Carlos Sanabria
Verified Expert in Engineering
Cloud Architect and Developer
San Diego, CA, United States
Toptal member since April 4, 2023
Carlos is a highly skilled problem solver passionate about cloud technology, automation, and empowering others to grow. With over seven years of experience designing and deploying cloud-native solutions for large enterprise customers at AWS and Google Cloud, he possesses a deep understanding of the technical landscape and a talent for finding innovative solutions to complex problems. Carlos's commitment to excellence and collaboration makes him an invaluable partner to clients and colleagues.
Portfolio
Experience
- High Availability Disaster Recovery (HADR) - 20 years
- Presentations - 20 years
- Solution Architecture - 20 years
- Programming - 20 years
- DevOps - 8 years
- Python - 8 years
- Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 7 years
- Google Cloud Platform (GCP) - 2 years
Availability
Preferred Environment
Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Amazon Web Services (AWS), Terraform, Python, Linux, Networking, SQL, GitOps, DevOps, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Architecture, Cloud Services
The most amazing...
...project I've worked on was designing and developing an IoT platform on AWS to support millions of devices worldwide.
Work Experience
Industry Solutions Architect
Google Cloud
- Designed technical architecture for solutions for food and agriculture industry clients based on Google Cloud products such as BigQuery and Looker, including demand sensing, fleet routing optimization, and trade promotion optimization.
- Deployed and supported the internal Google Cloud Cortex Framework environment used to design and build solutions for the consumer packaged goods industry.
- Led a team that integrated the C3.ai data platform with Google Cloud Cortex Framework to reduce deployment time for customers by half.
Customer Delivery Architect
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Defined the scope and technical architecture and led the execution of a multi-application migration from an on-premise to a hybrid cloud architecture for an industry pioneer in accelerated computing.
- Partnered with AWS Professional Services leaders to understand customer business challenges and collaboratively propose a technical plan and a set of outcomes that would result in an engagement.
- Ensured the successful delivery of AWS Professional Services engagements by staying meaningfully engaged with customers and leading the technical architecture team during delivery.
Solutions Architect
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Designed a new IoT platform based on AWS IoT Core for the Wemo Mini Smart Plug launch. Helped Belkin during the migration and adoption of new microcontroller-based hardware that achieved a 30% OPEX reduction while supporting millions of devices.
- Developed a machine learning forecasting model based on Amazon SageMaker DeepAR to predict foot traffic in retail stores of a major footwear company across North America, allowing for improved inventory allocation and workforce management.
- Provided architectural guidance to migrate a C# and .NET Framework-based eCommerce application from a monolithic Windows-based architecture to a .NET Core-based microservices architecture running on containers.
- Developed a self-service catalog of pre-approved cloud infrastructure blueprints to accelerate the adoption while reducing security risks for new applications at a global Fortune 1000 telecommunications company.
- Provided infrastructure and application architectural guidance and assistance in designing applications and services that are secure, cost-efficient, scalable, reliable, and performant.
- Helped customers become innovative disruptors in their respective industries through new business models and successful adoption of Amazon's 195+ cloud offerings.
Staff Solutions Architect
VMware
- Designed and drafted a plan to migrate a complete on-premises data center of several hundred vSphere hosts to VMware Cloud on AWS for a multinational media and entertainment studio.
- Created a solution to implement virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) technology at branches of a US occupational health provider, which allowed increased availability and resiliency by preventing disruptions from failing hardware in remote locations.
- Designed a solution to allow aerospace engineers to work in highly-secure HPC environments while sharing workspaces and data center resources between projects to reduce operational costs and maintain strict project resource access separation.
- Defined and delivered strategy, assessment, and solution workshops to support complex transformation initiatives, including IT operations modernization.
- Supported a medical device manufacturer to accelerate the integration of a newly acquired company by allowing their new employees full access to every parent company's applications in 60 days.
- Defined a strategic technical plan with account teams, specialists, product managers, and other stakeholders to address clients' primary business initiatives and jointly develop technical solutions.
Senior Systems Engineer
VMware
- Designed and implemented a private cloud environment for one of Chile's leading commercial banks using VMware vCloud Automation Center technology.
- Proposed, designed, and led initial stages to transform one of Chile's main retailer's IT operations from a ticket-centered, reactive process to a modern private cloud with self-service that reduced project initiation from 10 weeks to two days.
- Implemented training environment used during six customer events in South America and led teams in charge of building the IT platform and delivering the training material at each venue.
- Designed and delivered Chile's first local public cloud offering for GTD, a telecommunications company. The IaaS platform was based on VMware vCloud Director technology and provided GTD customers with complete self-service in resource procurement.
- Acted as a subject matter expert on cloud computing, IaaS, PaaS, and network virtualization, helping clients adopt higher-value solutions that helped them modernize and make their IT operations more agile.
Principal Consultant
Citrix
- Improved Telefonica Chile's client access security posture by implementing custom authentication to verify the user's physical location. Implemented the solution using Citrix, RSA SecurID, and X.509 client certificate authentication technology.
- Led the design and implementation of a project that delivered every application to every Telefonica Chile employee on the first day after their landline and mobile businesses merged. Telefonica's customer feedback was very positive.
- Developed best practices and optimization techniques for XenServer and trained a team of Citrix consultants in the Americas.
