Amazon VPC Experts in Germany

• Led migration to GCP using Terraform, GKE, and GitOps, improving deployment consistency and scalability
• Implemented Datadog observability stack via Terraform and datadog-operator
• Established automated end-to-end tests and on-call processes, improving incident response and service reliability
• Migrated from NGINX Ingress Controller to Kubernetes Gateway API (NGINX Gateway Fabric)
• Migrated stateful services (PostgreSQL and Redis) to GCP, improving scalability and operational reliability

• 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)

Task:

• Design and build a proof of concept (PoC) for a future-proof virtualization platform, taking secure system architectures into account
• Assess the current state of existing infrastructures and develop selection and evaluation criteria for the right OS virtualization platform
• Carry out the requirements analysis and then create and prioritize tickets in the ticket system
• Complete and continuously update a tool evaluation matrix based on PoC results
• Support team knowledge building through clear documentation of the approach and results in Confluence
• Enterprise analysis of existing hardware (creating different BoMs)

Technologies: Vmware, Vmware Aria Operations, Osism, Canonical OpenStack, FishOs, Linux, Terraform, Ansible, Confluence, Alma

Designed and developed an AI-powered automation platform using n8n to analyze social media niches, identify target audiences, and automate marketing strategy generation. The solution combined AI agents, workflow orchestration, and data analysis to automate research processes and generate data-driven insights.

• Designed and implemented complex automation workflows using n8n
• Developed AI-powered analysis agents for market and audience research
• Integrated multiple APIs and AI services into automated workflows
• Built automated market, competitor, and target audience analysis pipelines
• Leveraged Large Language Models (LLMs) for information summarization, classification, and prioritization
• Containerized and deployed the platform using Docker

Technologies: n8n, AI Agents, OpenAI APIs, Prompt Engineering, LLMs, Docker, Linux, REST APIs, Webhooks

• Design and build of a fully isolated AWS offline environment with no outbound internet access for running a browser-based business application
• Design and implementation of a proxy and response service that terminates all external application calls inside the VPC and serves them from locally stored content; identification of the actual communication needs through measurement-based DNS query logging
• Creation of architecture designs and decision papers including a comparison of options (Application Load Balancer with Lambda and S3, reverse proxy on EC2, private API Gateway) assessed by operational effort, cost, and availability
• Transfer of the solution and operations documentation previously available only for Azure to an AWS target architecture, including reassignment of all services and operational processes
• Automated rollout as Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation) with CI deployment via GitHub Actions, plus setup of private DNS zones and an internal certificate chain for operation without internet access
• Creation of architecture, deployment, and operations documentation and handover to the customer
• Build-up of a private cloud platform on OpenStack at provider TelemaxX with Terraform, including FortiGate HA clusters, FortiManager, and Kubernetes
• Introduction of Policy as Code (Open Policy Agent, Conftest) as well as development of MCP servers (Model Context Protocol) to connect AI assistants to operations and project tools

Successes:

• Made the business application fully operable without internet access for the first time; the cause of the loading error was narrowed down systematically to missing CORS headers after the likely certificate issue was ruled out
• Fully transferred an existing Azure concept to AWS and replaced the manually created environment with a reproducible, CI-based rollout

Technology stack: AWS (VPC, Application Load Balancer, Lambda, S3, Route 53 private hosted zones and Resolver query logging, IAM, CloudWatch, EC2, CloudFormation), Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation, Remote State), CI/CD (GitHub Actions with OIDC, Azure DevOps Pipelines), OpenStack, FortiGate, FortiManager, Kubernetes, Policy as Code (Open Policy Agent, Conftest), offline and air-gap architectures, PKI & certificates (internal CA, TLS, CRL/OCSP), DNS, network segmentation, Linux, Windows Server, Python, Bash, PowerShell, YAML, JSON, architecture design & decision papers, documentation (Confluence, Markdown), Generative & Agentic AI (Model Context Protocol, Agentic AI Coding Tools)

