Oliver Ewert, Developer in Wellington, New Zealand

Oliver Ewert

Software Developer

Location
Wellington, New Zealand
Toptal Member Since
March 19, 2020

Oliver has over five years of experience with automation in the cloud—from automated firewall appliance provisioning to modern, serverless web applications. Along with a strong security and systems background, he's successfully worked as a full-stack developer. He started freelancing because he enjoys new challenges, helping people, and wanted more flexibility. Oliver is an active member in his local developer community, speaking at conferences and contributing to open source.

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Portfolio

Fantail Consulting
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure, Azure IoT Hub, Auth0, Web Security, Balena...
Permiso Security
AWS Lambda, Amazon API Gateway, API Gateways, Terraform, Web Security...
Environmental Science and Research Ltd
Azure, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Kubernetes, Palo Alto Networks, Docker...

Experience

Python 3 - 7 yearsAmazon Web Services (AWS) - 6 yearsSecurity - 6 yearsDevOps - 6 yearsDocker - 3 yearsAuth0 - 2 yearsAzure - 2 yearsAzure Kubernetes Service (AKS) - 2 years

Location

Wellington, New Zealand

Availability

Full-time

Preferred Environment

Docker, Python 3, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure, Cybersecurity

The most amazing...

...thing I've done was the automation of the deployment of a legacy system that "couldn't be automated," saving us countless hours of pain and suffering.

Work Experience

2020 - PRESENT

Cloud Native Security Consultant

Fantail Consulting
  • Developed end-to-end IoT solutions from designing circuit boards to embedded Python, device operating system management, cloud connectivity, and Azure IoT Hub management. Utilized Raspberry Pi, balenaCloud, and 4G IoT networks.
  • Helped small businesses move legacy software into containers, streamlining deployment, update processes, and database management through automation.
  • Migrated on-premise infrastructure to the cloud, from moving apps to containers in the cloud/serverless to migrating email servers to G Suite/Microsoft 365/ProtonMail.
  • Developed custom dashboards to integrate multiple systems, providing a bespoke integration point, utilizing Python, AWS Lambda, and DynamoDB/Amazon RDS.
  • Consulted with small organizations on raising their security posture with minimal effort. This included analysis of risks and workshops with staff on basics (e.g., MFA, etc.) to secure development practices and infrastructure security.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Azure, Azure IoT Hub, Auth0, Web Security, Balena, PyCharm, Content Delivery Networks (CDN), Cloud Security, Web Development, GitHub, Python 3, Python 2, AWS CloudFormation, Web App Security, Django, Bash, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), DevOps, Continuous Delivery (CD), Network Security, AWS Lambda, Amazon CloudWatch, Kubernetes, Linux, System Administration, Cybersecurity, Amazon EKS
2021 - 2022

Senior Cloud Security Engineer

Permiso Security
  • Improved CI/CD processes for deploying code and infrastructure, including importing resources into Terraform, automating manual deployment steps and checks, improving pipeline security and speed, and reducing errors.
  • Improved AWS environment security, cost, and toil by improving management automation, making IAM resources and networking more granular and locking them down. Implemented VPC endpoints, significantly reducing NAT gateway cost.
  • Improved incident response and post-mortem processes, introducing more structure to the process and making it more user-friendly for the team to engage with the process.
  • Improved logging, monitoring, and alerting by implementing Grafana Cloud dashboards and alerting and Loki log collection. Unified logging output formats to allow easier searching and aggregation of logs.
  • Advised the product development team on how their software might be used in a Security Operations environment, what workflows for different security roles look like, and how they can streamline their application for these workflows.
Technologies: AWS Lambda, Amazon API Gateway, API Gateways, Terraform, Web Security, Cloud Security, DevOps, GitHub, Cloud, Security, Amazon Web Services (AWS), AWS IAM, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Continuous Delivery (CD), Network Security, Jira, Amazon CloudWatch, JavaScript, PostgreSQL, Amazon DynamoDB, Elasticsearch, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Continuous Integration (CI), DevSecOps, Grafana, CI/CD Pipelines, Web Development, Content Delivery Networks (CDN), AWS CloudFormation, Web App Security, Bash, Linux, System Administration, Cybersecurity
2020 - 2021

Security Consultant

Environmental Science and Research Ltd
  • Deployed and supported Azure-managed Kubernetes cluster using Azure DevOps, Terraform, and Helm for infrastructure as code deployed by automated pipeline.
  • Managed and improved Azure environment architecture and security, implementing various Azure security features and reducing waste and cost.
  • Supported development teams in building out CI/CD pipelines to deploy apps with automation, including implementing auto-scaling agent pools and per-pipeline service principle-based authentication and improving secrets management.
  • Sole technical advisor on a multi-agency board to appoint vCISO; supported the process from the board's inception to the selection and onboarding of vCISO.
  • Assessed organizational security maturity against NIST and PSR. Implemented a program of work to uplift organizational security maturity.
  • Managed the external security resource, including scoping and scheduling security assessments for systems, overseeing the resulting work items, and working with development teams to understand and address underlying systemic issues.
Technologies: Azure, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Kubernetes, Palo Alto Networks, Docker, ShinyProxy, Helm, Azure DevOps, Auth0, CI/CD Pipelines, Security, Python 3, DevOps, IT Security, Network Security, PostgreSQL 10.1, Cloud Security, Terraform, PostgreSQL, Web Security, Web Application Firewall (WAF), Web Development, GitHub, Web App Security, SecOps, Bash, Continuous Delivery (CD), Linux, System Administration, Cybersecurity
2020 - 2020

