Mikko is available for hire
Hire MikkoMikko Kokkonen
Verified Expert in Engineering
System Administrator and Developer
Location
Hamburg, Germany
Toptal Member Since
April 13, 2022
Mikko is an experienced DevOps engineer and developer with almost two decades of professional experience in programming and systems administration. He focuses on implementing modern production environments based on the cloud while utilizing the latest best practices. Mikko always ensures that companies have the best and most reliable infrastructure for production.
Portfolio
1KOMMA5
Ruby on Rails (RoR), GitHub, SQL, Amazon RDS
Leap Technologies Inc.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Terraform...
Kwara GmbH
Engineering Management, DevOps, Ruby, Kubernetes, Python, Ruby on Rails (RoR)...
Experience
Availability
Full-time
Preferred Environment
DevOps, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Ruby, Terragrunt, Terraform, Containerization, GitHub
The most amazing...
...thing I've designed and implemented was a full web experience with automated CI/CD pipelines, including review environments for pull request reviews.
Work Experience
Senior Software Engineer
2023 - PRESENT
1KOMMA5
- Evaluated existing codebase and planned improvements for architecture and code quality to ensure the platform's scalability.
- Prepared architecture and platform for a global launch, scaling platform usage from a few partners in one country to several across three countries.
- Improved development process by ensuring best practices of the Agile methodology is followed.
Technologies: Ruby on Rails (RoR), GitHub, SQL, Amazon RDS
Senior Site Reliability DevOps Engineer
2022 - 2023
Leap Technologies Inc.
- Reduced the overall AWS bill by 20% with cost management and tracking. Utilized Spot instances, implemented observability to right-size workloads and per-customer cost tracking.
- Implemented and ensured the company's SOC 2 controls were in place and followed. Successfully ensured the audit without any exceptions.
- Planned and executed the successful migration of the legacy environment from AWS ECS to Kubernetes (EKS).
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Terraform, DevSecOps, Scripting, Docker, Git, CI/CD Pipelines, Python, Bash, Kubernetes, Amazon EKS, DevOps Engineer, GitHub, Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS), SQL, Amazon RDS, AWS IAM, AWS Lambda, Amazon Simple Email Service (SES), AWS Simple Notification Service (SNS), AWS DevOps
Engineering Manager
2022 - 2022
Kwara GmbH
- Set up a new engineering hiring process to ensure the fast and simple hiring of the best candidates.
- Established regular one-on-ones and catchups with the team to ensure they were satisfied and that any issues affecting the team were quickly resolved.
- Implemented the improved production environment using Kubernetes and AWS services.
Technologies: Engineering Management, DevOps, Ruby, Kubernetes, Python, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Linux, PostgreSQL, Amazon EKS, Terragrunt, Terraform, CI/CD Pipelines, GitHub Actions, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, Git, Bash, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Infrastructure, DevOps Engineer, GitHub, SQL, Amazon RDS, AWS IAM, AWS Lambda, Amazon Simple Email Service (SES), AWS Simple Notification Service (SNS), AWS DevOps
CPO | Lead Developer
2018 - 2022
ItsMyCargo
- Defined and executed product management framework and best practices such as Agile methodology, implemented Jira as a tracking tool, and followed up on important metrics in the development team.
- Implemented a modern production infrastructure by defining everything as Terraform IaaC and implementing a Kubernetes-based environment.
- Mentored and guided engineers on important design decisions and best practices within the codebase.
- Implemented the best practices with strict code reviews and test-driven development within the development team, ensuring well-tested code and successfully reducing the number of customer-facing bugs.
- Introduced Scrum methodology to the development team and improved the team's predictability of deliveries within the development process.
Technologies: Product Management, DevOps, Terraform, Ruby, Kubernetes, Python, Ruby on Rails (RoR), Linux, PostgreSQL, Amazon EKS, Terragrunt, PostGIS, CI/CD Pipelines, GitHub Actions, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, Git, Bash, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Infrastructure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), DevOps Engineer, GitHub, Jenkins, Amazon EC2, SQL, AWS CodeBuild, Amazon RDS, AWS IAM, AWS Lambda, Amazon Simple Email Service (SES), AWS Simple Notification Service (SNS), AWS DevOps
Software Developer
2017 - 2018
Appear Here
- Implemented the component-based rails applications (CBRA) approach to solve technical debt within the legacy codebase, allowing cleaner and better-organized code to be proceeds easier.
- Defined the hiring process and helped scale the engineering team from five engineers to fifteen by screening candidates and conducting technical interviews.
- Implemented a better and faster CI/CD pipeline using Jenkins and deployments on AWS Fargate.
- Mentored and coached developers to help them with their daily coding challenges and ensured and shared knowledge on improving the codebase and using the best approaches and solutions.
