Robert is available for hire
Hire RobertRobert Polasek
Verified Expert in Engineering
DevOps Engineer and Developer
Toronto, ON, Canada
Toptal member since July 3, 2018
Bio
Robert is a senior Platform Engineer and MLOps/DevOps Consultant with more than 20 years of experience building cloud-native infrastructure, Kubernetes platforms, and AI/ML pipelines at scale. He specializes in enabling secure, scalable, and cost-efficient AI/ML workloads across AWS, GCP, and Azure. His expertise includes Kubernetes cluster design, infrastructure as code (Terraform and Terragrunt), CI/CD, observability, and GPU workload orchestration.
Portfolio
Synergy Inmate Phone Solutions, INC
Linux, Azure, DevOps, Shell Scripting, Cron, CSV, Security, Data Encryption...
Portable Software Corporation
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Azure, Kubernetes, Azure DevOps...
Kalavai, Corp.
Python, Kubernetes, Terraform, OpenStack, DevOps, Docker, GPU Computing...
Experience
- Linux - 20 years
- Terraform - 10 years
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 10 years
- Kubernetes - 10 years
- Helm - 8 years
- Azure - 6 years
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP) - 3 years
Preferred Environment
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Kubernetes, Docker, Linux, Containers, OpenShift, Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Helm, Terraform
The most amazing...
...thing I've developed is a custom Kubernetes controller for interaction between Kubernetes services and Cloudflare API in Go.
Work Experience
DevOps Engineer
2026 - PRESENT
Synergy Inmate Phone Solutions, INC
- Engineered secure data processing pipelines for highly sensitive PII, implementing in-memory decryption (GPG) and irreversible tokenization to eliminate exposure risk.
- Developed Python-based ETL framework to ingest encrypted CSV datasets into PostgreSQL with automated data sanitization and referential integrity controls.
- Designed zero-persistence processing workflows, ensuring no residual sensitive data remained in memory or storage post-execution.
- Automated lifecycle management of processed data, transitioning artifacts from SFTP ingestion endpoints to cost-optimized cold storage tiers.
- Built Azure infrastructure using Terraform, provisioning Key Vault, PostgreSQL, Log Analytics, networking, VPN, Container Registry, and Communication Services.
- Implemented CI/CD pipelines to deploy containerized workloads to Azure Container Instances and orchestrate scheduled processing via Logic Apps.
Technologies: Linux, Azure, DevOps, Shell Scripting, Cron, CSV, Security, Data Encryption, Monitoring, Database Management, Data Validation, Technical Documentation, Troubleshooting, Python, PostgreSQL, Data Processing
Senior Azure DevOps Engineer
2026 - 2026
Portable Software Corporation
- Architected a secure multi-tenant Azure Kubernetes platform enabling isolated user workspaces with elevated privileges while enforcing strict workload containment.
- Led migration from VM-based deployments to Kubernetes-native architecture, improving scalability and operational consistency.
- Developed Helm-based deployment framework, replacing static YAML manifests with reusable, parameterized templates.
- Contributed to back-end development in Go, improving service reliability and deployment standardization.
- Implemented infrastructure as code using Terraform/Terragrunt for reproducible environment provisioning.
- Designed and deployed service-to-service mTLS authentication without reliance on service mesh, reducing operational overhead.
- Evaluated and integrated hardened container runtimes (gVisor, Kata Containers) to enforce strong isolation for untrusted workloads.
Technologies: Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Azure, Kubernetes, Azure DevOps, Containerization, Go, Terraform, Terragrunt, Secure Containers, Transport Layer Security (TLS)
DevOps Engineer
2025 - 2026
Kalavai, Corp.
- Designed and deployed multi-region Kubernetes (K3s) clusters leveraging underutilized datacenter capacity to provide on-demand GPU compute.
- Built Terraform modules to provision OpenShift-based VM infrastructure across distributed environments.
- Engineered resilient monitoring architecture using Prometheus Operator with region-aware scraping to handle ephemeral node availability.
- Implemented centralized observability with Grafana and Mimir, aggregating metrics from regional clusters to minimize data loss and enable global insights.
- Developed custom Kubernetes operator (Python) with CRDs to model GPU supply/demand, including validation webhooks for resource integrity.
- Created Helm-based deployment strategy supporting multi-region and multi-project scalability.
- Configured and optimized NVIDIA GPU nodes (drivers, scheduling metadata, resource advertisement) for efficient workload placement and routing.
