Not looking — always up for a chat
Systems and network engineer with over a decade of experience in building infrastructure, high-performance networking tools, and web apps — nearly all of it in the open.
~/portfolio
➜whoami
christian-deacon
➜cat ./skills.txt
devops,system,networking,full-stack,game-development,technical-writing
➜ls ./ventures
tekworks/ the-modding-community/
➜uptime -f json
{ "life":"28y", "dev":">15y" }
➜fyi
➜
15+
Years building
6
Skill areas
20+
Technologies
OSS
By default
01 — Who I am
I'm a DevOps engineer with over a decade of hands-on experience across development, automation, and system administration. It started at thirteen, when I founded a gaming community and found myself running dedicated servers on both Linux and Windows — which turned out to be a very effective way to learn infrastructure.
Since then I've built and optimized web applications, networking tools, and automation systems: kernel-level firewalls, packet generators, mod platforms, cloud infrastructure, and the analytics pipelines behind them. I like systems that stay fast under load, and I like writing down how they work so the next person doesn't have to guess.
These days most of my time goes into my own projects, TekWorks and The Modding Community, plus a software role at another company. I'm not looking for a new role right now, but I'm always glad to connect! Come talk to me about packets, kernels, game development, modding, or whatever you happen to be building.
Age 11
Started out writing and editing existing game modifications for the game Left 4 Dead using SourcePawn (for SourceMod).
Age 13
Ran dedicated game servers on Linux and Windows, and learned infrastructure and networking the hard way.
Since
Web apps, bots, networking tools, and automation — most of it open source and documented.
Now
Building a software publisher and a modding community with a focus on open source and community-driven development. Also creating our own gaming platform underneath Godot!
02 — What I do
I've never been able to stay in a single lane for long, and the overlap is the point — the firewall work informs the backend work, and the support work informs all of it.
Over a decade designing and building applications and tools — automation bots, web scrapers, packet generators, and custom utilities. I work most comfortably in Rust, C, Go, and Python, which lets me pick the language that fits the problem rather than bending the problem to fit a language.
A full-stack developer with ten-plus years across modern web technologies: Next.js, Astro, React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, PHP, Laravel, Python, and Django. I care about performance budgets and code that the next person can actually maintain.
Network engineering and systems programming across Linux and Windows. I've built high-performance Linux firewalls on XDP for line-rate packet processing, and work day to day with IPTables and NFTables, packet flow analysis, tunneling protocols, and traffic management.
Programming started here, at twelve. Since then I've shipped modifications for titles like Counter-Strike and Left 4 Dead, published open-source assets for engines such as Godot, and now run game development assets and a mod workshop through The Modding Community.
Designing schemas and query paths for workloads that outgrow a general-purpose database. I use ClickHouse for high-volume event and analytics data — server telemetry, traffic records, usage metrics — with PostgreSQL and MySQL handling the transactional side.
Ten-plus years writing guides and knowledge base articles for both corporate teams and my own projects, spanning gaming, modding, networking, and programming. Breaking a complicated thing into steps someone can follow is the part I enjoy most — there are examples further down this page.
As a technical support engineer I've helped customers over phone, ticketing systems, and live chat. Diagnosing the actual problem and explaining it in detail is the part I excel at, especially through live chat and detailed ticket responses.
03 — What I build with
Ranked by how much time I've actually spent in each. The orbit puts the deepest mileage closest to the centre; the grid says the same thing as a plain list.
20
technologies
hover to inspect
04 — Selected work
A publisher, a modding platform, and a handful of tools that push packets faster than the kernel network stack normally allows.
An upcoming software developer and publisher, and the parent company the rest of my work sits under — The Modding Community operates as a project beneath it. Alongside publishing, TekWorks plans to build genuinely useful open source networking and automation tools.
A welcoming and inclusive modding and game development community, operating as a project under TekWorks. Game development assets, the mod workshop, and the server browser are all live and functional alongside the blog and forums — with more shipping continuously.
05 — Writing
Ten-plus years of technical writing, from kernel-level networking to getting a Garry's Mod server online. Filter by topic below.
Installing and running Steam Link on a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B.
Read↗Building forms whose fields are added and removed at runtime, with React and Formik.
Read↗Simulating a DoS attack against your own infrastructure and mitigating it with my open-source tooling.
Read↗Hardening a Linux server with OpenSSH, IPTables, and sensible defaults.
Read↗Running MTRs and trace routes, and actually reading what they tell you about a network issue.
Read↗Installing mods in Red Dead Redemption 2 on PC, including Lenny's Mod Loader (LML).
Read↗Getting SteamCMD installed and running on both Linux and Windows.
Read↗Creating and running a modded Left 4 Dead 2 dedicated server on Windows and Linux.
Read↗Standing up a Garry's Mod server and installing addons on Windows and Linux.
Read↗Nothing filed under that topic yet.
06 — Contact
I'm not open to new work right now, but I'm always open to connecting — questions about anything above, talking shop about packets, kernels, or mod tooling, or just saying hello.
