Amjad Ashraf, Developer in Toronto, ON, Canada
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Amjad Ashraf

Verified Expert  in Engineering

DevOps Consultant and Developer

Location
Toronto, ON, Canada
Toptal Member Since
November 17, 2022

Amjad is an IT professional focusing on architecture, consulting, building and deploying automation, continuous integration, and DevOps. He has created Ansible playbooks, built cross-platform Bash scripting, implemented Jenkins pipeline libraries, performed load tests, and migrated native IIS and .NET applications. Amjad excels in providing development, QA, and production support for deployment and smoke testing applications.

JenkinsInfrastructure as Code (IaC)LinuxDatabasesApache MavenJSONDevOpsContinuous Delivery (CD)AnsiblePythonKubernetesAmazon Web Services (AWS)UbuntuGitLabDevOps EngineerJFrog ArtifactoryApache AntIBM Rational ClearQuest

Portfolio

Sun Life Financial Canada
Ansible, Amazon RDS, Python 3, Bash, DevOps Engineer, Linux, AWS CloudFormation...
Flutter Entertainment
Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Google App Engine...
HOOPP
Azure, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Ansible, Windows PowerShell, DevOps...

Experience

Linux - 20 yearsJenkins - 10 yearsBash Script - 10 yearsJenkins Pipeline - 5 yearsDocker - 5 yearsAnsible - 3 yearsHelm - 2 yearsGoogle Kubernetes Engine (GKE) - 1 year

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Windows, Notepad++, Linux CentOS 7, VirtualBox, GitHub

The most amazing...

...engagement I've co-led involved implementing an entire DevOps solution from inception to production with over 100 teams relying on our automation.

Work Experience

Senior DevOps Consultant

2022 - 2023
Sun Life Financial Canada
  • Developed Ansible playbooks to automate the creation of a suite of databases and automated upgrades in Amazon RDS.
  • Created AWS CloudFormation and Terraform templates to automate the Amazon RDS environment and configuration maintenance.
  • Developed Ansible playbooks to automate reports on the inventory of databases in Amazon RDS.
Technologies: Ansible, Amazon RDS, Python 3, Bash, DevOps Engineer, Linux, AWS CloudFormation, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), PostgreSQL, Databases, MariaDB, MySQL, AWS CLI, MySQL/MariaDB, Ubuntu, Python, JSON

Senior DevOps Consultant

2021 - 2022
Flutter Entertainment
  • Created and maintained Jenkins jobs to build and deploy applications to Google App Engine.
  • Assisted in the migration of Google App Engine applications to a Kubernetes environment with the use of Helm charts.
  • Provided development, quality assurance, and production support for deployment and smoke testing applications.
Technologies: Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Google App Engine, Helm, Docker, Bitbucket, Jenkins, Groovy, Linux, Bash Script, DevOps, CI/CD Pipelines, Shell Scripting, Amazon Web Services (AWS), DevOps Engineer, Containerization, AWS DevOps, JSON

Senior DevOps Consultant

2021 - 2021
HOOPP
  • Deployed and administered Elasticsearch (ELK) to AKS. Used beats to ship logs, metrics, and audit data.
  • Migrated native IIS and .NET applications to Azure App Service and Azure Managed Containers.
  • Created Ansible playbooks for Infrastructure as Code (IaC), provisioning, and deployments via Azure pipelines.
Technologies: Azure, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Ansible, Windows PowerShell, DevOps, Continuous Integration (CI), Kubernetes, DevOps Engineer, Elasticsearch, Kibana, Logstash, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Containerization, Azure Key Vault, Continuous Delivery (CD), Databases, Monitoring, CI/CD Pipelines, JSON

Senior DevOps Consultant

2020 - 2021
Sun Life Financial
  • Created Ansible playbooks to manage the automated Oracle database and JVM patching.
  • Built cross-platform Bash scripting to support Oracle database patching functions across Red Hat Linux and AIX.
  • Designed, implemented, and tested Oracle patching functions, including stopping and starting clusters, patching, rollback, and verification.
Technologies: Linux, Oracle, Bitbucket, Ansible, Bash Script, Python, Shell Scripting, Amazon Web Services (AWS), DevOps Engineer, Databases