Technologies: Python, Kubernetes, Terraform, OpenStack, DevOps, Docker, GPU Computing, NVIDIA CUDA, K3s, Terragrunt, Kubernetes Operators, Grafana, mimir, Prometheus, Helm, Helmfile
DevOps Engineer
2025 - 2025
HUB International - Digital Products
- Developed Terraform/Terragrunt modules to onboard acquired business units into standardized cloud environments.
- Migrated legacy Azure infrastructure to infrastructure-as-code, improving reproducibility, governance, and deployment consistency.
- Implemented Azure DevOps pipelines to automate infrastructure provisioning and reduce manual configuration drift.
Technologies: DevOps, Cloud Architecture, Azure, Terraform, Docker, Kubernetes, Python, Bash, Terragrunt, Terraform Cloud
DevOps Engineer
2025 - 2025
Vasilis K. Pozios, M.D.
- Built AWS IaC with Terraform for secure, scalable infrastructure.
- Containerized document-to-text and speech-to-text ML workflows; deployed to Kubernetes.
- Designed GitHub Actions pipelines with static analysis, image scanning, and infra updates.
Technologies: PostgreSQL, Amazon Web Services (AWS), DevOps, Terraform, GitHub Actions, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Azure, Data Architecture, Artificial Intelligence (AI)
DevOps/MLOps Expert
2025 - 2025
WHITE RESEARCH SRL
- Deployed MLflow with S3 and PostgreSQL back ends for reproducible experimentation, and integrated Kubeflow Pipelines with MLflow to enable hybrid lineage tracking.
- Built GitHub Actions CI/CD pipelines that orchestrated infrastructure updates and model promotion through staging to production, reducing human error and drift.
- Engineered containerized ML services on Kubernetes, with reproducible Helm deployments. Implemented monitoring with Prometheus, Grafana, and Kubecost to optimize resources.
- Developed model deployment using KServe to REST endpoints.
Technologies: DevOps, Python, Jenkins, Kubeflow, Kubernetes, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Machine Learning Operations (MLOps), Amazon SageMaker, Machine Learning
Azure DevOps | AI-dedicated Associate Solution
2025 - 2025
Mako AI, Inc.
- Created Python SDKs and CLI tools to manage cross-cloud infrastructure and ML pipelines.
- Engineered containerized ML services on Kubernetes, with reproducible Helm deployments.
- Created cross-cloud deployment frameworks (AWS, GCP, and Azure), combining Terraform, Helm, and kubectl to provision clients' environments, enabling rapid onboarding of new enterprise clients.
Technologies: Azure, Python, Terraform, Azure Virtual Networks, DevOps, Azure Cloud Services, Azure Cloud Security
Infrastructure Engineer
2023 - 2025
Disruptive Systems Ltd
- Developed Ansible code for deployment of Kubernetes clusters across multiple data centers on bare metal servers. The code was modularized using roles and a central parameter file, which defined the overall configuration of each Kubernetes cluster.
- Contributed to cluster nodes, which could be physical servers or KVM virtual machines deployed on top of physical servers. Created code to pass through the GPU to virtual machines, allowing the creation of GPU Kubernetes nodes.
- Set up NVIDIA CUDA drivers to be used as a container runtime. Tested GPU virtualization on Kubernetes using Juice.
- Built container images for various zero-knowledge provers on the blockchain with GPU support. Troubleshot and resolved build problems for prover images using 3rd-party source code in various programming languages.
- Created Helm charts for all the provers to be deployed in any geographically distributed Kubernetes cluster, either by an operator using helmfile or by the zero-knowledge proof scheduler application.
- Handled the programmatic set up of iptables and troubleshot networking issues within the clusters. Tested multiple CNIs: Calico and Flanel. Did performance tuning for virtual machines to minimize the overhead of virtualization and improve disk I/O.
- Deployed and configured Ceph software-defined storage and configured appropriate storage classes. Built and deployed ChartMuseum for storage of Helm charts.
- Led the design of the scheduler application, which is responsible for scheduling the zero-knowledge proof job on a specific cluster that meets prover requirements as well as other aspects, such as the cost of the proof.
- Developed a Python API using Flask for a global scheduler used for the submission of Holonym proofs by clients.
Technologies: Blockchain, Zero-knowledge Proofs, Computer Networking, Mining, GPU Computing, NVIDIA CUDA, OpenCL, Unix/Linux Virtualization, Virtualization, Bash Script, JSON, YAML, Amazon EC2, AWS Elastic File System, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Elastic Load Balancers, Cloud Migration, Solution Architecture, Google Cloud, Cloud Infrastructure, Observability Tools
DevOps Consultant
2023 - 2025
Longitude103
- Managed Kubernetes clusters on DigitalOcean, handling upgrades, troubleshooting, and deploying manifests using Helm and helmfile as declarative configuration. -is this right?
