Rhys is available for hire
Hire RhysRhys Powell
Verified Expert in Engineering
Web Security Developer
Stafford, United Kingdom
Toptal member since August 4, 2022
Bio
Rhys is a DevOps person who has worked with most of the major cloud providers. Both a builder and migrator, Rhys worked with startups taking teams from zero to full environments through to enterprises, moving them from various states into embracing DevOps ideals, cloud, and CI/CD processes. Rhys enjoys a challenge, loves getting their hands dirty and always looking to help move organizations forward in their digital journeys.
Portfolio
Telstra
Kubernetes, Azure DevOps, Puppet, Kubespray, Traefik, Bash, Python, Jinja...
MVF Global
Management, Data, Snowflake, Looker, Apache Airflow, CircleCI, Datadog, Docker...
Tata Consultancy Services
Management, Terraform, Scrum Master, Product Owner, Docker, Training, Education...
Experience
- Linux - 20 years
- Web Security - 15 years
- Cloud - 14 years
- CI/CD Pipelines - 12 years
- Architecture - 12 years
- Jenkins - 7 years
- Docker - 7 years
Availability
Part-time
Preferred Environment
Linux, Cloud, Git, Azure DevOps, GitLab CI/CD, GitHub, Python, Kubernetes, Serverless
The most amazing...
...thing I've done is demonstrate the power of IaC, showing that code built for a single location is reusable—from one to 13 environments in less than three hours.
Work Experience
Kubernetes Engineer
2022 - PRESENT
Telstra
- Managed day-to-day running of current Kubernetes clusters, including updating, new deployments, and error and problem resolution.
- Created the process, scripts, and tools for building, managing, and updating new clusters. Used Kubespray for build and Python and Bash for day-to-day management.
- Configurated Puppet to manage the underlying servers.
- Migrated Jenkins servers and agents to the latest Jenkins version and to the 2019 Windows Server. This included IIS instances and associated package repository tools.
- Assisted the team in ways of the work process to improve delivery and allow them to focus on a roadmap.
- Drafted an architectural proposal to enable the migration of clusters and on-premise application instances to Azure using pure AzDO for build and deployment while giving consideration to migration of datastores and not wanting a big bang migration.
Technologies: Kubernetes, Azure DevOps, Puppet, Kubespray, Traefik, Bash, Python, Jinja, Linkerd, Prometheus, Azure, Jenkins, IIS, NuGet, Docker, Helm, HashiCorp, Amazon Web Services (AWS), DevOps
Head of Platform
2021 - 2022
MVF Global
- Worked out priorities and roadmaps to align platforms with business requirements.
- Helped push for changes in the wider business to support the moves required by the platforms teams. This included reorganizing AWS accounts and migrating certain datastores and application platforms.
- Pushed for a fairer voice of technology and the teams within the business to the senior management team.
- Employed a hands-on approach with monitoring tools such as Datadog to help refine the platform and data team's ways of working to reduce costs while bringing in greater stability and efficiency.
- Oversaw the migration of RDS instances from a single account to split accounts.
- Kicked off the migration to separate accounts for production and testing apps with a move to Fargate for the ECS cluster and the introduction of traceability between applications and services.
Technologies: Management, Data, Snowflake, Looker, Apache Airflow, CircleCI, Datadog, Docker, HashiCorp, Amazon Web Services (AWS), DevOps
Head of Technology
2020 - 2021
Tata Consultancy Services
- Grew the training capability within the TCSI business unit to global coverage.
- Worked with a pool of engineers across multiple red-flag projects to help improve customer perception and align with new ways of working.
- Acted as a product owner for the SaaS framework platform to allow for templated environments to be created across cloud environments.
Technologies: Management, Terraform, Scrum Master, Product Owner, Docker, Training, Education, Helm, HashiCorp, Amazon Web Services (AWS), DevOps
Lead Engineer
2019 - 2020
Tata Consultancy Services
- Built training programs for graduates, junior, mid-level engineers, and associated teams and management staff.
- Worked with client-facing teams to help them understand more progressive ways of working.
- Drove change for digital transformation, both within the organization and for clients and their teams.
- Assisted in the creation of presentation on ways of team working for client works bids. This included building PoC environments and applications as part of small team.
- Led engineering for red-flag projects to understand what areas are cause for concern and work with clients and the associated teams, reach new goals, align processes, and assist in steering technology decisions.
Technologies: Azure, Training, JavaScript, Containers, AWS Lambda, Kubernetes, Observation, Terraform, Packer, Docker, Education, Helm, HashiCorp, Amazon Web Services (AWS), DevOps
Lead Engineer Cloud Engineering
2016 - 2019
Fico
- Built a set of tools to allow for extraction, processing and delivering of RDS logs to two central log processing systems.
- Co-led the responsibility for the architecture of Terraform to allow for the ability to stand up a central platform in AWS in any region and multiple accounts.
- Created tooling and process to build and deploy Kubernetes clusters to EC2 servers.
- Built out Terraform to create and manage EKS clusters and connect to the central services account.
- Assisted teams in migration from OpenShift to the new EKS environments.
- Worked with the security team to help define new processes and refine current standards with the new ways of working in the cloud and with Kubernetes.
- Assisted with PCI and ISO 27001 audits as required, including both internal and external audits.