Technologies: Ruby, Ruby on Rails (RoR), PostgreSQL, PostGIS, CI/CD Pipelines, DevOps, Linux, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, Git, Bash, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Infrastructure, DevOps Engineer, GitHub, Jenkins, Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS), Amazon EC2, SQL, AWS CodeBuild, Amazon RDS, AWS IAM, Amazon Simple Email Service (SES), AWS Simple Notification Service (SNS), AWS DevOps
Software Developer
2016 - 2017
Stratajet
- Implemented new infrastructure based on AWS Auto Scaling groups, allowing atomic deployments with automatic healing in case of bad deployments and automated scaling.
- Mentored and coached other developers on the best code practices and solutions to daily challenges.
- Implemented the CI/CD pipeline using AWS CloudFormation for infrastructure automation and Jenkins with custom pipeline functions for running tests and deployments.
Technologies: Ruby on Rails (RoR), PostgreSQL, DevOps, Ruby, Linux, Terraform, CI/CD Pipelines, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, Git, Bash, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Infrastructure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), DevOps Engineer, Jenkins, Amazon EC2, SQL, Amazon RDS, AWS IAM, Amazon Simple Email Service (SES), AWS Simple Notification Service (SNS), AWS DevOps
Founder
2007 - 2017
Owl Forestry
- Gathered business requirements and provided production support to deliver a digital signage solution for the client.
- Implemented the digital magazine publishing platform that included a Ruby on Rails-based management portal for publishers and an iOS application for iPad and iPhone to enable consumers to read published magazines.
- Reimplemented an extensive ebook for a large Finnish publisher for the iOS platform; the ebook was initially developed for the Symbian platform that needed to be updated for iOS.
Technologies: Ruby, Ruby on Rails (RoR), PostgreSQL, Linux, CI/CD Pipelines, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Git, Bash, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Infrastructure, DevOps Engineer, GitHub, Jenkins, Amazon EC2, SQL, Amazon RDS, AWS IAM, Amazon Simple Email Service (SES), AWS DevOps
Senior Software Developer
2015 - 2016
Wimdu
- Migrated application from the managed servers to full AWS cloud infrastructure, allowing the application to auto-scale and auto-heal utilizing autoscaling groups.
- Improved the developer productivity by implementing better Jenkins pipelines, decreasing build times, and allowing better notifications and error messages when tests failed.
- Implemented the first production deployment pipeline for microservices using Jenkins pipelines and Puppet-managed servers for deploying Docker-based containers.
Technologies: Ruby on Rails (RoR), Ruby, Linux, PostgreSQL, CI/CD Pipelines, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, Git, Bash, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Infrastructure, DevOps Engineer, GitHub, Jenkins, Amazon EC2, SQL, Amazon RDS, AWS IAM, Amazon Simple Email Service (SES), AWS Simple Notification Service (SNS), AWS DevOps
IT Manager
2014 - 2015
Asian Room Service Sdn Bdh
- Transitioned the team to scrum to ensure more predictable deliveries.
- Implemented the component-based rails application (CBRA) to allow easier rewrite and clean legacy Rails applications utilizing engines and isolation of the new code.
- Mentored and managed the off-shore and in-house team to ensure all developers were performant and had all resources they needed.
Technologies: Ruby on Rails (RoR), Engineering Management, Ruby, Linux, PostgreSQL, CI/CD Pipelines, Git, Bash, Product Management, Infrastructure, DevOps Engineer, SQL, Amazon Simple Email Service (SES)
Experience
Migration to Kubernetes
The project aimed to modernize the production environment to a fully automated CI/CD pipeline. The original production environment was based on AWS Beanstalk, where a single developer pushed code from their laptop to production.
I implemented a proper CI/CD pipeline where each successful main branch build was deployed to the Kubernetes cluster.
I implemented a proper CI/CD pipeline where each successful main branch build was deployed to the Kubernetes cluster.
Legacy Platform Migration
Planned and migrated Infrastructure as Code from the old Terraform version and everything within a single IaC codebase to a highly modularised Terraform codebase with the latest version of Terraform and Terragrunt, thus reducing the risk of unintended infrastructure changes. Planned and executed migration of legacy workloads from AWS ECS to Kubernetes (EKS).
Digital Signage
A digital signage management platform consisted of back-end and player apps. The back end was done with Ruby on Rails allowing screen owners to assign and schedule content to be displayed on the right screens at the right moment. The screen players were implemented as a Chrome app in JavaScript, which was responsible for fetching content from the server and displaying it correctly.
Skills
Languages
Ruby, SQL, Python, Bash
Frameworks
Ruby on Rails (RoR)
Libraries/APIs
Terragrunt
Tools
Terraform, GitHub, Jenkins, Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS), AWS IAM, AWS CodeBuild, Amazon Simple Email Service (SES), AWS Simple Notification Service (SNS), Amazon EKS, Git
Paradigms
DevOps, DevSecOps
Platforms
Kubernetes, Linux, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, Amazon EC2, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), AWS Lambda
Other
CI/CD Pipelines, GitHub Actions, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Infrastructure, DevOps Engineer, AWS DevOps, Product Management, Engineering Management, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Amazon RDS, Scripting
Storage
PostgreSQL, PostGIS