- Consulted critical clients on their overall business and strategic IT plans to effectively adopt products and services that supported their business objectives and initiatives.
Sales Engineer
Citrix
- Scaled Colombia's leading newspaper website traffic capacity tenfold by using NetScaler ADCs, dynamic caching, and SSL offloading. The new infrastructure eliminated service outages after massive interest news events crashed the site in the past.
- Developed and delivered a technical enablement plan to support Citrix partners in Latin America adopting NetScaler after the company's acquisition.
- Provided subject matter expertise on Citrix application networking group technology—NetScaler, WANScaler, Application Firewall, and Access Gateway—for traditional XenApp and XenDesktop Spanish-speaking clients and partners in the Americas.
Solutions Architect
Serban Group (formerly Access Team)
- Established a server-based computing technical practice and hired and developed an initial team of technical consultants delivering client projects.
- Planned and executed the company's strategic technical pivot from a generic VAR of Microsoft products to a higher-value advisor with a portfolio of application delivery and security solutions based on Citrix, RSA, and ISS Proventia products.
- Designed and implemented the application delivery platform for Cementos Argos, a leading Colombian cement producer. The platform was critical to launching their newly developed JD Edwards ERP following the merger of multiple smaller companies.
- Reclaimed one hour daily for each salesperson at a local wine and liquor distributor in Colombia by implementing an application access platform that enabled remote sales reporting, which saved representatives' travel time.
Experience
Belkin Wemo IoT Platform
https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/case-studies/belkin-case-study/I created a new IoT architecture centered around AWS IoT Core and collaborated with a team of developers to migrate their monolithic Java application to an event-based architecture using MQTT as the primary communication protocol between client devices and servers. I also provided architectural guidance to the internal hardware team and security operations center (SOC) vendor to migrate the Wemo Smart Plug from running Linux on a Cortex CPU-based device to running FreeRTOS on a more cost-efficient microcontroller. Both initiatives achieved a 30% reduction in operational costs, improved user experience by reducing command and control round trip time in half, and reduced the development time of new features in half.
Deckers Brands
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y3ddj06OOs&t=30m54sI designed the cloud architecture to modernize their omnichannel application platform, which included critical eCommerce services, from a monolithic architecture based on .NET Framework on Microsoft Windows Servers to a microservices architecture running .NET Core on Linux-based ECS containers or Lambda on AWS. It allowed Deckers to scale their platform during peak sales events and improve their customer experience by setting up regional services to reduce latency and risk and improve service availability.
Foot Traffic Forecast for Retail Stores
I was the technical lead for the project with one data scientist from the partner and one data engineer from the customer to develop a solution to predict the foot traffic of retail stores in the United States with a p95 error smaller than 10%. I developed the solution with the DeepAR algorithm on Amazon SageMaker using data from hardware sensors at retail locations.
Chatbot for Reordering Office Supplies
I designed and created a chatbot that could receive phone calls or Slack messages to allow customers to repeat orders for office supplies. I developed this solution as an independent front end using Amazon Connect to handle incoming phone calls and logic routing, Amazon Lex to provide intent detection and Slack integration, and AWS Lambda functions to process the data and send the API request to the fulfillment service.
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Physics
Universidad de los Andes - Bogota, Colombia
Certifications
GCP Professional Cloud Architect
Google Cloud
AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Amazon Web Services
AWS Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional
Amazon Web Services
Skills
Tools
Google Compute Engine (GCE), Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), VMware, VMware vSphere, Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Citrix XenApp, Citrix NetScaler, Citrix XenServer, VPN, Terraform, Amazon SageMaker, Amazon EKS, Git, AWS CloudFormation, Looker, Cloud Dataflow, Amazon Lex, Amazon Connect, Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS), Jira
Languages
SAML, Python, SQL, Java, C
Platforms
Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Amazon Web Services (AWS), Citrix, Windows Server, AWS Lambda, Amazon EC2, Linux, Google Cloud SDK, AWS IoT, Jupyter Notebook, Kubernetes
Storage
Google Cloud Storage, Azure Active Directory, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Database Security, Company Databases
Paradigms
DevOps, Agile
Other
Scripting, Google Cloud Build, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Technical Architecture, Technical Requirements, AWS Cloud Architecture, VMware Horizon, Cloud Architecture, AWS DevOps, System Design, Cloud Computing, Consulting, Web Services, Scope of Work (SOW), Professional Services, Virtualization, VMware NSX, Storage, High Availability Disaster Recovery (HADR), Web Application Firewall (WAF), Presentations, X.509 Certificates, Load Balancers, Containers, Amazon API Gateway, CI/CD Pipelines, DevOps Engineer, AWS VPN, Architecture, Cloud Services, Networking, GitOps, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Programming, Machine Learning, Leadership, Stakeholder Management, Business Requirements, Cloud Migration, Amazon Kinesis, Integration, vCloud Automation Center, Internet of Things (IoT), Data Analytics, AWS Marketplace, Solution Architecture, Google BigQuery, Partner Management, AirWatch, IT Project Management, Enterprise Architecture, Citrix XenDesktop, DeepAR, Configuration Management, Personally Identifiable Information (PII), Machine Learning Operations (MLOps), SOC 2
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