
Michael L. Abramowitz
Verified Expert in Engineering
DevOps Developer
New York, NY, United States
Toptal member since May 22, 2018
Michael is a software engineer with 20+ years of outstanding in-field experience. He specializes in reducing technical debt and implementing adjustments to pipelines, making them continuous and without the need for releases or milestones. Michael also has particular expertise in performance tuning and troubleshooting.
Portfolio
Experience
- Cybersecurity - 15 years
- Linux - 14 years
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 12 years
- DevOps - 11 years
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP) - 11 years
- Docker - 8 years
- Kubernetes - 6 years
- Google Compute Engine (GCE) - 4 years
Preferred Environment
Kubernetes, Docker, Python, PostgreSQL, Ansible, Terraform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), CI/CD Pipelines, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
The most amazing...
...work I've done focused on automation, CI/CD, cloud infrastructure, containers, reliability, and production operations.
Work Experience
DevSecOps Engineer
Aurelion
- Built container-native deployment workflows for secure multi-tenant SaaS environments.
- Established CI/CD and GitOps workflows to automate release lifecycles.
- Automated infrastructure workflows with strict isolation and deployment controls.
- Implemented secure configuration management, secrets handling, and environment separation.
- Improved observability for back-end services, workflows, and operations.
- Implemented event bus and outbox pattern for reliable distributed processing.
- Automated governance workflows with approvals, policy checks, and risk-based decisions.
- Integrated SaaS and on-prem systems through API-first automation patterns.
- Implemented AI agents with dynamic LLM selection, RAG context, and tool controls.
- Added fallback handling, observability, and human-in-the-loop approval flows.
AWS Senior DevOps & Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
Moonstone Bank
- Architected and provisioned a highly regulated AWS fintech infrastructure from scratch, utilizing Terraform, establishing compliant, secure, and auto-scaling multi-account networks.
- Constructed robust CI/CD deployment pipelines, introducing automated regression gates and standardized environment promotions to maximize deployment velocity.
- Implemented observability architecture, including service mesh, centralized logging, metrics, and distributed tracing, significantly improving system transparency and incident diagnostics.
- Engineered secure infrastructure patterns covering network isolation, secrets management, and environment segmentation aligned with fintech security requirements.
Senior Platform & Kubernetes Systems Engineer
Red Hat
- Designed and developed Python-based platform services (Django, aiohttp) supporting infrastructure orchestration and environment lifecycle management in large-scale enterprise environments.
- Built internal REST APIs for deployment control, configuration validation, and policy enforcement, standardizing service contracts across platform components.
- Introduced event-driven coordination patterns for infrastructure state tracking, improving reliability and service synchronization.
- Modernized legacy operations by converting fragile, ad-hoc shell scripts into structured, modular automation services to drive infrastructure predictability.
- Orchestrated containerized workloads across OpenShift Kubernetes environments, implementing strict configuration validation and policy enforcement gates.
- Implemented structured logging and audit-grade tracing, increasing operational transparency and enabling traceable infrastructure workflows.
- Participated in Anaconda bootloader development and customization.
DevSecOps | Platform Architect
Deloitte
- Led infrastructure modernization initiatives in enterprise and regulated environments, transitioning teams from traditional operations to automation-driven, security-aware platform engineering.
- Designed container-based deployment platforms using Docker and early Kubernetes distributions, enabling standardized and reproducible application delivery.
- Built and scaled automated Jenkins CI/CD pipelines with integrated vulnerability scanning and static code analysis to enforce strict compliance gates.
- Established RBAC-based access control models across cloud and on-prem infrastructure, strengthening environment segmentation and access boundaries.
- Standardized cloud environment delivery using Terraform and Ansible for Infrastructure as Code (IaC), systematically eliminating manual configuration drift across production fleets.
- Implemented secrets management and credential isolation patterns, aligning platform architecture with enterprise security requirements.
- Designed progressive deployment strategies, including canary and ring-based rollouts, increasing release predictability and minimizing production impact.
- Mentored engineering teams on secure SDLC and platform engineering practices, improving organizational maturity in automation and security hardening.
Platform Engineer | DevOps
Amdocs
- Architected and implemented a centralized identity and access platform based on OpenLDAP, establishing unified authentication and authorization across enterprise systems.
- Extended and customized LDAP schema with domain-specific attributes and integration hooks, enabling fine-grained RBAC enforcement within CI pipelines.
- Designed and deployed distributed storage infrastructure (Openfiler and Samba over iSCSI), standardizing shared storage across development and build environments.
- Standardized and optimized Java build and deployment workflows, improving deployment consistency and container lifecycle management.
- Reduced manual administration effort by centralizing identity governance and automating access control processes across teams.
System Administrator
Hostinger
- Operated and optimized high-load shared and VPS hosting infrastructure based on Apache and Nginx, improving platform stability under heavy traffic conditions.
- Designed and implemented MySQL clustering (NLB-based) and PostgreSQL replication (Slony), increasing data availability and fault tolerance.
- Engineered multi-instance Apache deployment patterns and customized Linux isolation using CGroups to improve resource utilization and workload segregation.
- Built and automated a custom backup platform (Bash/Perl), including scheduling, retention policies, and restore workflows, increasing operational reliability and control.
- Contributed to performance tuning and horizontal scaling strategies for shared hosting workloads, strengthening scalability of the overall platform.
