Sami Alakus, Developer in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
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Sami Alakus

Verified Expert  in Engineering

DevOps Engineer and Developer

Location
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Toptal Member Since
July 7, 2023

Sami is a DevOps engineer with a background in full-stack web development. He has experience designing and building cloud-native solutions on AWS. He is passionate about building Kubernetes-based systems with flexibility and scalability in mind. Sami specializes in automating processes, implementing CI/CD pipelines, and utilizing GitOps methodologies to ensure efficient and robust designs.

GitOpsLinuxBitbucketKubernetesAmazon Web Services (AWS)TerraformPHPSQLMySQLAgileDevOpsWeb ArchitectureHelmDockerGrafanaCisco Network Devices

Portfolio

MySite
Amazon Web Services (AWS), Web Architecture, Kubernetes, GitOps, Bitbucket...
Harvest Digital Planning
Kubernetes, Docker, Helm, Rancher, Grafana, Prometheus, PHP, Jenkins...
Practical Applications
PHP, JavaScript, MySQL, NGINX, Vue 2, Agile

Experience

DevOps - 5 yearsDocker - 4 yearsAmazon Web Services (AWS) - 4 yearsGitOps - 4 yearsCI/CD Pipelines - 4 yearsKubernetes - 4 yearsHelm - 4 yearsTerraform - 4 years

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Kubernetes, Linux, PHP, DevOps, CI/CD Pipelines, SQL, Amazon Web Services (AWS), GitOps

The most amazing...

...tool I've built is an automated Kubernetes provisioning and configuring system enabling GitOps for multi-cluster orchestration.

Work Experience

Senior DevOps Engineer

2022 - 2022
MySite
  • Designed, developed, and led a team in creating a new DevOps platform focusing on efficiency and automation.
  • Created CI/CD pipelines and introduced GitOps to reduce time to deployment from 12 hours to 30 minutes.
  • Spearheaded the migration across the global infrastructure to remove workflow complexities and enable new automated processes.
  • Reduced infrastructure costs by over 30% and increased application performance by utilizing full-stack development and DevOps knowledge to modify applications from single tenancy to multi-tenancy.
  • Mentored team members and shared best practices by leading team meetings and training sessions.
Technologies: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Web Architecture, Kubernetes, GitOps, Bitbucket, Terraform, HashiCorp, Helm, PHP, Argo CD, Amazon EKS, Team Leadership

Senior DevOps Engineer

2017 - 2022
Harvest Digital Planning
  • Simplified Kubernetes cluster setup and management by migrating Kubernetes clusters to Amazon EKS using Terraform.
  • Updated and supported the company's AWS infrastructure with Terraform principles.
  • Migrated applications into Docker containers with custom Helm charts and deployed them to Kubernetes.
  • Developed Jenkins CI/CD pipelines for testing, staging, and production environments.
Technologies: Kubernetes, Docker, Helm, Rancher, Grafana, Prometheus, PHP, Jenkins, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Terraform, Ansible, MySQL, JavaScript, Amazon EKS

Full-stack Developer

2015 - 2017
Practical Applications
  • Improved development visibility by incorporating Jira and Agile methodologies into development workflows.
  • Built a new RESTful API application for communication with the core service.
  • Expanded core application functionality by developing new modules in PHP.
Technologies: PHP, JavaScript, MySQL, NGINX, Vue 2, Agile

Kubernetes Multi-cluster Orchestration

A platform project designed to simplify the administration of multiple Kubernetes clusters and have them automatically provisioned. This system uses GitOps to stand up Kubernetes clusters on various infrastructure and cloud providers, including AWS, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and on-premise systems. This system simplifies processes such as setting up a new region for a production workload, performing cluster upgrades and administration, and handling application development with CI/CD pipelines.

Tools

Bitbucket, Terraform, Helm, Grafana, Jenkins, NGINX, GitLab, Amazon EKS, HashiCorp, Ansible

Platforms

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

Other

CI/CD Pipelines, GitOps, Prometheus, Networking, Cisco, System Administration, Web Development, Argo CD, Team Leadership, Cisco Networking

Languages

PHP, SQL, JavaScript

Paradigms

DevOps, Web Architecture, Agile

Storage

MySQL

Libraries/APIs

Vue 2

2013 - 2015

Advanced Diploma in Computer System Engineering

RMIT - Melbourne, Australia

FEBRUARY 2015 - PRESENT

CCNA 1 & 2

Cisco

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