Ran Tao, Developer in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
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Ran Tao

Verified Expert  in Engineering

DevOps Engineer and Cloud Developer

Shenzhen, Guangdong, China

Toptal member since March 25, 2024

Bio

Tao is a senior cloud and DevOps engineer with 12+ years of experience building robust and secure multi-cloud platforms and automation. He has performed cloud-native development in companies like Prudential, Microsoft, and HSBC—improving the stability of multiple projects and achieving an 80% reduction in daily tickets at Prudential. Tao specializes in multi-cloud development, Kubernetes, CI/CD, and Go and has built an MLOps platform to host embedding SaaS offerings.

Portfolio

Jina AI
Kubernetes, Cloud, Go, Terraform, GitHub, Machine Learning Operations (MLOps)
Prudential Technology
Jenkins, Azure, Python 3, Terraform, Kubernetes, DevOps
Microsoft
Azure, Kubernetes, Python 3

Experience

  • Linux - 12 years
  • Cloud - 8 years
  • Kubernetes - 8 years
  • Azure - 8 years
  • DevOps - 8 years
  • Python 3 - 6 years
  • Terraform - 6 years
  • Go - 5 years

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Linux, Visual Studio Code (VS Code)

The most amazing...

...thing I've built is Jina Embeddings, a SaaS that brings value to users by providing secure, scalable AI for long-context, multi-language embedding services.

Work Experience

Cloud Architect

2022 - 2023
Jina AI
  • Led the infrastructure team in designing and implementing scalable MLOps solutions with multiple cloud platforms—allowing thousands to use embedding services.
  • Boosted developer release speed and secured the entire process by designing and building a DevOps platform for the company to bring standard, modern CI/CD processes.
  • Reduced daily costs from $200+ to $50 after managing a multi-cloud platform product operation and development.
Technologies: Kubernetes, Cloud, Go, Terraform, GitHub, Machine Learning Operations (MLOps)

Senior DevOps Engineer

2021 - 2022
Prudential Technology
  • Designed and implemented secure DevSecOps engineering solutions, including automating pipelines and integrating security tools. Architected and built a Jenkins shared pipeline for multiple projects, which all branches used for automation.
  • Improved the stability of multiple projects—reducing daily tickets from 50+ to only 10—by designing and configuring Azure, Aliyun (known as Alibaba Cloud), and GCP infrastructure for computing, network, and security and automating with Terraform.
  • Dockerized the application with Istio or Dapr. Maintained Helm charts and the Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).
Technologies: Jenkins, Azure, Python 3, Terraform, Kubernetes, DevOps

Support Engineer

2020 - 2021
Microsoft
  • Provided solutions and insights to assist clients in migrating or deploying applications and Linux systems to the Azure environment.
  • Supported clients in container services like AKS or Azure Container Instances for additional issues, like how to integrate AKS in their CI/CD environment.
  • Consulted and collaborated with immediate peers or colleagues worldwide for problem-solving, driving the incident from the technical perspective.
Technologies: Azure, Kubernetes, Python 3

Senior System Engineer

2018 - 2020
HSBC
  • Implemented and engineered in Linux, architecting and deploying solutions based on shareholders or business requests, covering changes, incidents, and problems.
  • Delivered high-quality technical Unix provisioning with built-in support, including troubleshooting, configuration, software provision and optimization, and auto deployments.
  • Maintained and supported various vendor equipment, including Linux, VCS, VMware, HP, and EMC, and provided technical expertise in resolving complex issues.
Technologies: Linux, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Shell, Ansible

Linux System Administrator

2014 - 2018
IBM
  • Supported IBM internal accounts and users, including Australia's largest department store, Myer, for two years. Provided Linux system solutions, including support, troubleshooting, migration, tuning, and optimization.
  • Coordinated internal resources to identify and provide solutions to client requests or problems relating to product or application installation or other aspects of IT products and services.
  • Handled security administration on a managed system, including implementing and maintaining action solutions. Fixed all security issues and vulnerabilities found or reported.
Technologies: Linux, Shell, VM

Jina Embedding

An embedding API that's natively integrated with various renowned databases, vector stores, retrieval-augmented generation, and LLMOps frameworks. As the infrastructure team leader on this project, I built the multi-cloud MLOps platform to host the API services and model itself. I also enabled automation for developers and its API using the Go Fiber web framework.
SEPTEMBER 2021 - PRESENT

Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect

Microsoft

MAY 2020 - MAY 2023

Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)

The Linux Foundation

Tools

Terraform, Shell, Istio, GitHub, Jenkins, Ansible

Paradigms

DevOps, DevSecOps

Platforms

Linux, Kubernetes, Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Amazon Web Services (AWS), Visual Studio Code (VS Code)

Languages

Go, Python 3

Other

Cloud, Linkerd, Prometheus, Monitoring, Cloud Security, IT Security, Security, Identity & Access Management (IAM), Machine Learning Operations (MLOps), VM

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