- Built CI/CD pipelines in GitLab, using agents to deploy to Kubernetes clusters based on defined triggers. Then, migrated all the source code repositories to BitBucket and developed CI/CD pipelines.
- Designed and implemented monitoring and observability tools for a Kubernetes cluster using Kibana, Logstash, Elasticsearch for logs, and Grafana with Prometheus for visual dashboards.
- Modified the source code for Linode cert-manager webhook to work with Kubernetes 1.29 and built and troubleshot the binary. Linode DNS solver was used as a webhook for SSL generation with cert-manager, using Let's Encrypt.
- Built a private Docker registry on Linode to store clients' container images using S3 storage.
- Created a unified parametrized CI/CD pipeline for all the applications using a self-hosted builder pod on Kubernetes.
- Performed migration of all the clusters from DigitalOcean to Linode. Developed Helm charts for the client’s applications. Performed MongoDB upgrades.
Technologies: DigitalOcean, Kubernetes, Helm, Helmfile, Unix/Linux Virtualization, Virtualization, Bash Script, JSON, GitHub Actions, MongoDB, Cloud Infrastructure, AWS Batch, Observability Tools
Terraform Expert
2024 - 2024
TensorZero, Inc
- Built Terraform/Terragrunt code for multi-cloud (GCP, AWS, and Azure) Kubernetes deployments utilizing Terraform modules.
- Developed a Helm chart for the deployment of infrastructure services such as external-dns, cert-manager, ingress controller, and credential synchronization between GCP and AWS to pull images stored in the ECR registry.
- Created a Helm chart for the actual application to be deployed into geographically spread Kubernetes clusters focusing on minimal latency for responses.
Technologies: Terraform, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Amazon Web Services (AWS), Bash Script, JSON, YAML, GitHub Actions, AWS Elastic File System, Elastic Load Balancers, Google Cloud, Cloud Infrastructure, ECS, AWS Batch, AWS ECS Fargate
AWS DevOps - Cloud Infra
2022 - 2023
Blue River Technology - Computer Vision and Machine Learning
- Managed resources in AWS cloud using an IaaC first approach. The enterprise environment consisted of dedicated CI/CD and application environments, all of the set up in separate AWS accounts, ensuring a separation between CI/CD and application accounts.
- Set up cross-account IAM roles and policies, created and updated AWS resources such as EKS, ECS, Kinesis, Fargate, Lambda functions, Transit gateways, IAM roles and policies, Athena, and others.
- Upgraded EKS clusters from version 1.18 to 1.21 without disruption of service. Performed analysis of containers that would be impacted by the rollout. Managed EKS cluster node pools with multi-type CPU/GPU instances used for machine learning jobs.
- Upgraded all CI/CD pipelines' Terraform version to 1.2.4, updated states outside of CI/CD, and performed state file manipulations required to return the job back to the automated CI/CD pipeline.
- Updated the RDS instance of MySQL to version 8 and performed related state manipulations.
- Built and updated helm charts used for internal applications as well as external helm charts. Managed Kustomize code used by Kubeflow.
- Created a complete Terraform/Terragrunt IaaC code for the Databricks ecosystem. The code was divided into individual modules that were deployed by Terragrunt either on the Databricks account or workspace level. Debugged notebook problems in Databricks.
- Built Jenkins pipelines to build and deploy one of the internal applications. Utilized technologies like Kaniko to avoid security issues when using DockerInDocker. Followed best industry practices such as artifact promotion, immutability, and versioning.
- Migrated CI/CD pipelines from Jenkins to GitHub actions using reusable pipeline code blocks.
- Performed troubleshooting on hanging or unexpectedly failing Kubeflow jobs and worked with users on fixes. Introduced API key rotation by extending the application API for one of the key in-house applications written in Python.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Terraform, DevOps, AWS Cloud Architecture, Kubernetes, Docker, Python, Azure Databricks, Terragrunt, AWS DevOps, Node.js, Continuous Integration (CI), Cloud Architecture, Git, Kustomize, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), AWS Fargate, AWS Lambda, Amazon RDS, VPN, Load Balancers, Bash, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), GPU Computing, Ubuntu, Kubeflow, Machine Learning Operations (MLOps), Machine Learning, Unix/Linux Virtualization, Virtualization, Bash Script, Security, Kubernetes Security, JSON, Kaniko, YAML, Amazon EC2, AWS Auto Scaling, SecOps, Artificial Intelligence (AI), GitHub Actions, AWS Elastic File System, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Elastic Load Balancers, Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon DynamoDB, SQL, Cloud Infrastructure, Databricks, Observability Tools
Devops Consultant
2022 - 2023
Helpful Human
- Troubleshot out of memory (OOM) kills of application containers in production Kubernetes cluster running in DigitalOcean. Performed a deep root cause analysis of application outages in a production environment.
