Mikhail is available for hire

Mikhail Janowski

Verified Expert in Engineering

Software Developer

Location

Cape Town, South Africa

Toptal Member Since

May 9, 2022

Mikhail has always been interested in how things work, which led him down a very technical career path, starting with software development in the edtech industry. He gained experience with a number of languages, frameworks, and design patterns and then moved on to DevOps and cloud infrastructure. This taught him the importance of automation and system architecture. Now he's focusing on blockchain and renewable energy, which he's always been passionate about.

DNS Amazon RDS System Administration JavaScript CSS Moodle Amazon EC2 Amazon Web Services (AWS)MySQL Ansible Amazon S3 (AWS S3)DevOps Continuous Deployment AWS CloudFormation Agile Software Development

Portfolio

Regent Renewables

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Solidity, CI/CD Pipelines, Web3.js, Fintech...

Ansible, Kubernetes, Docker, Amazon Web Services (AWS), DevOps, Terraform...

GetSmarter

Ansible, Ruby on Rails (RoR), PHP, Amazon Web Services (AWS), DevOps, Terraform...

Experience

Amazon EC2 - 6 years Ansible - 5 years Amazon RDS - 5 years AWS CloudFormation - 4 years AWS Lambda - 4 years Kubernetes - 3 years Node.js - 2 years

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Amazon Web Services (AWS), AWS CloudFormation, Node.js, Vue

The most amazing...

...thing I've developed is a Web3 platform built with Vue.js and hosted on AWS. It uses Lambda and CloudFront and is integrated with an Ethereum smart contract.

Work Experience

Chief Technology Officer

2021 - PRESENT

Regent Renewables

Developed a blockchain-based crowdfunding app for renewable energy projects.
Deployed the app to AWS using the Serverless Framework, AWS CloudFront, and AWS Lambda.
Set up a CI/CD pipeline that deploys the app to multiple environments.
Integrated a single sign-on solution for user authentication.
Integrated a know your customer service into the app for user verification.

Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Solidity, CI/CD Pipelines, Web3.js, Fintech, Continuous Integration (CI), Amazon S3 (AWS S3), AWS Lambda, Serverless, Architecture, GitHub, AWS DevOps, Continuous Deployment, DNS, Content Delivery Networks (CDN), IT Infrastructure, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), SSL Certificates, JavaScript, HTML, CSS

Director of Cloud Infrastructure

2017 - 2021

2U

Managed the DevOps team of five engineers at 2U Cape Town. This included ensuring that all cloud infrastructure for the GetSmarter brand and other 2U systems was stable, scalable, and secure.
Migrated about 30 online campus environments as well as many microservices to Kubernetes. We had hundreds of pods running on three different clusters.
Configured deployment pipelines to meet the needs of three development teams and one data team. In total, there were about 15 applications and 30 engineers.
Migrated all our monitoring and logging from New Relic to Datadog.

Technologies: Ansible, Kubernetes, Docker, Amazon Web Services (AWS), DevOps, Terraform, CI/CD Pipelines, PostgreSQL, Linux, MySQL, NGINX, Bash, Python, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Amazon EC2, Continuous Integration (CI), Amazon S3 (AWS S3), AWS Lambda, Serverless, AWS IAM, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS), PHP, Moodle, Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI), E-learning, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Architecture, Security, GitHub, AWS DevOps, Learning Management Systems (LMS), Continuous Deployment, CentOS, System Administration, API Gateways, Docker Hub, DNS, Content Delivery Networks (CDN), Amazon EKS, IT Infrastructure, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Datadog, SSL Certificates, JavaScript, HTML, CSS

Head of Web Infrastructure

2016 - 2017

GetSmarter

Managed the servers for internal and customer-facing business applications, such as CRM systems, marketing websites, and virtual learning environments.
Migrated four large servers to AWS using Ansible and redesigned applications to use various AWS services.
Set up the CI/CD processes for the PHP and Moodle application to AWS using Codeship.

