Andrea Villa
Verified Expert in Engineering
DevOps Engineer and Software Developer
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Toptal member since October 7, 2017
Andrea loves challenges and enjoys learning new concepts. With more than 20 years of experience in the IT field, he has become an accomplished expert in various skills, including DevOps, offensive security, development, startups, and cryptocurrencies.
Portfolio
Experience
- DevOps - 15 years
- AWS Certified Solution Architect - 15 years
- Linux - 15 years
- Cybersecurity - 10 years
- System Administration - 10 years
- Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) - 10 years
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 10 years
- Docker - 10 years
Preferred Environment
Terminal, Terraform, Docker, Linux, Amazon Web Services (AWS), GCC, DigitalOcean
The most amazing...
...DevOps project I've led was a data center cloud migration of more than 500 services, which involved extensive redesign to take advantage of AWS services.
Work Experience
Staff Research Scientist
IOTA Foundation
- Led a multidisciplinary team of researchers and engineers to develop both a prototype and a production-ready open-source node software to implement the next iteration of the IOTA cryptocurrency L1 protocol.
- Played a key role in the architectural decisions and writing of the node software in Go, shaping the future direction of the IOTA protocol with an emphasis on test-driven development (TTD).
- Directed and oversaw the creation of sophisticated node software with advanced capabilities, enabling it to run reliably in a decentralized and trustless setting.
- Designed and deployed a decentralized mainnet cloud architecture across multiple stakeholders using AWS, DigitalOcean, and Azure.
DevOps Lead | Mainnet Infrastructure Architect
IOTA Foundation
- Architected entire estate using Kubernetes and Hashicorp Vault to audit and manage access centrally bastion hosts and rotating keys.
- Oversaw the mainnet DevOps team, focusing on enhancing infrastructure operations and promoting team collaboration.
- Designed and deployed the Mainnet infrastructure used until today, prioritizing stability and scalability.
- Coordinated deployment processes, ensuring smooth releases and efficient handling of potential issues.
- Established monitoring procedures to track network health, performance, and security aspects.
- Integrated self-healing mechanisms for the Mainnet network to improve resilience and reduce potential downtimes.
CTO | Founder
Eureka
- Implemented a Docker-based architecture for scientific computations.
- Created a Node.js back end automating Google Cloud API interactions.
- Automated the provisioning of multiple infrastructure-as-code environments.
- Handled CircleCI and Travis Continuous Integration and continuous delivery pipelines.
Senior DevOps | Full-stack Developer | Security Specialist
Multiple Companies
- Architected scalable and automated CD pipelines on major cloud providers.
- Served as a full-stack developer and DevOps for several clients across the world.
- Automated pipelines using, among others, Ruby on Rails, Sinatra, Capistrano, Node.js, Terraform, Ansible, and Puppet.
- Performed ad-hoc penetration tests on web applications and cloud infrastructures.
Senior Security Consultant
Deloitte
- Served as a senior penetration tester for banks, multinationals, and other global-scale customers.
- Oversaw large-scale red-teaming operations involving cyber, physical, and human factors.
- Performed security assessment of web applications, mobile applications, embedded devices, infrastructures, and corporate networks.
- Awarded CyberLympics champion 2015 in Washington D.C. with team Hack.ERS (cyberlympics.org/?team=hack-ers).
- Facilitated binary exploitation and exploit writing training.
Senior DevOps
Cloudreach
- Served as a consultant for global-scale customers.
- Migrated data centers serving hundreds of services.
- Architected and implemented complex secure, highly available, and scalable platforms using AWS.
- Developed Rack-based Ruby RESTful metaprogrammed APIs.
DevOps Engineer
Atlassian
- Managed >120.000 J2EE applications across >50.000 OpenVZ VMs in two DataCenters.
- Performed internal and external monitoring with Nagios and Zabbix.
- Automated operations across the board through self-designed pipelines and tools (Python, Ruby and Bash).
- Led full-scale deployments with Puppet.
System and Network Administrator | Software Developer
Multiple Companies
- Installed and configured web services like PostgreSQL, MySQL, IIS, Apache, Nginx, Squid, Samba, Plone, Liferay.
- Designed and developed a system to manage marks and communication between teachers, parents and students.
- Served as IT Admin for LAN managing routing, web proxying, hosted mailboxes, spam filters, firewall.
- Maintained the following services for hosted domain: BIND, Postfix, Amavis, iptables.
Experience
Man-in-the-middle Attacks
CarTalk, Inc.
SQL 2nd Prize
CyberLympics Champion 2015
https://cyberlympics.org/?team=hack-ersEducation
CISSP Certificate in Cyber Security
(ISC)2 - Amsterdam, Netherlands
Certified Solution Architect in Cloud Solutions
AWS - Amsterdam, Netherlands
Advanced Searching Certificate in Web Services
Google - Online
Master of Science Degree in Operating Systems and Networks
Universidad Politécnica de Valencia - Valencia, Spain
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Engineering
Universidad Politécnica de Valencia - Valencia, Spain
Skills
Libraries/APIs
GitHub API, Node.js, Rack, REST APIs
Tools
Git, OpenVPN, Iptables, Terminal, CircleCI, Travis CI, Apache, NGINX, AWS IAM, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Ansible, Terraform, Puppet, Nagios, Zabbix, Boto, AWS CloudFormation, Hashcat, GitLab, Capistrano, Postfix, ClamAV, Amavis, Vault, Chef, Jenkins, GCC, Grafana, GitHub, Helm, ELK (Elastic Stack)
Languages
C, HTML, Perl, Bash, Assembly, C++, SQL, CSS, Python, Java, Ruby, YAML, JavaScript, PHP, Python 3, Go, Rust
Frameworks
Android SDK, SPF, Windows PowerShell, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Express.js
Paradigms
HIPAA Compliance, DevOps, Penetration Testing, Continuous Integration (CI), Agile, Samba, REST, Kanban, Scrum
Platforms
CentOS, Slackware, Linux, Docker, Debian, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Ubuntu, Unix, Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Amazon EC2, Red Hat Linux, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), DigitalOcean, Kubernetes, Azure, Jakarta EE (Java EE or J2EE), Burp Suite, Kali Linux, BSD
Industry Expertise
Cybersecurity
Storage
PostgreSQL, MySQL, Amazon DynamoDB, Google Cloud
Other
System Architecture, Scalability, LXC, Network Exploitation, CISSP, Unix Shell Scripting, System Administration, DNS, Spam Filtering, AWS Certified Solution Architect, CI/CD Pipelines, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Identity & Access Management (IAM), Migration, Networking, CTO, Reverse Engineering, Consul, Unix/Linux Virtualization, DMARC, Cobalt Strike, WebSockets, SSH, IIS, BIND, FastCGI, OpenVZ, Prometheus, GitHub Actions, Sprints, Malware Analysis, Burp Proxy
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