HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate

Remote freelance role focused on Agentic AI strategy, secure application patterns, and reusable agentic workflows for a government agency.

• Development and implementation of an open source Agentic AI strategy for a government agency, with a focus on GDPR, security, and self hosted solutions
• Development of reusable agentic workflows and mini applications that enable non technical employees to solve business problems independently
• Implementation of internal business applications with Single Sign On (SSO) and Azure PostgreSQL integration on Hetzner Linux servers
• Techstack: Python, Nextjs, Typescript, Streamlit, Anthropic SDK (Claude), Azure, Linux Ubuntu, PostgreSQL, MS SQL, Angular, Authentik

• Optimizing and accelera­tion of our Gitlab CI pipeline

• Conceptual work for the PoC of the Zero Trust system

• Extension of the policy-engine backend in Go

• Extension of the policy-testing mechanism in Python

• Architectural design of the PEP component of Zero Trust

• Documentation of the product

• Technologies: Zero Trust, Go, Python, Gitlab CI, Docker, JWT, Domain-Driven Design

• Built and further developed an AWS landing zone based on Terraform / OpenTofu (multi-account structure, IAM baselines, network and security standards)
• Designed and operated platform-oriented AWS architectures to standardize infrastructure and operations processes
• Built and operated Kubernetes-based platforms (EKS) as a shared runtime environment for application teams
• Established GitOps-based deployments with Argo CD and FluxCD
• Developed and operated central CI/CD platforms (GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, Jenkins)
• Enabled development and project teams through reusable platform building blocks
• Introduced and implemented FinOps structures (AWS Cost Explorer, CUR + Athena, Infracost, Grafana dashboards)
• Built and operated central observability platforms (Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, Alertmanager, CloudWatch)

• Creation, maintenance and hardening of Kubernetes clusters employing Ansible and ArgoCD
• Keywords: Ansible, AWX, Kubernetes, NetApp, Prometheus, CI/CD ArgoCD, SSO, Fluent-bit, HAProxy, Calico, Keycloak, oauth2-proxy, SealedSecrets, kubeseal, Aqua kube-bench, CIS-Benchmarks, Aqua Trivy operator

Project: SCS (Settlement / Clearing Services)

Settlement platform serving multiple trading and clearing venues — counterparty risk safeguarding, settlement volume reduction, central risk management, and post-trade anonymity.

Technologies: Java 17, Spring Boot 3, Microservices, Spring Data JPA, SonarQube, Fortify (SCST), Mockito, Jenkins, OpenShift, Maven, Podman, GitHub, JIRA, Liquibase, Swagger, AMQP, Apache Camel, Terraform, PostgreSQL, Instana, Graylog.

• Identified and remediated CVEs in third-party libraries using SCA tooling, strengthening the security posture of production components.
• Maintained 90% code coverage with SonarQube, improving code quality and reducing production defects.
• Enabled mTLS for database authentication and message broker connections, enforcing encrypted, certificate-validated communication.
• Designed and deployed microservices with asynchronous, REST-based communication between components.
• Optimized a high-volume REST API (~200K requests) by reducing response time from 3s to 2s (33% improvement), boosting throughput and reliability under production load.
• Automated build and continuous integration pipelines using Maven and Jenkins.
• Orchestrated containerized workloads on Podman/OpenShift and governed schema evolution with Liquibase, ensuring reliable, repeatable deployments across all environments.
• Optimized Java code and implemented EHCache-based caching, improving application performance.
• Streamlined release management by governing application images, JAR versions, and dependencies through DBAG Artifactory, ensuring version consistency and audit traceability across environments

• Implementation of a REST-based web service for querying contract, claims, customer, and sales data as part of the Dialogmanager project.
• Data release is done in compliance with CoC requirements and individual user permissions from IAM (Identity and Access Management).
• Implementation using JBoss EAP 8.1 (JakartaEE 10) and Java 21 as well as JAX-RS, CDI, Microprofile-Config, Microprofile-OpenAPI.

• Further development and maintenance of a complex sales platform with a focus on digital closing processes, customer portal interactions, and document generation for financial and insurance products
• Development and maintenance of microservices with Spring Boot 3 and Kotlin
• Frontend development with Angular 20 for displaying products, applications, and documents
• Execution of end-to-end tests with Playwright and integration tests with WireMock
• Creation and optimization of Quartz jobs and CronJobs
• Refactoring of the security configuration in a multi-realm Keycloak setup with a custom filter chain, permission evaluator, and factory routing
• Creation of dynamic emails with Thymeleaf
• Extensive error analysis with Application Insights, Log Analytics, and direct SQL debugging
• Introduction of a dynamically controlled security architecture with flexible token handling depending on path and realm
• Stabilization and clear structuring of the closing process for complex product models
• Significantly improved maintainability and readability of the code through modular refactorings
• Higher test stability and depth through combined use of Playwright, WireMock, and integration tests
• Targeted performance optimization through analysis of Hibernate statistics, query tuning, and use of SQL execution plans
• Technologies used: Java 21, Kotlin, Spring Boot 3, Angular, TypeScript, REST API, JSON, Kubernetes, Docker, PostgreSQL, Liquibase, Keycloak, OAuth2, GitHub Actions, Testcontainers, Azure Application Insights, Thymeleaf, Tilt, Microsoft SQL Server

• Regulated environment within a German banking group (approx. 8,500 employees, hybrid cloud strategy).