- Created custom metrics for Prometheus to show exactly the same metrics as used by Linux kernel when OOM killer is invoked.
- Traced gRPC application calls using Wireshark. Set up ephemeral debugging containers to collect TCP dumps from all application containers. Attempted to recreate gRPC calls between all application layers using collected data.
- Troubleshot and upgraded system-level applications and their respective helm charts – Istio, ingress controller, external DNS, and certificate manager.
Technologies: gRPC, Kubernetes, Containers, Istio, Prometheus, Grafana, Debugging, Continuous Integration (CI), Cloud Architecture, Git, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), VPN, Load Balancers, Bash, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Ubuntu, DigitalOcean, JSON, YAML, SecOps, GitHub Actions, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Elastic Load Balancers, MongoDB, Cloud Infrastructure
Devops Consultant
2021 - 2022
Softchoice
- Built Terraform code and Arm templates for resources to be provisioned in Azure cloud.
- Worked on architecture designs for clients and educated them on best practices. Configured network links between the client's data centers and Azure and configured landing zones and network security.
- Worked on an internal project, "Documentation as a code," where project documentation is created using the information gathered from cloud deployments. Migrated the deployment from virtual machines to containers.
Technologies: Terraform, Azure, ARM, Networking, Continuous Integration (CI), Cloud Architecture, Azure Functions, Git, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Bash, Ubuntu, Virtualization, Security, JSON, SQL, Solution Architecture, Cloud Infrastructure, Azure DevOps
Devops Consultant
2020 - 2021
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
- Developed IaaC using Terragrunt/Terraform while applying a fully modularized approach and keeping code DRY. Deployed a Terraform operator for integrated deployment of application components that are not part of Kubernetes. Modified operator code.
- Designed and deployed an Nginx ingress controller with ModSecurity WAF module. Created automation gathering data that updated blacklists from internet vendors and applied those to the running configuration. Used Reloader to perform the rolling update.
- Developed an Azure Node.js function to transfer Kubernetes control plane logs to Splunk through Fluentd while augmenting them with additional information and tags.
- Developed CI/CD pipelines using Tekton pipelines while using the Lighthouse as a GitHub web hook and git chat operator. Extended the Lighthouse code to utilize Kustomize for provisioning and customizing source code versioned pipelines.
- Implemented OAuth2 authentication and authorization for services running inside Kubernetes using OAuth2-proxy.
- Developed a Cloudflare controller, which maintained the configuration of Argo tunnels between Cloudflare and Kubernetes clusters based on ingress resource annotations.
- Developed a central operations dashboard in Splunk governing Kubernetes and Azure resources.
- Developed the helm chart unit test while utilizing test hooks for automated helm deployment testing.
- Built and maintained CI/CD pipelines using GitHub actions. Deployed Keel operator as a tool for CD deployment from GitHub to Kubernetes.
- Built JenkinsX CI/CD pipeline for container builds and deployments with a GitOps-controlled pipeline following DevOps best practices.
Technologies: Kubernetes, Helm, Terraform, Go, Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Terragrunt, Web Application Firewall (WAF), GitHub API, Jenkins, Argo CD, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), OAuth 2, DevOps, PostgreSQL, Cloud, GitHub, Networks, Autoscaling, HTML, Infrastructure, Containerization, Networking, Database Management, Monitoring, Cloudflare, Continuous Integration (CI), Cloud Architecture, Azure Functions, Git, DevSecOps, Kustomize, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), AWS Fargate, AWS Lambda, Amazon RDS, Redis, Load Balancers, Bash, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), GPU Computing, Ubuntu, Unix/Linux Virtualization, Virtualization, Bash Script, Security, Kubernetes Security, JSON, Kaniko, YAML, Amazon EC2, AWS Auto Scaling, SecOps, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon DynamoDB, Cloud Migration, Google Cloud, MongoDB, Cloud Infrastructure, Observability Tools
DevOps Consultant
2020 - 2020
Rhithm, Inc.
- Developed an infrastructure as a code using Terragrunt with Terraform while applying a fully modularized approach. Built networking infrastructure, EKS (Kubernetes) clusters, and relational databases in AWS as a code.
- Developed and deployed Helm charts to Kubernetes using Helmfile as a declarative configuration for deploying distributions of Helm charts while adhering to 12-factor application principles.
