Benito Exner-Cloud DevOps Engineer

• Planning and execution of the complete site migration from Nuremberg to Erlangen, including infrastructure, network, and platform components
• Migration and re-deployment of the existing AWX/Ansible automation platform to ensure standardized operational processes
• Migration and re-design of the OpenShift/Kubernetes cluster from a VMware-based environment to a new target architecture, including re-deployment of cluster workloads via Helm and Argo CD
• Revision and hardening of the network and security concept (segmentation, access control, communication flows) in coordination with Security and external cluster administrators
• Technical leadership in the implementation of infrastructure changes and close coordination with internal and external stakeholders
• Execution of 3rd-level support including fault analysis at platform and network level
• Conducting code reviews to ensure quality and compliance with best practices
• Review and quality assurance of infrastructure code (IaC, CI/CD) to ensure best practices and stability in operations
• Training and enablement of team members in the new network and platform concept
• Use of the latest Agentic AI coding tools in the development process and automation, as well as the design and execution of a proof of concept (POC) for using Agentic AI in the infrastructure environment

Successes:

• Successful execution of the complete site migration within the given timeframe without any interruption to operations -> avoidance of additional rental and operating costs
• Stabilization and modernization of the platform through structured re-design of the cluster and network architecture
• Sustainable improvement of operational capability through knowledge building in the team and clean handover of the new infrastructure

Technology stack: On-premise infrastructure (data center, storage, virtualization), OpenShift, Kubernetes, container runtime, Helm, VMware, AWX, Ansible, GitLab, Argo CD, Azure DevOps, CI/CD pipelines, Infrastructure as Code (Ansible, YAML), Linux (enterprise distributions), networking (routing, switching, VLANs, firewall, network segmentation, access controls), security (hardening, access management, container security, OpenShift RBAC), monitoring & logging, 3rd-level support, incident & problem management, Bash, Scrum, Jira, Confluence, Agentic AI coding tools

• Management of the entire infrastructure from AWS to Azure Entra ID

• Implementation of highly available server and communication systems

• Support with migration from on-premise to AWS cloud

• Implementation of CI/CD processes (GitHub Actions) and Infrastructure as Code with CloudFormation and AWS CDK

• Responsibility for the continuous technical readiness of the systems and for incident management (BCM)

• Alarming and monitoring

• Contact person for onboarding, development & operations in the AWS cloud

• Ensuring compliance with compliance and governance guidelines

• Establishment of DevSecOps practices: security checks and automated tests in the CI/CD pipelines, role-based IAM, WAF, and secrets management

• Setup and operation of SSO (including landing zone, Entra ID)

• Creation of documentation (Confluence) and management of tasks (Jira) using agile Scrum methods

• Close collaboration with management and development teams to prioritize infrastructure roadmaps and platform features

• Optimized GitHub Actions deployments from 60 minutes to under 10 minutes

• Technically migrated the existing on-premise environment to AWS and brought it into production

• Technical implementation of ISO 27001 security guidelines, including role-based IAM, logging, and audit readiness

• Result: 100% audit compliance, introduction of a scalable authorization system, governance processes established in a sustainable way

Technology stack: AWS (EC2, S3, DMS, KMS, CDK, CloudFront, ECS, ECR, EKS, Fargate, RDS/Aurora, DynamoDB, VPC, Transit Gateway, PrivateLink, IAM, SecretsManager, CloudWatch, SNS, SQS, SES, API Gateway, WAF, Lambda, Route 53), Azure Entra ID, CI/CD (GitHub Actions, Argo CD), Infrastructure as Code (CloudFormation, Terraform, CDK, IaaC), Policy as Code (IAM Policies, AWS SCPs, Kyverno), containerization & orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes, Helm, Karpenter, Traefik, Kustomize), container security (Kubernetes RBAC, ECR Image Scanning), monitoring & observability (Prometheus, Grafana, New Relic, OpenSearch), scripting & automation (Bash/Shell scripting, Python, Go, TypeScript, PowerShell, YAML, JSON, test automation), networking (DNS, DHCP, Routing), ISO 27001 (certification, audit readiness), DevOps & platform operations (IaaS, IaC, IaaP), methods & tools (Scrum, SAFe, Jira, Confluence, Test-driven Development), SSO, auth0, Oauth2, SAML.