Technologies: Ansible, Ruby on Rails (RoR), PHP, Amazon Web Services (AWS), DevOps, Terraform, CI/CD Pipelines, PostgreSQL, Linux, MySQL, NGINX, Bash, Python, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Amazon EC2, Continuous Integration (CI), Amazon S3 (AWS S3), AWS Lambda, AWS IAM, Moodle, Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI), E-learning, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Architecture, Security, GitLab, GitHub, AWS DevOps, Learning Management Systems (LMS), Continuous Deployment, CentOS, System Administration, API Gateways, Docker Hub, DNS, Content Delivery Networks (CDN), Amazon EKS, IT Infrastructure, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Datadog, SSL Certificates, JavaScript, HTML, CSS

Software Developer

2014 - 2016

GetSmarter

Developed the new Moodle themes and plugins for the company's virtual learning environment.
Set up CI/CD pipelines using Codeship for Moodle applications.
Built the CI/CD pipelines using Codeship for Ruby on Rails applications.
Constructed the test-driven development (TDD) process for Ruby on Rails applications.

Technologies: PHP, Ruby, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Moodle, MySQL, Amazon EC2, Continuous Integration (CI), E-learning, GitHub, Learning Management Systems (LMS), DNS, IT Infrastructure, Heroku, JavaScript, HTML, CSS

Experience

University of Oxford Online Campus

https://oxford.onlinecampus.getsmarter.com/

DevOps architecture for the University of Oxford Saïd Business School Online Campus. It hosts all online activity and course content for a number of short courses offered by Oxford. I designed the system to be highly scalable and have complete data redundancy. I worked with the development team to meet all their technical requirements, ensure they had an easy and smooth deployment process, and monitor the application.

GetSmarter eCommerce Site

https://www.getsmarter.com/

DevOps architecture for the GetSmarter eCommerce website. I acted as the DevOps team lead on this project, helping manage the project and also contributing to it technically. I liaised with many teams across the business to ensure that all systems were integrated correctly to make the new site launch a success.

Metaview Web3 Site

A Web3 site for a cryptocurrency project. I set up the cloud infrastructure for the site on AWS and used AWS CloudFront, AWS Lambda, and MongoDB. I was also heavily involved in developing the single-page web app, back-end API, and smart contract.

Skills

Languages

PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Bash, Solidity, Ruby, Python

Tools

AWS CloudFormation, Ansible, Moodle, NGINX, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Docker Hub, Codeship, Terraform, GitHub, Amazon CloudFront CDN, Amazon EKS, Helm, AWS IAM, GitLab, Traefik, MongoDB Atlas, Amazon Simple Queue Service (SQS)

Paradigms

Agile Software Development, DevOps, Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Deployment, Management

Platforms

Docker, Amazon EC2, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Kubernetes, Buildkite, AWS Lambda, Heroku, CentOS, New Relic, Jupyter Notebook, Blockchain, Linux, Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Storage

Datadog, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), MySQL, Amazon EFS, PostgreSQL, MongoDB

Other

Amazon RDS, CI/CD Pipelines, System Administration, DNS, Content Delivery Networks (CDN), IT Infrastructure, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Infrastructure as Code (IaC), AWS DevOps, DevOps Engineer, Fintech, Serverless, Architecture, Security, Learning Management Systems (LMS), API Gateways, SSL Certificates, Business Analysis, Ethers.js, Ethereum Smart Contracts, Machine Learning, Innovation, Business Administration, Big Data, Data Analytics, Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI)

Frameworks

Express.js, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Serverless Framework, Truffle

Libraries/APIs

Node.js, Vue, Web3.js

Industry Expertise

E-learning

Education

2010 - 2013

Honours Degree in Information Systems

University of Cape Town - Cape Town, South Africa

Certifications

APRIL 2021 - PRESENT

Blockchain Technologies: Business Innovation and Application

MIT Sloan School of Management

FEBRUARY 2021 - PRESENT

MBA Essentials

London School of Economics and Political Science

JUNE 2016 - PRESENT

Big Data and Social Analytics

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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