Senior DevOps Consultant

2020 - 2020
FIS Global
  • Administered, managed, and monitored Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), monitoring and logging (ELK) for applications.
  • Designed, implemented, and maintained Jenkins pipeline libraries to support the build with Docker, Kubernetes, and Helm deployments.
  • Tasked with performing a load test on AKS service to Redis, connections, pod scaling, and load balancing.
Technologies: Java 10, Apache Maven, GitHub, Jenkins, Azure, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), ELK (Elastic Stack), Docker, Terraform, Bash Script, Continuous Integration (CI), Shell Scripting, Kubernetes, DevOps Engineer, Containerization, Databases, Monitoring, CI/CD Pipelines, JSON

Senior DevOps Consultant

2019 - 2020
TransUnion
  • Migrated JBoss and Tomcat applications to Docker environment. Maintained Docker registry.
  • Used Ansible Tower to automate provisioning and deployment of JBoss, Tomcat, and Spring Boot applications.
  • Introduced standard pipelines across multiple projects via Shared Libraries in Jenkins.
  • Modernized continuous integration environment via job configuration as code model.
  • Used Jenkins Job DSL and Pipelines to standardize job phases to build, sonar, deploy, and Selenium testing.
  • Automated deployments and use of Docker for all development environment-based deployments to Tomcat, JBoss, etc.
Technologies: Jenkins, Jenkins Pipeline, Jenkins Job DSL, Ansible, Docker, Bash Script, Mercurial, CI/CD Pipelines, Shell Scripting, GitLab, DevOps Engineer, SQL, Containerization, Continuous Delivery (CD)

Senior DevOps Consultant

2018 - 2018
TD Bank Group
  • Introduced Docker-based Jenkins agents. Standardized Jenkins images in the enterprise Docker repository.
  • Implemented Docker Swarm for Docker orchestration for all Jenkins agents in the build farm.
  • Modernized continuous integration environment via job "configuration as code" model.
Technologies: Java 8, Apache Maven, Bitbucket, Jenkins, Jenkins Pipeline, Jenkins Job DSL, SonarQube, Docker, Docker Swarm, Bash, CI/CD Pipelines

Senior DevOps Consultant

2017 - 2018
Home Depot
  • Used Google Compute CLI to provision servers with custom images and resources.
  • Automated the provisioning of the AEM, Hybris, Solr, MySQL, and Apache stack to the Google Compute.
  • Scaled the deployment of 15 concurrent branches X5 projects via Jenkins, JobDSL, and Bamboo to the Google Cloud.
Technologies: Java, Apache Maven, Stash, Jenkins, Bamboo, Sonar, Ansible, Docker, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Bash, CI/CD Pipelines

Senior DevOps Consultant

2017 - 2017
Fidelity Investments
  • Architected a modern Jenkins CI farm, leveraging labels to scale Linux, Windows, and Docker build agents.
  • Utilized Jenkins Job DSL and Pipelines to automate job creation through Groovy configuration in GitLab.
  • Implemented Docker for all development environment deployments to Tomcat, JBoss, and others.
  • Provided coaching and training for all Ant to Maven migrations and promoted best practices in Maven builds.
Technologies: Java, Apache Maven, GitLab, Jenkins, Jenkins Job DSL, Jenkins Pipeline, SonarQube, Docker, CI/CD Pipelines

Senior DevOps Consultant

2015 - 2017
Scotiabank
  • Implemented Jenkins Job DSL and Pipelines to create build jobs through configuration files in Bitbucket automatically.
  • Integrated the creation of Docker images as deployment environments published to the internal Docker repository.
  • Helped to define a GitFlow-based release strategy, versioning scheme, and relation to Jenkins.
  • Defined a Jenkins master-multi-agent architecture and utilized labels for scaling build loads.
  • Created Vagrant/Ansible scripts to deploy a Red Hat 7 continuous integration environment.
  • Modified Ansible templates for the installation and configuration of CI tools such as Jenkins, Artifactory, Sonar, etc.
  • Assisted in the configuration of the Atlassian suite, including Bitbucket, Jira, and Confluence.
Technologies: Java, Apache Maven, Git, Jenkins Pipeline, Jenkins Job DSL, Jenkins, Nexus, Artifactory, SonarQube, Sonar, Linux, Vagrant, Ansible, Docker, Bash, CI/CD Pipelines

