&D is addressing it in a broader securityContext redesign.
- Extended the Operator node cleanup script so engineers can safely remove classicFullStack leftovers next to a working CSI-based install, a common support scenario ([PR #6813](https://github.com/Dynatrace/dynatrace-operator/pull/6813), in review).

**Coaching, swarming, and enablement**

- Posted more than 1,000 responses in internal swarm channels, co-piloting engineers through complex Kubernetes and OneAgent cases. I also review peers' draft customer answers against the Operator source before they go out.
- Mentored two engineers in depth. One has since moved into a consulting role.
- Early member of the Support onboarding and training team, where I wrote a number of the original training docs for new engineers. Later wrote a Kubernetes getting-started kit.
- Lead the Support technical interview team. Overhauled the technical interview to measure troubleshooting depth, guided development of an interview app, and am now aligning the interview with other enablement programs.
- Built and maintain Support's 7 enablement clusters for reproduction and learning: 5 AKS clusters, one for each Operator deployment mode (cloudNativeFullStack, classicFullStack, applicationMonitoring, hostMonitoring, cloudNativeFullStack without CSI), and 2 Azure Red Hat OpenShift clusters, including an OLM-managed install.
- Created an early cross-region Kubernetes support channel, a predecessor of today's global cloud and containers swarm channel. Led the customer communication track of an internal support training program and built Kubernetes training content for it.
- With one colleague, reworked the team's ideas board so engineers can propose and drive support process improvements.

**Knowledge, runbooks, and diagnostics**

- Wrote 32 internal knowledge articles since 2022. Since 2023 I've maintained the team's widely used Kubernetes/OpenShift support cheat sheet (about 5,000 views).
- Wrote customer-facing Community articles on [first-contact data gathering for container issues](https://community.dynatrace.com/t5/Troubleshooting/Container-issues-and-initial-information-gathering/ta-p/207469) and [getting logs from crashlooping pods](https://community.dynatrace.com/t5/Troubleshooting/How-do-I-get-logs-from-a-pod-that-is-crashing-or-in/ta-p/222983), so customers can send the right data before we ask for it.
- Wrote runbooks for hard-to-reach data: OneAgent logs from crashlooping pods and from nodes, crash artifacts inside containers, files from pods with no `tar`, `meta.db` traversal, and unknown-process detection.
- Wrote explainers for recurring confusion: CPU throttling in Kubernetes, overlay filesystem disk usage, Operator CA certificate errors, CSI liveness probe tuning, and IIS injection in Windows pods.

**Tooling and automation**

- Turned my Salesforce console userscripts into a browser extension with 126 internal users since its June 2026 launch. Did UAT testing for the Zendesk-to-Salesforce migration, and built and documented a Slack workflow for Salesforce case updates.
- Built AI agent skills for support work, including one that teaches how to write a public troubleshooting article and a Slack AI kanban board. Contributor in an internal AI competition.
- Routinely build test environments and reproducers for customer issues, for instance a Squid proxy in Kubernetes for proxy issues, an [EasyTrade fork](https://github.com/averagenative/easytrade) with OpenShift security contexts, and DaemonSets that clean up the CSI driver directory or unschedule OneAgent.

### OpenText | Senior Application Support Engineer (MBPM) | Sep 2010 - May 2020 | Remote

- Debugged customer C# and JavaScript code, tuned MSSQL and Oracle queries, traced performance issues at L4 and L7, and built bug-reproduction environments and QA-ready cases for engineering. Member of the 24/7 on-call team.
- Wrote new-hire training materials, designed the internal support wiki, and kept customer-facing knowledge base articles current.
- Installation and architecture specialist for load balancing, Kerberos, and SharePoint. Helped design customer solutions for IT service management and HR systems.

### Liquid Web | Enterprise Support, Systems Administrator | Jan 2010 - Aug 2010 | Lansing, MI

- Administered LAMP servers and load balancers (Zeus, HAProxy) for high- and critical-priority customers, mentored new hires, and helped maintain the internal wiki.

### Earlier roles | Bench technician and technical advisor | 2006 - 2009 | Michigan