Nicusor is available for hire

Nicusor Serban

Verified Expert in Engineering

DevOps Engineer and Developer

Location

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Toptal Member Since

January 7, 2019

Nick is a site reliability engineer who uses the best practices to enhance an app's DevOps lifecycle. He can automate everything from the code to testing, release management, deployment, operations, monitoring, and CI/CD pipelines. He's also good at bringing your entire app stack into a nice Docker stack managed by either Compose, Swarm, or Kubernetes. Nick also worked as a developer with C#, Node.js, PHP, and Python, among others.

DevOps Selenium Data Scraping Security Data Mining Prometheus C#SQL PHP REST APIs Git GitLab Windows Bash Linux RHEL/CentOS Citrix System Security AWS DevOps Lua .NET Core Kibana Logstash Discord Bot

Portfolio

Catena Media

Ceph, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Go, Python, Bash, Ansible, Prometheus, Grafana...

Bitcoin Air

Node.js, WordPress, Angular, PHP, MySQL, Python, Bash, Kubernetes, Docker Swarm...

IBM

Automation, Bash Script, Ansible, Chef, Citrix, Migration, GitLab, MySQL...

Experience

PHP - 6 years Bash - 3 years DevOps - 3 years Jenkins - 2 years Amazon Web Services (AWS) - 2 years Node.js - 2 years Ansible - 2 years Kubernetes - 2 years

Availability

Part-time

Preferred Environment

Linux, MacOS, Windows

The most amazing...

...feeling I've had was when I wrote the code for an application that's used by millions of people on a daily basis.

Work Experience

Site Reliability Engineer

2019 - PRESENT

Catena Media

Helped my team set up production/development environments on Kubernetes for WordPress apps.
Helped deploy Prometheus and Grafana on Kubernetes to monitor all our servers, Microsoft products, sites, and so on.
Managed the AWS infrastructure through Terraform.
Automated everything.
Wrote Ansible scripts to provision and manage several VMs.
Coded microservices in Python and/or Go.
Handled all types of emergencies including downed sites or services, errors, and so on.

Technologies: Ceph, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Go, Python, Bash, Ansible, Prometheus, Grafana, Kubernetes

DevOps Engineer

2018 - 2019

Bitcoin Air

Deployed the entire web infrastructure on scalable Docker containers in Docker Swarm with plans to move it eventually to GCP Kubernetes.
Implemented continuous integration and deployment pipelines in Jenkins for all of the apps and stacks.
Developed backup pipelines in Jenkins.
Debugged and containerized any new app that was not built for Docker.
Deployed Bitcoin and Peercoin networks on Docker containers.

Technologies: Node.js, WordPress, Angular, PHP, MySQL, Python, Bash, Kubernetes, Docker Swarm, Docker Compose, Docker, Ubuntu

DevOps Specialist

2018 - 2019

IBM

Developed and tested Chef cookbooks for enterprise software; also wrote modules in Ruby for Chef.
Created internal automation scripts in Bash, Python, Ruby, and PHP.
Implemented continuous integration and deployment through Jenkins and UCD.
Deployed internal applications on Docker and Docker Swarm.
Conducted RHEL administration and management.

Technologies: Automation, Bash Script, Ansible, Chef, Citrix, Migration, GitLab, MySQL, Angular, .NET Core, Jenkins, Docker Compose, Docker

Migration Specialist

2017 - 2018

Christian Tour

Documented a legacy app (PHP 5.4).
Documented code functionality and database schemas.
Migrated a website from a bare-metal environment to AWS.
Supported developers in writing a new, improved app in Laravel based on the old one's logic and functionality.

Technologies: Reverse Engineering, Debugging, MySQL, MySQL Workbench, Laravel, Amazon Web Services (AWS), PHP

Software Developer and DevOps

2016 - 2018

Cloud Business Services

Developed an internal management tool used by company employees (Node.js, Angular 2, and PHP).
Implemented continuous integration and deployment using Jenkins.
Wrote various necessary tools and microservices in Bash, Python, C#, .NET Core, and PHP.
Developed bug-tracking automation through Jira.
Wrote deployment scripts in Chef for enterprise software.

Technologies: MongoDB, SlimPHP, Laravel, Ubuntu, CentOS, VMware, Chef, Docker, Python, Bash, PHP, Angular, Node.js, MySQL, PostgreSQL

Game Developer

2012 - 2016

Self-employed | Freelance

Built various tools in C# used to modify client game content (Lua) and client-server content (Lua).
Developed tools that automatically play the game or do certain actions in C++.
Created management tools for social platforms (profiles, pages, groups, and more) in C#.
Developed server management tools C++.

Technologies: Lua, C++, C#

Experience

Bitcoin Air

Working for a blockchain company, I managed the web stack through Docker, continuous integration, and deployment. I di this specifically via Jenkins pipelines and installing and configuring the mail servers, backups, and security.

Christian Tour

Working for one of the biggest travel companies in Europe, I migrated applications to Amazon Web Services (AWS). I also documented legacy apps, rewrote the apps to Laravel, and built an amazing environment with Kubernetes, AWS, and Docker.

Cloud Business Services

For this project, I mainly managed a small team of four developers to deliver web apps written in PHP, Angular, and Node.js. I also held regular meetings with the client, translated requirements into tasks, and allocated them using the best Agile principles. I also held daily Scrum meetings and worked as a back-end developer and Scrum master.

IBM

For IBM, I worked to automatically provision enterprise-grade software through Chef on Linux and Windows. In pursuit of this goal, I wrote integration tests using InSpec, used UCD as a deployment tool, and managed the continuous integration and deployment pipelines.

Skills

Frameworks

Selenium, Windows PowerShell, .NET Core, Angular, Laravel

Paradigms

DevOps, Agile, Automation

Other

System Security Developer, Security, Data Mining, Reverse Engineering, Prometheus, Scraping, Data Scraping, Integration Tools, APIs, Discord Bots, Migration, Debugging

Languages

Python, C#, JavaScript, SQL, Bash, Ruby, Lua, PHP, Bash Script, Go, Java, C++

Libraries/APIs

Node.js, REST APIs

Tools

VMware, Jenkins, Chef, Artifactory, Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Git, GitLab, NGINX, Logstash, Ansible, Vagrant, Docker Compose, MySQL Workbench, Docker Swarm, Kibana, Nagios, Grafana, Puppet, SaltStack

Platforms

Windows, Linux RHEL/CentOS, Docker, Kubernetes, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Linux, Citrix, CentOS, Ubuntu, WordPress, MacOS

Storage

MongoDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, SlimPHP, Ceph

Education

2016 - 2019

Bachelor's Degree in Informatics Economics

Romanian-American University - Bucharest, Romania

Certifications

DECEMBER 2018 - DECEMBER 2019

Certified Disciplined Agilist

Disciplined Agile Consortium

Collaboration That Works

How to Work with Toptal

Toptal matches you directly with global industry experts from our network in hours—not weeks or months.

Share your needs

Discuss your requirements and refine your scope in a call with a Toptal domain expert.

Choose your talent

Get a short list of expertly matched talent within 24 hours to review, interview, and choose from.

Start your risk-free talent trial

Work with your chosen talent on a trial basis for up to two weeks. Pay only if you decide to hire them.

Top talent is in high demand.

Start hiring