Senior CI/CD Consultant

2015 - 2015
City of Los Angeles, CA
  • Migrated a 10+ component RAD Eclipse project, including web services, web app, and EJB, into the Maven build system.
  • Supported continuous integration environment using Bamboo, Maven, Nexus, and Sonar.
  • Took responsibility for Nexus repository architecture, administration, user support, and training.
  • Defined the use of snapshot and release repositories and set up policies for publishing to Nexus via Jenkins.
Technologies: Java, Apache Ant, Apache Maven, Subversion (SVN), Bamboo, Nexus, SonarQube, Linux, CI/CD Pipelines

Senior CI/CD Consultant

2014 - 2015
Weight Watchers
  • Supported continuous integration environment using Jenkins, Maven, Artifactory, GitFlow, and Sonar.
  • Helped to identify and introduce the use of Jenkins Job DSL plugin to treat configuration as code.
  • Oversaw artifactory repository architecture, administration, user support, and training.
  • Defined the use of snapshot and release repositories. Set up policies for publishing to Artifactory via Jenkins.
  • Used Vagrant and Ansible to create reproducible virtual machines (VMs) with applications pre-installed and configured.
  • Used AWS console and AWS CLI to launch and manage VMs.
Technologies: Java, Apache Ant, Apache Maven, GitFlow, Jenkins, Artifactory, SonarQube, Jira, Confluence, Linux, CI/CD Pipelines

Senior Java/CI Consultant

2009 - 2015
United States Patent & Trademark Office
  • Implemented continuous integration via Build Forge on over 25 projects.
  • Automated Ant/Maven/.NET builds. Automated deployments to Tomcat and WebSphere.
  • Implemented delivery of code quality metrics (Sonar) and built notifications to developers and team.
  • Developed web services using Apache Axis2 and CXF frameworks and deployed via WebSphere.
  • Migrated multiple projects from Ant to Maven. Maintained Nexus (Maven repo) and Sonar servers.
  • Helped define design and coding standards and enforced these via reviews and automated code scans.
  • Responsible for the adoption of agile over aspects of software requirements, development, and delivery.
  • Created training material and delivered presentations to users on entire Rational Suite.
  • Installed, configured, and administered Rational Quality Manager and Rational Insight.
  • Set up project templates and provided training on guidelines for setting up test plans, cases, and execution.
Technologies: Java, Apache Maven, Nexus, IBM Rational ClearQuest, IBM Rational ClearCase, IBM Rational, Solaris, Oracle 9g, Windows

Senior DevOps Consultant

2013 - 2014
TIAA
  • Responsible for Sonar system administration, user support, training, adoption, and evangelism.
  • Performed multiple Sonar upgrades of application, database schema, plug ins, sonar-runner client.
  • Supported Continuous Integration using Build Forge, RTC, RAM, and Sonar for 100’s of users.
  • Assisted in migration of projects from Ant to Gradle and discovering dependencies via Artifactory.
Technologies: Java, Apache Ant, Apache Maven, Gradle, IBM RTC, Artifactory, SonarQube, Windows, Linux

Senior CI/CD Consultant

2013 - 2013
Food and Nutrition Service
  • Created continuous integration solution using CruiseControl, Nexus, Maven, and Sonar.
  • Independently migrated a 10-person team with 15 modules from Ant to Maven in the build process.
  • Set up CruiseControl to perform CI builds, nightly Sonar builds, and weekly development deployments.
  • Created and provided training content to teams on best practices for development in a CI environment.
Technologies: Java, Apache Ant, Apache Maven, CVS, CruiseControl, Nexus, SonarQube

Senior CI/CD Consultant

2013 - 2013
Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield
  • Created continuous integration solution using Jenkins, Serena Dimensions, and Sonar.
  • Configured Jenkins to perform daily CI developer builds for a team of 10 and nightly Sonar builds.
  • Set up and configured Nexus as a Maven dependency manager and configured internal repositories.
Technologies: Java, Apache Ant, Apache Maven, Jenkins, Nexus, SonarQube

