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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.

Short description: Lead of a group-wide project to establish standardized cloud governance for Microsoft Azure, including policies, security and compliance controls, automation, and cost and operations management, while maintaining the autonomy of decentralized business units within regulatory frameworks.

Tasks and activities:

Overall responsibility for the design, setup, and implementation of a company-wide cloud governance structure (Azure), including target picture, roadmap, and operating model.

Management of internal and external stakeholders (C-level, IT, Security, Compliance, Cloud Architecture, DevOps), including decision and escalation management.

Planning and facilitation of workshops on cloud strategy, governance principles, and the design of areas such as Identity, Connectivity, and Platform Management.

Definition, implementation, and rollout of cloud policies (Azure Policy / custom policies), security standards, and compliance requirements (including GDPR, ISO 27001, BSI C5).

Building a cloud governance framework based on the Azure Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF), including landing zone and guardrail concepts.

Introduction of automation solutions for governance, security, and cost control (policy/control automation, IaC, CI/CD-based control mechanisms).

Implementation of cloud security and compliance monitoring mechanisms as well as continuous improvement processes.

Establishment and operationalization of FinOps in an enterprise environment (central and decentralized FinOps teams), including cost management strategies, reporting, and guardrails.

Integration of governance policies into DevOps processes (e.g. CI/CD principles for security and compliance checks, GitLab Runner concept in spokes, GitLab CI/CD for CAF landing zones).

Implementation of access concepts including RBAC design and "breaking glass" mechanisms (emergency access) as well as certificate automation (ACME / step-ca).

Achievements:

Created a consistent, auditable governance and control set for Azure (policies, standards, compliance mapping), laying the foundation for scalable cloud usage in a regulated environment.

Established repeatable automation for governance, security, and cost control (IaC + CI/CD), reducing manual effort and implementation risks.

Improved operating and decision-making capabilities across central and decentralized units (clearer roles, responsibilities, escalation paths, balance between autonomy and corporate rules).

Significantly increased workload compliance during lift-and-shift migrations.

Technologies used:

Microsoft Azure Policy, custom policies.

Terraform, OpenTofu, Terragrunt.

step-ca (ACME).

Entra ID.

Azure Firewall.

Azure networking, hub-and-spoke architecture.

Azure vWAN (evaluation).

Azure Front Door, Azure Application Gateway.

Azure ExpressRoute.

Azure Key Vault.

NetBox.

GitLab (on-premises).

Infrastructure, concepts used:

Cloud Shared Responsibility Model.

Hub-and-spoke connectivity / central shared services (from hub-spoke context).

Central governance with decentralized delivery (business unit autonomy with guardrails).

Methods used:

Scrum.

Stakeholder management (C-level to engineering).

Cloud governance, Azure Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF).

DevOps, CI/CD.

Cost and FinOps approaches: tagging/chargeback models, budget/alert concepts, reserved instances/savings plans vs. on-demand scenarios, sensitivity analyses.

RBAC, "breaking glass" concepts.

ACME / certificate automation.

GitLab Runner concept in spokes, GitLab CI/CD pipelines for CAF landing zones.

Automation of the database major / minor releases for the TKeasy project

Concept for database major / minor release automation

As-is analysis

Evaluation of Redgate Flyway functionality

Concept creation

Products: Redgate Flyway, GitHub, Quest, Erwin Data Modeller, Oracle, Atlassian Jira, Atlassian Confluence

Skills: Docker, Continuous Delivery, Continuous Integration, Redgate Flyway, Major Releases, Minor Releases