Escalation Engineer at Microsoft focused on agentic support systems, production incident response, and telemetry-informed troubleshooting.

I work at the intersection of support engineering, cloud platform development, and applied AI -- reducing time-to-resolution for complex production incidents through agentic workflows, MCP-integrated tooling, and a deep understanding of customers and human behavior under stress (escalations)

...troubleshooting, fixing things, and creativity

sirmon.ai | theSharkArtist.com | Shark Artist: Great White Theme (VS Marketplace)

• 20+ years of engineering and escalation experience across Microsoft, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and startup environments.
• Builds AI-assisted support tooling that connects case context, Kusto analytics, and internal guidance to accelerate triage and mitigation.
• Has operated across support, engineering, and product functions with a track record of shipping under production pressure.

• shark-artist-great-white-theme — VS Code Theme

  • Marketplace listing. Contrast-verified VS Code color theme with six variants (Dark, Light, Storm, Frost, High Contrast Dark, High Contrast Light), semantic highlighting, and broad workbench color coverage.
  • Color theory approach: hierarchy is driven by luminance before hue, cool ocean tones are used for general syntax, and warm coral/amber accents are reserved for diagnostics and warnings so attention cues stay clear.

• scp — Support Context Protocol

  • CLI tool and MCP server for support engineers. Ingests case data from clipboard or file, strips PII via AES-256 encrypted local vault, stores cases in a searchable JSON database, and exports AI-ready context to GitHub Copilot, Claude, or any MCP-compatible tool.
  • Supports security profiles (dev, trusted, enterprise, strict), memory-only mode for locked-down environments, and cross-platform clipboard monitoring (Windows, macOS, Linux).

• forscan_tools — FORScan Diagnostic Toolkit

  • Safety-first Python CLI for Ford/Lincoln/Mercury/Mazda vehicle diagnostics using FORScan.
  • Parses ABT module configuration files, decodes DTCs, generates pre-checked change plans with rollback steps, and produces trust reports with official-source citations.

• cricut-stencil-maker — Cricut Stencil Tool

  • Windows desktop application (C#/WinUI) that converts images into Design Space-compatible SVG stencils.
  • Handles image processing, path generation, and stencil-safe output for Cricut cutting machines.

• daily-ai-docs — AI Documentation Library

  • Auto-updating reference library for OpenAI and Anthropic models. Monitors official docs, API changelogs, and release blogs daily using a Python-based document updater with AI-powered change detection.
  • Includes prompt reference guides, platform comparison matrices, and a daily workflow briefing generator.

• inkscape-pathbinder — Inkscape Stencil Extension

  • Python extension for Inkscape that auto-inserts structural bridges into stencil paths so interior shapes do not fall out when cut.
  • Supports configurable bridge width and spacing, multi-layer designs, and complexity analysis.

• pyExtractHEIC — iCloud HEIC Converter

  • Python CLI tool that extracts HEIC photos from iCloud zip exports and batch-converts them to PNG.
  • Handles multi-archive iCloud exports, temporary extraction cleanup, and verbose logging.

• ai-dev-workstation — AI Agent Dev Setup

  • Opinionated setup guide and automation scripts for AI agent development on Windows 11 with WSL 2, VS Code Insiders, GitHub Copilot agent mode, and MCP server configuration.
  • Includes a weekly automation pipeline for tracking framework versions and community signals.

• clearcouncil — Civic Meeting Summarizer

  • LLM + RAG pipeline for collecting, embedding, and summarizing local government meeting records (minutes, agendas, votes).
  • Reduces long-form public documents to structured, searchable output.

• Azure Monitor Copilot v1 (internal)

  • Early RAG-based copilot for Azure Monitor Agent troubleshooting, built from internal runbooks and markdown guidance.
  • Established a reusable pattern for AI-assisted support in diagnostics-heavy workflows.

• Created Azure Monitor Copilot v1, an early working RAG copilot for Azure Monitor Agent troubleshooting at Microsoft.
• Served on an early Microsoft cloud adoption team working with large enterprise customers as cloud development scaled into mainstream production workloads.
• Served in four Microsoft roles spanning support, engineering, product management, and escalation.
• Co-created the Analysis Services Maestros Program.
• Led architecture for an early Pivotal Cloud Foundry deployment in Azure China.
• Presented on big data, Power BI, and cloud AI architecture.
• Authored technical whitepapers on tabular models, NUMA affinity, and SSAS performance.

Rust | Python | Kusto | C# | Azure ICM | Node.js | FAISS | LangChain

Azure ICM | GIMP | Inkscape | Midjourney | MIG welding

Outside of engineering, I create large-scale shark sculptures and mixed-media shark art.

theSharkArtist.com

johnsirmon [at] hotmail [dot] com

sirmon.ai

github.com/johnsirmon

"My secret weapon has always been understanding the data."