• Implementation of CI/CD processes (GitHub Actions) and Infrastructure-as-Code with Terraform and AWS CDK

• Support with the migration from on-premise to the cloud

• Design and implementation of ETL pipelines (Python, AWS Glue, Airflow)

• Responsibility for the proper transfer of changes from the development to the production environment through GitOps deployments with Argo CD on Kubernetes and OpenShift

• 3rd-level support (ticket handling, on-call duty)

• Analysis of errors as well as clarification and fixing issues with vendors

• Setup and operation of a self-service platform

• Development of the self-service frontends with React, TypeScript, HTML5 and CSS as well as the related backend services (Node.js, Python)

• Database development on Amazon RDS/Aurora (MySQL, PostgreSQL): data modeling, migrations and performance optimization for analytics workloads

• Setup and operation of an AWS Landing Zone

• Creation of documentation (Confluence) and management of tasks (Jira) using agile Scrum methods

• Training employees in the use of new technologies/processes

• Setup and operation of the data and analytics platform as a data engineer at the interface between data science, business departments and operations

• Responsibility for Machine Learning Operations (MLOps): deployment, operation and monitoring of machine learning and AI workloads in production, including automated model pipelines and the use of local LLMs

• Preparation and provision of curated datasets including ETL/ELT pipelines for reporting, analytics and AI use cases (e.g. based on Kafka/MSK, Glue, Airflow, Athena, Databricks)

• Lead the migration of critical on-premise systems to the AWS Cloud, including architecture design, automation and handover into stable productive operations

• Implementation of a real-time data pipeline in a large enterprise environment, which many business units had long considered not feasible, through consistent alignment with multiple product owners and rigorous execution through to productive operation

Technology Stack: AWS (EC2, Glue, Quicksight, S3, SecretsManager, KMS, ECS, ECR, Fargate, Lambda, RDS/Aurora, DynamoDB, MSK/Kafka, API Gateway, CDK, CloudWatch, IAM, SNS, SQS, Route 53), Azure, Container & Orchestration (Kubernetes, Helm, Kustomize, Openshift, Argo CD), Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, IaaC), Policy as Code (AWS SCPs, IAM Policies), CI/CD (GitHub Actions, Argo CD), Platform Operations (IaaS, IaaP, Self-Service Platforms), Operating Systems (Windows, SLES, RHEL), Configuration & Automation Tools (Ansible, AWX), Monitoring & Logging (Splunk, OpenSearch, Prometheus, Grafana), Data & Analytics (ETL processes, Data Pipelines, Data Warehouse, Databricks, Oracle Exadata, Informatica, Toad, Apache Airflow, Apache Iceberg, Lakehouse architectures, Postgres, Athena), Caching & Messaging (Redis, Kafka/MSK), Virtualization (VMware), Scripting/Programming (Bash/Shell scripting, Python, Java, TypeScript, Node.js), Web & Frontend (React, TypeScript, HTML5, CSS), Methods & Tools (Jira, Confluence, Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, Test-driven Development, Clean Code), Generative & Agentic AI (Local LLMs, Agentic AI)

• Planning and improving existing business processes
• End-to-end responsibility for the cloud infrastructure roadmap including tool selection, architecture standards and operational guidelines
• Design and expert configuration of an AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) cluster for the strategic optimization of the cloud infrastructure
• Development of reusable infrastructure components and complete stacks with AWS CDK (TypeScript/Python) and CloudFormation
• Development of internal web frontends and admin dashboards with TypeScript, HTML5 and CSS including Node.js REST APIs
• Setup and development of relational databases (Amazon RDS/MySQL, Aurora) including data modeling and automated backups
• Integration of security and compliance checks into CI/CD pipelines (DevSecOps: role-based IAM, WAF, secrets management, test automation)
• Responsibility for the continuous optimization and adjustment of configurations and services to changing requirements as well as close collaboration with relevant stakeholders
• Creation of documentation (Confluence) and management of tasks (Jira) using agile Scrum methods
• Writing Helm charts to simplify application deployment and orchestration, ensuring scalability and reliability
• Budget responsibility for annual cloud and infrastructure spending in the low six-figure range

Technology Stack: AWS (CDK, EC2, S3, ECS/Fargate, ECR, EKS, SecretManager, Lambda, RDS (MySQL), Aurora, DynamoDB, API Gateway, CloudFront, Route 53, IAM, CloudWatch, SNS, SQS, WAF), Kubernetes, Helm, Container Security (Kubernetes RBAC, ECR Image Scanning), CI/CD (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Argo CD), Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation, CDK), Policy as Code (IAM Policies), Scripting & Automation (Bash/Shell, Python, Lua, TypeScript, PowerShell, test automation), Web & Backend (Node.js, JavaScript, HTML5, CSS), Data & Streaming (Kafka/MSK), Monitoring & Logging (Prometheus, Grafana, OpenSearch), Jira, Confluence, Scrum/Kanban, Operating Systems (Ubuntu, RHEL, Windows)