Senior CI/CD Consultant

2012 - 2012
Liberty Mutual Insurance
  • Developed continuous integration and delivery solutions with a blend of IBM Rational and open-source tools.
  • Created documentation providing architecture and best practices for Rational Suite solutions.
  • Set up and configured Nexus as the Maven repository for internal and external dependencies.
  • Configured Sonar as the code quality solution for Java and .NET projects.
  • Set up Build Forge with Ant, Maven, and NAnt projects for continuous integration builds.
  • Configured IBM Rational Asset Manager to store release artifacts.
  • Implemented lifecycle workflow with Build Forge policy to initiate deployment.
  • Configured Build Forge to perform deployments to IBM WebSphere and Tomcat environments.
Technologies: Java, Apache Maven, Nexus, IBM Rational

Senior Consultant

2008 - 2009
SharePoint Delivery
  • Architected and developed new features for J2EE application. Feature deliveries ranged up to 2 weeks.
  • Performed as a speaker at technology conferences demonstrating SharePoint functionality.
  • Designed, configured, and deployed a six-server farm for a SharePoint portal.
  • Developed custom web parts in C# to display informational widgets.
  • Trained users on collaboration tools and instructed local administrators on permission management and Access Control Lists (ACLs).
Technologies: WebLogic, Oracle, Solaris, SharePoint, SQL Server 2000

Senior Java/J2EE Consultant

2007 - 2008
SAIC
  • Developed application to allow for complex combinations of project configurations, builds, and deployments.
  • Applied JMX API to authenticate and use various JMX agents: Websphere, CruiseControl, ScriptProxy.
  • Created a JMX agent to handle authentication, remote requests for script execution, script response, and reporting.
  • Developed Ant scripts for automated build / deployment of projects to over 10 environment configurations.
  • Supported feature requests of Architects and Developers for improving build, deployment, and testing.
Technologies: Java, Apache Ant, CruiseControl, JUnit, WebSphere, Apache Tomcat, IBM Db2, LDAP, Eclipse IDE, IBM Rational, Solar

Team Lead/Java Architect

2003 - 2007
Federal Council
  • Served as team lead and provided technical mentoring and managed 2-4 developers.
  • Acted as a lead contributor to major components of the application, including cashier terminal, credit card processing, fee calculation, message processing, device communication, and vehicle workflow management.
  • Coordinated with contractors, management, development team, and testers to drive the implementation process.
  • Resolving many critical bugs as a key player under timeline pressure to bring the product to client demonstrable quality.
  • Oversaw a number of administration tasks on the Oracle WebLogic Server database.
  • Constantly recognized for introducing application-wide improvements such as optimizations, log management, etc.
  • Advocated for best practices, including refactoring, JUnit testing, Javadoc documentation, and usage of open-source tools.
Technologies: Java, Swing, JUnit, Apache Ant, WebLogic, JProfiler, Oracle, PostgreSQL, CVS, Solaris

Senior Java/J2EE Consultant

2002 - 2003
Ford Motor Company
  • Acted as a senior consultant in a team to design and develop a customer service web application.
  • Designed UML class and sequence diagrams relating to persistence, business, and presentation layers.
  • Implemented various J2EE design patterns, including Facade, data access object (DAO), Transfer Objects, and Factory.
  • Resolved production-level bugs employing Java debuggers, logs, and exception traces.
  • Created HTML templates with appropriate user entry controls from business specifications.
  • Created and enhanced existing Ant tasks to automate source retrieval, compiling Java and SQL code, deploying to WebLogic environment, and running JUnit regression tests.
  • Implemented JavaScript logic to handle user entry validation and navigation between frames.
Technologies: Java, JUnit, Apache Ant, WebLogic, IBM Db2, Unix

.NET Consultant

2001 - 2002
InfoDock Consulting
  • Architected an ASP.NET application to allow users to perform order fulfillment.
  • Implemented application in coordination with management, business analysts, and end users.
  • Developed an application to convert data from the Microsoft Access database into various Excel reports on employee/overtime hours, holidays, etc.
Technologies: Visual Studio, SQL Server 2000, Visual Basic, Windows