- Containerized the application. Deployed infrastructure containers as an external DNS, used cert-manager and Ingress Controller to automate DNS name registration, and created auto SSL certificate provisioning and assigned them to external endpoints.
- Load-tested the application with JMeter using different scenarios, ensuring that it met the requirements for a number of concurrent users performing various workflows. Worked with developers to identify and address bottlenecks.
- Developed CI/CD pipelines using serverless Jenkins X controlled by a GitOps build. Deployed in Cloud Native.
Technologies: GitLab CI/CD, Apache JMeter, Helm, AWS Cloud Computing Services, Terraform, Terragrunt, PostgreSQL, Cloud, AWS Certificate Manager, GitHub, Networks, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Infrastructure, Containerization, Continuous Integration (CI), Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Load Balancers, Bash, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), JSON, YAML, AWS CodeDeploy, AWS CodePipeline, Amazon EC2, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Elastic Load Balancers, Amazon CloudWatch, SQL, Cloud Infrastructure, AWS Batch, AWS ECS Fargate, Observability Tools
DevOps Consultant
2020 - 2020
Stainless AI
- Developed infrastructure as code using Terraform combining third-party modules with client-specific code. Deployed the infrastructure in the Amazon cloud, debugged all issues, and wrote the deployment documentation.
- Developed a Python script to automate the input value file build and a Terraform module and workspace initialization.
- Created a local Minikube environment to imitate the AWS cloud environment with a local dynamic DNS server.
- Used MetalLB as the load balancer, an external DNS for DNS record updates, and cert-manager for auto-provisioning SSL certificates to deploy Helm chart to the cloud and locally.
- Built Helm charts for the deployment of Kubernetes services as an EFS persistent volume provisioner, Ingress Controller, external DNS, as well as charts for JupyterHub and client-specific services interconnected with JupyterHub.
- Deployed a certification manager configured with Let's Encrypt SSL certificates for DNS domains and their ongoing management.
Technologies: CI/CD Pipelines, Python, Amazon Web Services (AWS), DNS, Amazon EKS, Helm, Terraform, Cloud, AWS Certificate Manager, GitHub, Networks, PostgreSQL, Infrastructure, Containerization, Networking, Continuous Integration (CI), Infrastructure as Code (IaC), VPN, Load Balancers, Bash, Virtualization, Bash Script, Kubernetes Security, JSON, YAML, Amazon DynamoDB, Cloud Infrastructure, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)
DevOps Consultant
2019 - 2020
Helpful Human
- Developed Terraform code for a Kubernetes infrastructure build. Managed it using Kops for Kubernetes. Debugged issues and integrated Kubernetes with ECR and Amazon Route 53.
- Designed a Helm chart and created an in-house built application using Golang. Debugged and troubleshot gRPC.
- Developed Helm charts for infrastructure services inside Kubernetes for dynamic DNS names in Amazon Route 53. Created an SSL certificate on demand for Ingress endpoints and a persistent volume controller for EFS and Ingress Controller.
- Built a Jenkins X CI/CD pipeline for container builds and deployments with a GitOps-controlled pipeline.
- Troubleshot Istio installation and Istio upgrade to the latest version.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Jenkins, OpenVPN, AWS Certificate Manager, Amazon EKS, Terraform, Istio, PostgreSQL, Cloud, GitHub, Networks, Autoscaling, Infrastructure, Containerization, Networking, Continuous Integration (CI), Git, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Bash, JSON, Kaniko, YAML, Cloud Infrastructure, Observability Tools
DevOps Consultant
2018 - 2020
International Financial Data Services (IFDS)
- Designed, installed, and troubleshot RedHat OpenShift cluster, migration from version 3.4 to 3.11.
- Created dynamic Jenkins CI/CD pipelines running all the master and worker nodes as containers within an OpenShift cluster where each stage was represented by its own parameterized docker image tailored for a specific purpose.
- Designed and installed Hashicorp vault for secret management. Secrets required for running the application are retrieved from a vault at a container's startup time and automatically renewed during the application's lifecycle.
- Developed health check liveliness and readiness probes for a JBoss cluster (Wildfly) to automate OpenShift corrective actions when the node hosting pod is under memory pressure or high load, tested probes by introducing network failures.
- Debugged Helm tiller code—identifying issues with security context constraint deployment in RedHat OpenShift version 3.4.
- Built Docker images with built-in configuration initialization at startup, EGM Nexus docker image with Groovy scripts to fully initialize configuration upon the first startup and retain it on subsequent starts of the same container.