System Administrator (UNIX)
Orange
- Administered 42 HP-UX enterprise servers supporting mission-critical telecom, Oracle database, and billing systems with high availability requirements.
- Supported and maintained SAN infrastructure and VMware ESX environments, ensuring stability of virtualized production workloads.
- Managed enterprise-grade HP hardware, including ProLiant, Integrity servers, MSL-6060, and DL-20 tape libraries.
- Operated and maintained HP Data Protector cell managers to ensure reliable enterprise backup and recovery processes.
System Administrator (Windows)
Orange
- Administered and maintained 216 Windows XP workstations and 12 Windows Server 2003 instances, ensuring stable operations for 200+ enterprise users in a large telecom environment.
- Owned and operated core infrastructure services, including Active Directory, Exchange 2007, DNS, DHCP, DFS, and Certificate Authority, maintaining high availability and secure authentication architecture.
- Designed and secured corporate LAN infrastructure (UTP, Fiber, segmented Wi-Fi) and managed Cisco routing/switching and VPN transport channels across distributed offices.
- Automated and standardized software deployment and patch management using SMS, MSI packaging, SQL replication jobs, and VBScript (ADSI/IIS), reducing incident resolution time and improving security posture through policy hardening and segmentation.
Experience
Platform Engineering and DevOps Project
My work included setting up observability with logs, metrics, and alerts, hardening the infrastructure to meet security and compliance requirements, supporting incident response processes, and reducing manual operational work through automation and scripting. The project established a production-ready cloud platform for the neobank, improved deployment reliability, and gave engineering teams a scalable and secure foundation for delivering banking services with lower operational risk.
The technologies I used included AWS, Kubernetes, CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code, multi-account AWS architecture, ring deployments, observability, logging, metrics, alerting, automation, scripting, and security hardening.
DevSecOps Project
I worked on CI/CD pipelines, AWS infrastructure automation, and Kubernetes environments deployed across separate AWS accounts to support security, isolation, and environment governance. I helped implement ring-based deployment workflows to reduce release risk and improve production rollout control. I also improved operational visibility through centralized logging, metrics, tracing, and alerting, making it easier for engineering and security teams to monitor APIs, background processing, and ML-driven verification workloads.
The project strengthened the reliability, scalability, and security posture of the KYC platform, while supporting production-grade operations for identity verification and compliance-sensitive services.
The technologies used included AWS, Kubernetes, CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code, multi-account AWS architecture, observability, centralized logging, metrics, tracing, alerting, and DevOps for AI/ML workloads.
CI/CD and Kubernetes Platform for a Data Management Company
I built and maintained CI/CD pipelines, automated AWS infrastructure, and managed Kubernetes environments across multiple AWS accounts to support isolation, governance, and scalability. I also implemented and supported ring-based deployment workflows, improved observability through logs, metrics, tracing, and alerting, and helped increase the resilience of data pipelines, APIs, and core platform services.
The solution made the platform easier to operate in production, reduced deployment risk, and enabled engineering and security teams to better control distributed cloud environments.
The technologies used included AWS, Kubernetes, CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code, multi-account AWS architecture, observability, logging, metrics, tracing, and alerting.
Education
Master's Degree in Jet Engines
Samara State Airspace University - Samara, RU
Skills
Libraries/APIs
OpenLDAP, Exchange API, Liquibase, Rasa NLU
Tools
RabbitMQ, Jetty, Apache, Vagrant, uDeploy, Jenkins, NGINX, Apache Maven, Apache Tomcat, Ansible, Cloudera, Amazon EKS, GitHub, GitLab CI/CD, GitLab, Google Compute Engine (GCE), Terraform, Dynatrace, IntelliJ IDEA, Git, Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), CMake, TeamCity, VPN, DTS, Slony-I, RPM, Bamboo, Oozie, Cgroups, Gradle, Bazel, Apache Airflow, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Artifactory, Traefik, Velero, Helm, Docker Compose
Languages
Python, Bash, YAML, Go, Java, MIIS, PHP, GraphQL, Python 3
Frameworks
Hadoop, Spark, Yarn, .NET, Django, Crossplane
Paradigms
Agile, Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Delivery (CD), Scrum, Kanban, DevOps, Agile Software Development, DevSecOps, Continuous Deployment
Platforms
Docker, Debian, CentOS, Sensu, Linux, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Windows Desktop, Windows Server, Unix, Kubernetes, Oracle, Nexus, HP-UX, AIX, Apache Kafka, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Ollama, Linux RHEL/CentOS
Storage
PostgreSQL, MySQL, DRBD, HDFS, Redis, Databases, MongoDB, Storage Area Networks (SAN), Apache Hive, Oracle Cloud, LokiJS, Neo4j
Industry Expertise
Cybersecurity
Other
TCP/IP, Software Development, System Architecture, BIND9, Cobbler, VMware ESXi, GoCD, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), CI/CD Pipelines, Troubleshooting, Deployment, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Okta, Security Engineering, Identity & Access Management (IAM), Cyber Defense, Application Monitoring, Incident Handling, Incident Management, IT Automation, Monitoring, Observability, SaaS, System Administration, AWS DevOps, Cloud, Technical Leadership, GitOps, iSCSI, LDAP, Microsoft Entra, Openfiler, DNS, DHCP, MSX, Prometheus, Acme, Longhorn, Flux CD, Argo CD, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Temporal, Dagster, Software Design, Software Architecture, Team Management, Product Design, Jet Engines, Automated Deployment Scripts, IT Security, Pulumi
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