• Responsible for operating, provisioning, and continuously securing business-critical platforms – including a GenAI chat application, a big data/AI platform, and data science workspaces based on Azure Virtual Desktops and VMs. Ownership of Azure DevOps projects for ShaiHulud and React2Shell, as well as BSI alerts – Security Operations improvements across the SDLC.

• Deployment responsibility for the GenAI chat application, big data/AI platform (BDAI), and data science workspaces (AVD/VM-based) in the respective landing zones.

• Deployment & release management: end-to-end responsibility for deploying portal and service applications across multiple Azure landing zones, including technical approvals, compliance with development team deployment guidelines, and ensuring ITIL-based change and release processes via ServiceNow.

• Azure landing zones & network architecture: design, provisioning, and operation of Azure landing zones for 3-tier web applications with enhanced network segmentation, VNet peering, hub-and-spoke architectures, private endpoints, and firewall integration across separate subscriptions and tenants.

• Azure DevOps governance & operations: ownership of the Azure DevOps organization, including projects, repositories, and CI/CD pipelines; implementation of governance requirements such as branch policies, approval gates, permission models, and audit-ready operating structures.

• Infrastructure as Code (Terraform): design, implementation, and operation of a modular Terraform architecture for standardized cloud infrastructure deployment, including state management, provider versioning, reusability, and policy-as-code approaches.

• CI/CD pipeline engineering: design, operation, and optimization of complex YAML-based CI/CD pipelines with multi-stage deployments, template standardization, self-hosted agents, integrated secret management, and automated quality and security checks.

• Git migration & platform consolidation: planning and execution of repository and pipeline migration from Azure DevOps to GitLab CI/CD, including automated scripts, full Git history transfer, pipeline porting, and platform consolidation.

• Container & platform operations (AKS): operation and security assessment of containerized workloads on Azure Kubernetes Service, centralization of on-premises container registries for ACR.

• OpenShift (OCP) security reviews: security assessment of code baselines, build pipelines, and deployment processes for on-premises OpenShift clusters with critical applications, and derivation of specific hardening recommendations.

• Shift-left security & DevSecOps transformation: introduction of a company-wide shift-left approach for early security integration in development and deployment processes, enabling developers to perform self-led security checks and sustainably reduce vulnerabilities before production (IDE integrations, pre-commit hooks, local scanners).

• Software supply chain security: analysis and mitigation of supply chain risks in NPM- and Yarn-based applications through dependency audits, CI/CD pipeline hardening, token rotation, and restriction of risky build and lifecycle mechanisms.

• Frontend & framework security (React / Next.js): security assessment and coordination of critical vulnerability remediation across platform applications and web frameworks, including coordination and complementary technical mitigations with all teams following BSI alerts.

• Software composition analysis (SCA): introduction and operation of automated vulnerability scans for container images, pipelines/artifacts, and third-party dependencies, including SBOM exports within CI/CD pipelines.

• SAST/DAST integration: design and piloting of static and dynamic application security tests in close collaboration with security architecture and development teams, for continuous improvement of code and runtime security, and establishing operational acceptance tests.

• Artifact & registry consolidation: analysis and consolidation of all package and container repositories for service applications and AKS workloads, aiming for a centralized, secured registry strategy with centralized vulnerability scanning and governance.

• Dependency-Track & SBOM strategy: advising the compliance board on introducing a central SBOM and vulnerability management platform to increase enterprise-wide dependency transparency and accelerate CVE response capability.

• CI/CD pipeline hardening: security analysis and cleanup of the existing pipeline landscape by removing unused pipelines, improving secrets hygiene, implementing least-privilege principles, and isolating build agent environments.

• Azure Web Application Firewall (WAF) optimization: analysis and tuning of existing Azure WAF rules (OWASP Top 10 Core Rule Set, DSR/SDC, custom rules) to defend against known vulnerabilities and exploit patterns, including reducing false positives and improving threat detection.

• Documentation & stakeholder communication: creating and maintaining technical documentation, runbooks, and architecture overviews in Jira and Confluence, as well as active knowledge transfer between operations, development, security, and compliance stakeholders.