- Deployed a Helm API to be used as means of deploying helm charts by third-party applications. Expanded Heketi Go code that handles volume deletion, deleting volume snapshots prior to the volume itself.
- Implemented MetalLB with dynamic DNS as the auto-provisioning solution for load balancer on bare metal.
- Implemented Helm deployment profiling, identifying system bottlenecks during larger deployments. Debugged and profiled OpenShift performance by identifying performance bottlenecks on bare metal.
- Created a Helm deployment chart for automated storage provisioner to auto-provision storage in Minishift. Installed and configured an automated Gluster provisioner with Heketi using storage classes based provisioning.
Technologies: CI/CD Pipelines, Red Hat OpenShift, SonarQube, Docker, JBoss, Vault, HashiCorp, GlusterFS, Nexus, Helm, OpenShift, DevOps, Java, Networks, PostgreSQL, Infrastructure, Containerization, Networking, Ansible, Database Management, Continuous Integration (CI), Git, GitLab, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Load Balancers, Bash, Bash Script, JSON, YAML, SecOps, SQL, Cloud Migration, Solution Architecture
DevOps Consultant
2019 - 2019
2DA Analytics
- Developed infrastructure as a code using Terraform with a modular approach, deployed infrastructure in Amazon cloud, performed migration of on-premise resources into the cloud and debugged all migration issues in the cloud.
- Built Hashicorp packer code for OpenVPN AMI with user authentication against AWS accounts.
- Developed Helm charts for the containerized version of the application running on-premise, deployed it to EKS Kubernetes.
- Deployed OpenVPN into EKS with self-service ca certification authority using corporate central authentication.
- Deployed a certification manager configured with Let's Encrypt SSL certificates for DNS domains and their ongoing management.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Packer, HashiCorp, DNS, OpenVPN, Amazon EKS, Terraform, Cloud, Networks, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Infrastructure, Containerization, Continuous Integration (CI), Git, Bash, JSON, Elastic Load Balancers, Cloud Infrastructure, ECS, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)
DevOps Consultant
2019 - 2019
Spark
- Developed Grafana dashboards for all containerized environments with the intention for dashboards to dynamically scale with the environments without the need for any dashboard code changes. Used templated dashboards as well as boom table panels.
- Wrote customized Prometheus queries to retrieve data. Made changes to Prometheus collectors and filters, ensuring all relevant data are passed into Grafana.
- Handled the Rancher creation of services, deployment of services, and troubleshooting of issues.
- Made changes to Docker images allowing to see host-level disk devices and gather their metrics by Prometheus.
Technologies: Rancher, Prometheus, Grafana, Cloud, GitHub, Kibana, Infrastructure, Monitoring, Continuous Integration (CI), Bash
DevOps Engineer
2016 - 2018
Stagwell Technologies
- Built, deployed, and managed eight large Kubernetes clusters for development, user acceptance testing (UAT), and production environments with 25 nodes per cluster and load-based horizontal autoscaling.
- Implemented Jenkins as a continuous delivery tool using Groovy, DSL, pipelines, and Kubernetes running Jenkins slaves on demand.
- Provisioned AWS and Azure services and resources using Terraform: EC2, EBS, S3, VPC, Auto Scaling, Cloud Formation, Elastic Load Balancing, RDS, Route 53, Memcache, Redis, OpsWorks, CloudWatch, CloudTrail, Identity and Access Management (IAM).
- Provisioned AWS and Azure services and resources using Terraform: SQS, Redshift, Lambda Functions, Beanstalk, Batch, Elastic Container Service, Fargate, and Firehose.
- Migrated VMware servers into AWS and Azure Cloud, using VMware OVF and Hypervisor VHD images.
- Designed Chef cookbooks to manage configurations and automate the installation process using the OpsWorks framework.
- Build resources on GCP to utilize machine learning capabilities of the platform.
- Deployed central logging to a Kibana server using Elasticsearch as a storage engine.
- Configured a Gluu IAM server as a user authentication gateway for Kubernetes using OpenID.
- Built a NeoDB database for all the resources in AWS, all the repositories in GitHub, all jobs in Jenkins, and all containers in Kubernetes and their relationships with continuous updates using Mercator code as a framework.