Platform Engineer (Contract)

Westpac New Zealand, Limited
  • Migrated Java applications from legacy infrastructure to a Kubernetes environment.
  • Implemented visibility and monitoring via metrics to Prometheus and Grafana and logs to the Elasticsearch cluster.
  • Improved the developer experience by prebuilding containers for local development and maintenance for legacy Java apps.
Technologies: Elasticsearch, Grafana, Prometheus, Jenkins, Kubernetes, Security, DevOps, IT Security, CI/CD Pipelines, ELK (Elastic Stack), Helm, DevSecOps, Continuous Integration (CI), Cloud Security, Web Development, Web Security, Bash, Continuous Delivery (CD), Linux
2015 - 2020

Security Engineer

Xero
  • Contributed to Netflix's open-source tool—Security Monkey (now unfortunately discontinued) by implementing RBAC across the front end and back end.
  • Built a fully automated CI/CD pipeline that deployed applications into AWS ECS via AWS CodePipeline and CodeBuild.
  • Implemented auditing and compliance automation across a fleet of around 100 AWS accounts with Lambda, cross-account IAM roles.
  • Consulted with product teams on secure, best practices and cost savings in the AWS architecture.
  • Validated platform and application-level security issues—command injection, cache poisoning, token misuse, server-side request forgery (SSRF), domain hijacking, and more.
  • Led the development of DevSecOps practice at Xero, implementing various automated tools into the development pipeline to give security and developers greater confidence in the security of their applications before deploying.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Jenkins, Python, Docker, AWS Cloud Architecture, Security, Python 3, DevOps, Amazon DynamoDB, IT Security, CI/CD Pipelines, Xero API, DevSecOps, PagerDuty, Slack, Continuous Integration (CI), Jenkins Pipeline, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS), Xero, Network Security, PostgreSQL 10.1, Cloud Security, PostgreSQL, JavaScript, Web Security, Web Application Firewall (WAF), Content Delivery Networks (CDN), Web Development, API Gateways, Amazon API Gateway, GitHub, Python 2, AWS CloudFormation, Web App Security, SecOps, Django, Bash, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), Continuous Delivery (CD), Jira, AWS Lambda, Amazon CloudWatch, Linux, System Administration, Cybersecurity

Experience

IAM Action Tracker

https://aktion.io/
An app to track and manage available AWS IAM actions, services, and policies by scraping open-data sources. It has a serverless architecture hosted on GitHub pages. It was a collaboration with former colleagues written in Go with Bootstrap front end.

Skills

Languages

Python 3, Python, Python 2, Bash, JavaScript, Ruby, C#

Tools

AWS IAM, Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS), AWS CloudFormation, Auth0, Jira, Xero, Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), Amazon CloudWatch, Jenkins, Bitbucket, Slack, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Terraform, PyCharm, Grafana, Sentry, Helm, NGINX, ELK (Elastic Stack), ShinyProxy, Azure IoT Hub, GitHub, Amazon EKS

Platforms

Docker, Amazon Web Services (AWS), AWS Lambda, Kubernetes, Mailgun, PagerDuty, Azure, Linux, Heroku

Industry Expertise

Security, Cybersecurity, Network Security, IT Security

Other

AWS DevOps, Cloud Security, Web Security, Web Application Firewall (WAF), System Administration, Akamai, Cloudflare, Web App Security, SecOps, Balena, CI/CD Pipelines, AWS Cloud Architecture, Web Development, Content Delivery Networks (CDN), Prometheus, Slackbot, Palo Alto Networks, Amazon API Gateway, API Gateways, Cloud

Frameworks

Django

Libraries/APIs

Jenkins Pipeline, Xero API

Paradigms

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

Storage

Amazon S3 (AWS S3), AWS CodeStar, PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch, Amazon DynamoDB, PostgreSQL 10.1

Education

2013 - 2017

Bachelor of Engineering Degree in Network Engineering

Victoria University of Wellington - Wellington, New Zealand

Certifications

SEPTEMBER 2018 - PRESENT

Akamai Bot Manager Foundations

Akamai

AUGUST 2018 - PRESENT

Akamai Kona Site Defender

Akamai

JULY 2018 - PRESENT

Akamai Web Performance Foundations

Akamai

MARCH 2018 - MARCH 2021

AWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate

AWS