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Mikko Kokkonen, System Administrator and Developer in Hamburg, Germany
Mikko Kokkonen

System Administrator and Developer in Hamburg, Germany

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.
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Portfolio

  • Kwara GmbH
    Engineering Management, DevOps, Ruby, Kubernetes, Python, Ruby on Rails (RoR)...
  • ItsMyCargo
    Product Management, DevOps, Terraform, Ruby, Kubernetes, Python...
  • Appear Here
    Ruby, Ruby on Rails (RoR), PostgreSQL, PostGIS, Jenkins, CI/CD Pipelines...

Experience

Location

Hamburg, Germany

Availability

Full-time

Preferred Environment

DevOps, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Ruby, Terragrunt, Terraform, Containerization

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.

Employment

  • Engineering Manager

    2022 - PRESENT
    Kwara GmbH
    • Set up a new engineering hiring process to ensure fast and simple hiring of the best candidates.
    • Established regular one-on-ones and catchups with the team to ensure they were satisfied and 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, Scrum, GitHub Actions, GitHub, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, Git, Bash, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), VPN, Security, Architecture, Networking, NGINX, Redis, SSL, Linux Administration, Containerization, Infrastructure

  • 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, Jenkins, CI/CD Pipelines, AWS CloudFormation, Scrum, GitHub Actions, GitHub, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, Git, Bash, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), VPN, Security, Architecture, Networking, NGINX, Redis, SSL, Linux Administration, Containerization, Infrastructure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Deployment

  • 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, Jenkins, CI/CD Pipelines, AWS CloudFormation, Puppet, AWS Fargate, DevOps, Linux, Scrum, GitHub, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, Git, Bash, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), VPN, Security, Architecture, Networking, NGINX, Redis, Linux Administration, Containerization, Amazon ECS (Amazon Elastic Container Service), Infrastructure, Deployment

  • 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, Jenkins, CI/CD Pipelines, Puppet, Scrum, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, Git, Bash, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), VPN, Security, Architecture, Networking, NGINX, Redis, Linux Administration, Containerization, Infrastructure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Deployment

  • 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, iOS, Objective-C, iPad, iPhone, Xcode, JavaScript, Linux, CI/CD Pipelines, Puppet, GitHub, Digital Signage, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Git, Bash, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Security, Architecture, Networking, NGINX, Redis, SSL, Linux Administration, Infrastructure, Deployment

  • 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, Puppet, Jenkins, Linux, PostgreSQL, CI/CD Pipelines, AWS CloudFormation, Scrum, GitHub, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, Git, Bash, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Security, Architecture, Networking, NGINX, Redis, Linux Administration, Infrastructure, Deployment

  • 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), Scrum, Engineering Management, Ruby, Linux, PostgreSQL, CI/CD Pipelines, iOS, Objective-C, Git, Bash, Product Management, Security, Architecture, NGINX, Redis, SSL, Linux Administration, Infrastructure, Deployment

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.

  • 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, Bash, Python, Objective-C, JavaScript

  • Frameworks

    Ruby on Rails (RoR)

  • Libraries/APIs

    Terragrunt

  • Tools

    Amazon EKS, Terraform, Jenkins, AWS CloudFormation, Puppet, GitHub, Git, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), NGINX, VPN, Amazon ECS (Amazon Elastic Container Service), AWS Fargate, Xcode

  • Paradigms

    DevOps, Scrum

  • Platforms

    Kubernetes, Linux, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Docker, iOS, Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

  • Other

    CI/CD Pipelines, GitHub Actions, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), SSL, Containerization, Infrastructure, Deployment, Product Management, Engineering Management, Digital Signage, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Architecture, Networking, Linux Administration, iPad, iPhone

  • Storage

    PostgreSQL, PostGIS, Redis

  • Industry Expertise

    Security

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