Technologies: GitLab CI/CD, Python, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Amazon Web Services (AWS), OpenID, Chef, Azure, Packer, HashiCorp, Vault, Elasticsearch, Jenkins, Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP), Hadoop, Helm, Kubernetes Operations (kOps), Terraform, Kubernetes, Docker, Linux, DevOps, PostgreSQL, Cloud, MySQL, Cassandra, GitHub, Networks, Groovy Scripting, Kibana, Autoscaling, HTML, Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), C, Infrastructure, Containerization, Networking, Ansible, Database Management, Monitoring, Node.js, Google Compute Engine (GCE), Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Apache Kafka, AWS Fargate, AWS Lambda, Amazon RDS, VPN, Redis, Load Balancers, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Virtualization, Security, Kubernetes Security, AWS CodeDeploy, AWS CodePipeline, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, AWS Auto Scaling, Redshift, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Elastic Load Balancers, Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon DynamoDB, Cloud Migration, Google Cloud, MongoDB, Cloud Infrastructure, AWS ECS Fargate, Observability Tools
DevOps Engineer
2017 - 2017
TD Bank
- Developed TOSCA blueprints and also deployed them to OpenStack.
- Built Jenkins CI/CD pipelines in Groovy to automate code releases and updates of Confluence pages through a REST API.
- Wrote Python scripts to interact with APIs for automated deployments.
- Created a JBoss blueprint; also installed, configured and troubleshot JBoss.
Technologies: GitLab CI/CD, Python, Groovy, JBoss, Jenkins, Blueprint, OpenStack, DevOps, Java, Networks, Infrastructure, Containerization, Networking, Bash, Unix/Linux Virtualization, Virtualization, Security
DevOps Consultant | Architect
2014 - 2016
Bank of Montreal
- Designed, deployed, and configured Red Hat Satellite Server 6 (RHS6) and migrated 670 servers from RHS5 to RHS6.
- Designed and built a Puppet infrastructure for configuration management of 700+ servers.
- Created provisioning processes utilizing RHS6 with Puppet and coded supporting build classes and facts.
- Managed Solaris and Red Hat enterprise servers (700+ servers).
- Performed a difficult root cause analysis and debugged problems on the level of system library calls.
Technologies: Red Hat OpenShift, JBoss, WebSphere, VMware, Red Hat Satellite, Red Hat Linux, Puppet, Java, Oracle, Networks, Networking, Monitoring, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Bash, Unix/Linux Virtualization, Security
Senior Consultant
2011 - 2013
Resmor Trust (Royal Bank of Canada)
- Managed RHEL Linux servers, Hitachi modular storage, Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform (VSP), Brocade FC switches, VMware ESX servers, and F5 load balancers.
- Designed, installed, and configured Hitachi AMS 2300 and associated SAN components.
- Built a Kickstart server for automated Linux builds with a PXE boot.
- Designed and implemented the encapsulation of Oracle RAC cluster into a Linux HA cluster ensuring high availability of all Oracle failover components and ETL applications.
- Migrated Oracle RAC 11G to a new Hitachi storage frame.
Technologies: CFEngine, Hitachi HPLC, VMware, Red Hat Linux, Networks, Infrastructure, Networking, Database Management, Monitoring, Bash, Security
Senior Unix, SAN Consultant
2009 - 2011
Intria Items | CIBC
- Managed Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, and Linux servers (200+ servers).
- Planned and executed a physical storage migration (25 terabytes) from Montreal to Markham with minimal downtime.
- Worked on the application design and implementation using virtualization technologies as LDOMs, Solaris zones, and HP VMware.
- Managed and implemented improvements to cluster technologies such as HP ServiceGuard and Veritas cluster server.
Technologies: VMware, LDoms, SAN Switches, SAN Brocade, IBM SAN, Storage, Linux, HP-UX, AIX, Solaris, Perl, Oracle, Veritas Cluster Server, Networks, Infrastructure, Networking, Monitoring, Bash
Experience
Cloudflare Controller for Kubernetes
I developed a Cloudflare controller, which maintained the configuration of Argo tunnels between Cloudflare and Kubernetes clusters based on ingress resource annotations. The motivation behind the development was to ensure a fully automated process of provisioning applications into Kubernetes. Without the controller, every time a new application was provisioned, somebody would need to go in and manually enable a new application in Cloudflare. This was very useful for CI/CD pipeline previews, which generated a new application a couple of times a day and allowed developers to see changes instantly. The controller was written in Go and deployed as a helm chart.
Streamlined Application Deployment to Kubernetes
I designed and implemented streamlined application deployment to Kubernetes, where any external Cloud resource dependencies were auto-deployed as a part of deployment using Terraform operator and Terraform code. Helm chart deployed workspace CRDs into Kubernetes, and those were picked up by the operator and executed against cloud API. Once completed, outputs were brought back to Kubernetes to be consumed by the application itself for its configuration.