Technologies: Python, Terraform, Okta, Jenkins, Web Security, Kubernetes, Splunk, QualysGuard, Docker, HashiCorp, Amazon Web Services (AWS), DevOps
Interim CTO
2016 - 2016
MyJobMatcher
- Set the direction for technology vision for the short, medium, and longer term.
- Moved from a SaaS-based deployment tool based around chef that was s single point of failure to self-managed deployment pipelines using Bitbucket.
- Migrated from monolithic PHP application to microservice architecture, allowing the platform to be right-sized in the right areas.
- Worked with SMT to gather all facts and figures around costs, delivery, and earnings, showing how changes had improved those in all areas. Created projects for future saving based on future work.
- Took all data and monitoring to feed into slides for brochures and presentations for funding decks.
- Managed daily tech costs and team progression against set targets.
Technologies: Email, Terraform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), DevOps
Technical Architect
2015 - 2016
Kainos
- Rearchitected the platform, demonstrating how security would remain the same to remove multiple layers of secure zones.
- Automated the build of AWS EC2 instances and environment to allow for the automatic instantiation of instances to their roles with Ansible upon starting.
- Implemented monitoring processes to help other teams identify the issues and bottlenecks in applications and communications.
- Oversaw the communication of requirements, status, and progress of various work streams within the WebOps team out to the multiple stakeholder teams that were part of the wider project.
- Assisted in the process of problem-solving, working with many different suppliers for the project.
Technologies: Ansible, Linux, ForgeRock, Web Security, Access Control, NGINX, Architecture, Jenkins, Gerrit, Amazon Web Services (AWS), DevOps
DevOps Lead
2013 - 2015
Aframe
- Built an OpenStack cluster to allow for better management and visibility of running all virtual servers.
- Started the data migration process to make better use of SANs and the ability to automate replication across countries through Swift and Ceph.
- Managed upgrades of physical hardware in data centers across the world.
Technologies: OpenStack, Linux, Amazon Web Services (AWS), DevOps
Digital Ops Engineer
2012 - 2013
News UK
- Architected and built the back end processing for The Sun Classic and The Times and The Sunday Times iPad applications.
- Worked supporting all digital public-facing products for titles such as The Sun, The Times, and The Sunday Times, and all of the sister products associated with the brands. This was for websites, Apple applications, Android applications, and Kindle.
- Focused on keeping services such as Linux and Solaris running with different servers and languages, including PHP, Python, Ruby, Java, and Grails. A mix of physical, VMWare, and AWS, moving to AWS for the ability to utilize on-demand scaling.
Technologies: Linux, Python, Solaris, Windows, Akamai, Apache, NGINX, Bash, Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Experience
The Sun Classic
Used back-end processing and delivery of the package to enable people to read The Sun newspaper on The Sun Classic iPad app.
Took printing press style PDFs and formatted and sized them correctly to be shown in the application. Collected pop-up ad images and page 3 images as per the editor manifest and bundled them in the correct format to be delivered to AWS S3 for consumption by the app users.
Took printing press style PDFs and formatted and sized them correctly to be shown in the application. Collected pop-up ad images and page 3 images as per the editor manifest and bundled them in the correct format to be delivered to AWS S3 for consumption by the app users.
Kiddies Day Out
Design and implement the architecture to run the Kiddies Day Out website.
Requirements were to make it as cheap and scalable as possible with the ability to spin up, down-test, and develop implementations as required.
The chosen cloud platform was GCP, using Cloud Run for the application and Cloudsql for the databases.
Uses GitHub actions to turn on and off databases in non-production and to push the application through the environments
Requirements were to make it as cheap and scalable as possible with the ability to spin up, down-test, and develop implementations as required.
The chosen cloud platform was GCP, using Cloud Run for the application and Cloudsql for the databases.
Uses GitHub actions to turn on and off databases in non-production and to push the application through the environments
Education
2002 - 2006
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science
London Metropolitan University - London, UK
Certifications
JUNE 2020 - FEBRUARY 2023
HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate
HashiCorp
DECEMBER 2019 - DECEMBER 2021
Google Cloud Associate Cloud Engineer
Google Cloud
OCTOBER 2019 - PRESENT
Google Cloud Fundamentals
Coursera
JANUARY 2019 - PRESENT
LFS158x: Introduction to Kubernetes
The Linux Foundation
DECEMBER 2018 - PRESENT
Azure Fundamentals
Microsoft
MAY 2018 - MAY 2021
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate
Amazon Web Services
Skills
Tools
Git, GitHub, NGINX, Jenkins, HashiCorp, GitLab CI/CD, Terraform, Apache, Ansible, ForgeRock, Gerrit, Chef, Splunk, Packer, Looker, Apache Airflow, CircleCI, Puppet, Traefik, NuGet, Helm
Paradigms
DevOps, Azure DevOps, Management
Platforms
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Linux, Kubernetes, Docker, Azure, Solaris, Windows, OpenStack, QualysGuard, AWS Lambda
Languages
Python, Bash, JavaScript, Snowflake
Frameworks
Jinja
Storage
Google Cloud, Datadog
Other
Cloud, CI/CD Pipelines, Web Security, Architecture, Training, Education, Serverless, Computer Science, Akamai, Access Control, Email, Okta, Containers, Observation, Scrum Master, Product Owner, Data, Kubespray, Linkerd, Prometheus, IIS
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