Java Consultant

2000 - 2001
iRise
  • Acted as a senior consultant in a team of six to design and develop an application that tracks project histories and consultant skills.
  • Designed and implemented the application framework based on Jakarta Struts.
  • Mentored other developers in their development tasks and environment configuration.
  • Developed an application that allowed outside parties to access a cost calculation engine via an HTTP request and receive the response in XML.
  • Solved many project-critical performance problems via database tuning and code redesigns.
  • Gained invaluable consulting and project management experience in the processes of prototyping, designing, developing, functionality, and performance testing through to production.
  • Acted as a Java consultant in a team to produce an application for online order entry and querying.
  • Developed a framework using J2EE and WebLogic application server.
Technologies: Java, Jakarta Server Pages (JSP), Enterprise Java Beans (EJB), Apache Ant, WebLogic, SQL Server 2000, Linux

Software Engineer

1999 - 1999
M.B Fosters
  • Helped to design and prototype 2-phase commit capability for DBMS product.
  • Utilized self-developed performance analysis techniques to resolve complicated optimization problem.
  • Achieved improvements over 30-fold in DBMS product.
  • Corrected and enhanced multi-threading capabilities of ODBC driver.
  • Gained experience with socket programming and TCP/IP concepts for Unix, Windows, and MPE operating systems.
Technologies: C, C++, GDB, Gprof, Apache, CVS, Unix

Generative Art and Visualization in Open Brush VR

https://github.com/dwillington/open-brush
An exploration of generative art and equation visualization in Open Brush VR in 3D. I created and modified existing code to create 2D and 3D generative art. I also explored visualizing equations such as the Cardioid, Lorenz Attractor, Conway's Game of Life, and geodesic domes.

3-tier Node Application

https://youtu.be/CWU6M8U4Zd0
A 3-tier Node application, which is, in fact, a minimalist proof of concept app to demonstrate only my communication style and abilities. I chose GCP out of comfort. The environment was provided in Ansible, as I've used this tool consistently over my last three projects.

Libraries/APIs

Jenkins Pipeline, Jenkins Job DSL

Tools

Jenkins, Ansible, Apache Maven, GitLab, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Helm, Bitbucket, GitHub, ELK (Elastic Stack), Terraform, Notepad++, VirtualBox, Mercurial, AWS CloudFormation, Kibana, Logstash, Azure Key Vault, SonarQube, Docker Swarm, Stash, Bamboo, Sonar, Git, Artifactory, Vagrant, Apache Ant, Subversion (SVN), Jira, Confluence, Gradle, IBM RTC, CVS, IBM Rational, IBM Rational ClearQuest, IBM Rational ClearCase, Apache Tomcat, Eclipse IDE, JProfiler, Visual Studio, GDB, Gprof, Apache, AWS CLI

Paradigms

Continuous Integration (CI), DevOps, Continuous Delivery (CD)

Other

CI/CD Pipelines, Shell Scripting, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Containerization, Monitoring, GitHub Actions, Mathematics, DevOps Engineer, Amazon RDS, Google Cloud Build, GitFlow, CruiseControl, WebLogic, LDAP, Solar, Enterprise Java Beans (EJB), AWS DevOps

Languages

Bash Script, Python, Groovy, Java 10, Python 3, JavaScript, Bash, SQL, Java 8, Java, Visual Basic, C, C++

Platforms

Linux, Kubernetes, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Ubuntu, Windows, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Azure, Google App Engine, Docker, Oracle, Linux CentOS 7, Nexus, Solaris, SharePoint, WebSphere, Unix, WebSphere Information Integrator

Storage

Databases, JSON, Elasticsearch, PostgreSQL, Oracle 9g, SQL Server 2000, IBM Db2, MariaDB, MySQL, MySQL/MariaDB

Frameworks

Windows PowerShell, JUnit, Swing, Jakarta Server Pages (JSP)

1995 - 2000

Bachelor of Math Degree in Computer Science

University of Waterloo - Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

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