• Requirements analysis for the enterprise-wide observability platform.
• Creation of playbooks and pipelines for rolling out Envoy, OpenTelemetry Collectors, and OpenTelemetry Agents.
• Conducting load tests for capacity planning of metrics for the observability platform.
• Documentation and implementation of compliance standards for production readiness.
• Creation and design of RED metrics, spanmetrics, JBoss, and Tomcat dashboards for mission-critical applications.
• Setting up alerts for critical applications for proactive incident response.
• Integration of OpenShift applications into the enterprise-wide observability stack.

• Integrated complex AI-based energy system models into the frontend framework, enabling the visualization of insights for 6+ key clients and maximizing energy utilization.
• Maximized energy efficiency and utilization by architecting the seamless data flow between AI models and the user interface for rapid, actionable reporting.

• Maintained a SaaS billing platform on AWS as part of the Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) team.
• Played a key role in an AWS cloud migration project, implementing Terraform (IaC), creating CI/CD processes and pipelines, hardening images, upgrading tool versions, and developing scripts.
• Wrote documentation.

AWS Cloud migration:

• Design and implement CI/CD for deploying AWS resources using GitLab CI, Terraform, and GitOps.
• Create and configure DevOps toolchain including Jenkins, Harbor, and Vault.
• Deploy billing application, microservices, and supporting infrastructure services to Nomad clusters.
• Re-designed TLS/mTLS certificate management using Vault and Lambda.

Security (Infrastructure Hardening & Patch Management & Vulnerability Scanning):

• Managed multiple AWS accounts for Consul/Nomad/Traefik clusters (10–20 EC2 instances/account, ASG) and DevOps toolchain accounts (Harbor, Jenkins, Vault).
• Created hardened AMIs via Packer based on CIS benchmarks for Nomad, Jenkins, Harbor, and Vault; deployed using Terraform.
• Integrated Trivy via Harbor plugin for container image scanning.
• Implemented strict AWS VPC security group rules.
• Developed and maintained patching process across environments using Qualys and Wiz.
• Deployed Qualys Cloud Agent to all EC2 instances, tracked CVEs and tested patches in lower environments before rollout.
• Automated patch deployment across all AWS accounts using Terraform and GitLab CI and verified patch compliance via Qualys/Wiz dashboards.

• Extended a global large-scale project to improve the multi-tenant GCP data platform using FAST framework concepts, leveraging Terraform, Terraform Enterprise, and GitLab.
• Collaborated closely with security and governance teams to architect and implement secure and compliant GCP environments, focusing on VPC Service Controls, KMS, organizational structure, and guardrails to support the isolation of corporate entities.
• Enhanced the security posture of the enterprise GCP platform by implementing robust security measures, including GCP organization policies, deny policies, and VPC Service Controls to safeguard against potential exfiltration risks.
• Implemented controls based on CSA Cloud Controls Matrix (CCM v4) to secure the GCP cloud environment.
• Automated key components of the GitLab CI/CD pipeline by integrating OpenID Connect (OIDC) for workload identity federation, necessary for a large migration from GitHub.
• Implemented a YAML-based project factory to facilitate easy, secure, and governed provisioning of tenant projects, increasing speed, scalability, and usability while minimizing operational burden.
• Developed a dynamic approach for policy attachment to tenants using a YAML-based custom IAM template approach.
• Evaluated and implemented Google PAM (Privileged Access Manager) in a proof of concept for organization-wide just-in-time access.
• Set up CyberArk SCA and CEM tooling to ensure secure cloud access and provide visibility into the cloud environment.
• Handled GCP incidents, ensuring prompt resolution and operational stability.
• Authored and maintained extensive documentation within an Agile environment, utilizing Jira and Confluence for project tracking and knowledge management.
• Utilized HashiCorp Sentinel as a policy-as-code tool to shift-left cloud security by enforcing policies before infrastructure provisioning.
• Used Prisma Cloud to continuously monitor and secure GCP resources, ensuring compliance and risk mitigation across the organization.
• Developed a custom Org Policy Factory to standardize and automate custom governance across projects, ensuring enforcement of non-trivial organizational controls.
• Architected and built a cloud-agnostic credential lifecycle management platform with Python and GitLab to automate the secure handling of static credentials, improving governance, compliance, and audit readiness.
• Delivered an executive-level presentation on VPC Service Controls to C-level stakeholders, driving strategic awareness and alignment on cloud security posture.
• Led resolution of P1 incidents with high production impact, restoring services under critical time constraints.
• Architected and deployed a central monitoring and alerting solution using Cloud Monitoring and PromQL, providing real-time visibility into system health and proactive incident detection.
• Designed and developed a Python-based broker for self-service integration with an internal developer platform, streamlining onboarding and reducing manual effort.
• Implemented a templating approach for VPC Service Controls, enabling repeatable, secure, and consistent deployment patterns across tenants and environments.

• Development of a central billing app for cloud costs at DB
• AWS
• Python
• AWS CDK
• RDS
• Spark (PySpark)
• Glue
• Lambda
• CI/CD (GitLab)
• React/Typescript
• data optimization
• Scrum