A Jenkins Automated Job Creation Framework with Kubernetes Containers as Slaves
I designed, coded, and maintained a Jenkins job creation framework using Groovy, DSL, and Jenkins pipelines. The framework allowed easy configuration and deployment of new jobs and fast bulk changes of existing jobs. The pipeline incorporated the Hashicorp vault as central, secure storage for Jenkins configuration and job builds. Kubernetes containers were used as slaves for builds. Each step of a build process was defined as a Docker image, allowing us to easily build on the same source code using different tools or ensure that the versions remain the same through the product's lifecycle.
Education
1989 - 1994
Master's Degree in Computers and Electronics
Brno University of Technology, Department of Computers and Electronics - Brno, Czech Republic
Certifications
JANUARY 2022 - PRESENT
Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist
Cloud Native Computing Foundation
JANUARY 2022 - PRESENT
Certified Kubernetes Administrator
Cloud Native Computing Foundation
JANUARY 2012 - PRESENT
Hitachi Data Systems Certified Professional
Hitachi
JANUARY 2008 - PRESENT
Sun Solaris 10 Certified System Administrator
Sun Microsystems
JANUARY 2004 - PRESENT
Oracle Certified Professional
Oracle
JANUARY 2004 - PRESENT
Sun Solaris 9 Certified System Administrator
Sun Microsystems
JANUARY 2003 - PRESENT
HP-UX 11 Certified System Administrator
Hewlett-Packard
JANUARY 1999 - PRESENT
Check Point Firewall I Administrator
Check Point
JANUARY 1998 - PRESENT
HP-UX 10.20 Certified System Administrator
Hewlett-Packard
Skills
Libraries/APIs
Terragrunt, Jenkins Job DSL, OpenID, GitHub API, Node.js
Tools
Helm, Amazon EKS, Terraform, Chef, Puppet, Jenkins, Veritas Cluster Server, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), GitLab CI/CD, Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), AWS Fargate, VPN, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Kaniko, Amazon CloudWatch, Observability Tools, GitHub, Vault, OpenVPN, Kibana, Grafana, VMware, Google Compute Engine (GCE), Git, Kustomize, AWS CodeDeploy, AWS Batch, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), HashiCorp, Packer, Red Hat Satellite, Hitachi HPLC, SonarQube, Apache JMeter, Istio, Ansible, GitLab, Helmfile, Amazon SageMaker, Kubernetes Operators, Cron
Languages
Bash, Bash Script, YAML, SQL, Java, Perl, C, Python, Groovy, HTML, Go
Paradigms
DevOps, Continuous Integration (CI), DevSecOps, Azure DevOps, Microservices
Platforms
Docker, Linux, Kubernetes, Solaris, HP-UX, Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), AWS Lambda, Ubuntu, Amazon EC2, Red Hat Linux, OpenShift, Oracle, Red Hat OpenShift, Azure Functions, Kubeflow, Databricks, Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP), WebSphere, JBoss, OpenStack, Rancher, Nexus, AWS Cloud Computing Services, AIX, Apache Kafka, DigitalOcean, Blockchain, NVIDIA CUDA, AWS Elastic Beanstalk
Storage
JSON, AWS Elastic File System, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Amazon DynamoDB, Google Cloud, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch, Database Management, Redis, MongoDB, GlusterFS, Cassandra, Datadog, Redshift, Azure Cloud Services, Data Validation
Frameworks
Hadoop, CFEngine, Blueprint, OAuth 2, gRPC, OpenCL
Other
DNS, CI/CD Pipelines, Kubernetes Operations (kOps), Autoscaling, Containers, Infrastructure, Containerization, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Amazon RDS, AWS DevOps, Cloud Architecture, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Load Balancers, Unix/Linux Virtualization, Virtualization, Security, AWS Auto Scaling, SecOps, GitHub Actions, Elastic Load Balancers, Cloud Infrastructure, ECS, AWS ECS Fargate, Cloud, Networks, Groovy Scripting, Networking, Monitoring, Cloudflare, GPU Computing, Machine Learning Operations (MLOps), Kubernetes Security, Service Meshes, AWS CodePipeline, Cloud Migration, Solution Architecture, Storage, IBM SAN, SAN Brocade, SAN Switches, LDoms, Prometheus, AWS Certificate Manager, Web Application Firewall (WAF), Argo CD, ARM, Debugging, AWS Cloud Architecture, Azure Databricks, Electronics, Computer, Architecture, Machine Learning, Zero-knowledge Proofs, Computer Networking, Mining, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Azure Virtual Networks, Azure Cloud Security, Data Architecture, Terraform Cloud, K3s, mimir, Secure Containers, Transport Layer Security (TLS), Shell Scripting, CSV, Data Encryption, Technical Documentation, Troubleshooting, Data Processing
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