About

I'm Lena Hartley, a platform engineer based in Chicago.

I've spent the last 15 years building deployment pipelines and the infrastructure underneath them, most recently on a small team where I look after CI caching and infrastructure as code. Before that I bounced between agencies, startups and one very large company.

I started Lena's Digest in 2025 as a place to think out loud. Most posts begin as notes from real projects: something broke, I fixed it, and I wanted to remember why. If one of them saves you an afternoon, it was worth writing.

What I write about

• Ci caching
• Autoscaling
• Alert fatigue
• Blue-green deploys
• Infrastructure as code

Get in touch

The best way to reach me is by email at hello@us60qz.cybergalaxy.me. I read everything, even if replies take a little while. You can also find me on GitHub and Mastodon.

Opinions here are my own and not those of any employer, past or present.