• Understand the customer’s business & technical requirements and translate them into system / technical requirements
• Design and implement Schrodinger’s applications on cloud systems, and experience convincing senior management and senior technical staff of the benefits of their journey with Schrodinger on the cloud
• Provide exceptional technical design and thought leadership, especially around AWS, GCP, and K8s architecture reviews, performance, high availability, cost, and security
• Deep understanding of the Well-Architected pillars and all best practices for building a secure, performant Schrodinger’s applications on the cloud platforms
• Lead technical workshops and advise customers on architectural and strategic IT decisions
• Ensure success in designing, building and migrating applications, software, and services on the cloud platforms
• Educate customers on best practices to ensure their solutions are designed for successful deployment in the cloud
• Work with other team members to ensure quality and customer success
• Define the tickets, tasks, and timelines of projects
• Collaborate with account managers to ensure that the projects are executed according to the defined plan and timeline
• Monitor the progress of the projects, identify risks and issues, and take proactive measures to mitigate them
• Lead and inspire cloud architect teams, provide guidance, and make critical decisions
• Facilitate effective communication and collaboration among team members
• Collaborate with Schrodinger’s managers to improve deployment, support, and configuration of Schrodinger’s applications
• Lead weekly standups and define priorities

In my role as Senior Cloud DevOps Architect for BP, an oil and gas company, I had the mission to migrate the Electric Vehicle Charging platform of the EV Division from on-premises and Azure to AWS cloud, resulting in a hybrid multi-cloud, multi-tenant SaaS solution.

Deployment with Kubernetes for the application layer meant provisioning Kubernetes clusters managed by EKS and AKS, with a focus on integrating them into a multi-tenant environment. This integration was achieved by using Kubernetes namespaces and access controls to ensure data isolation and privacy enforcement.

In the database layer, we chose an RDS instance with PostgreSQL to support the backend infrastructure of our applications. Tenants shared the same RDS instance, but each had a dedicated schema.

To ingest near real-time data from physical charge points (CPOs), as IoT devices, via the OCPI protocol, we ran into significant delays with batch processing. As a result, we built a real-time streaming data pipeline using Apache Kafka, while prioritizing an event-driven architecture.

Led collaboration across multiple internal teams, external vendors, cloud providers, and on-site partners to integrate over five systems into a unified solution.

Achievements:

• Successfully designed and implemented hybrid multi-cloud solutions, integrating multiple cloud platforms (AWS, Azure) with on-premises infrastructure, using Site-to-Site VPNs, Firewalls, and Load Balancing.
• Led the migration of on-premises infrastructure to multi-cloud, multi-tenant infrastructure, resulting in 30% faster processing times.
• Migrated workloads from VMware and Hyper-V environments to cloud-based VMs, leveraging cloud-native services to optimize performance, cost efficiency, and scalability.
• Designed a multi-tenant Kubernetes platform leveraging the Kubernetes ecosystem, using Karpenter for dynamic EC2 node provisioning, KEDA for event-driven pod autoscaling (e.g., Kafka message lag), and Rancher for centralized monitoring of multiple clusters (EKS, AKS, or on-prem K8s), replacing Microsoft-centric Azure Arc management service.
• Designed and implemented Python-based FastAPI microservices as part of the EV core-backend on AWS EKS application layer, powering data ingestion and customer analytics pipelines.
• Developed asynchronous, event-driven APIs (Python-FastAPI) for real-time integration with CPOs, supporting OCPI 2.3 and OICP protocols.
• Designed and implemented a secure, production-grade Azure Databricks platform using Terraform, ensuring scalability and cost efficiency.
• Migrated on-premises ERP to a hybrid Dynamics 365 architecture with ERP hosted locally and CRM running in Azure, integrated via Azure Arc.
• Automated CI/CD pipelines for Databricks notebooks and jobs using GitHub Actions & Databricks CLI, reducing deployment time. Reduced infrastructure provisioning time by 70% by automating cloud resource deployment with GitOps.
• Ensured compliance with internal audit and data governance standards (GDPR) through OAuth2/OIDC-based authentication and fine-grained role-based access controls.
• Developed a Zero Trust security model, enforcing least-privilege access and microsegmentation, enhancing security posture and compliance with GDPR and NIST.
• Built interactive analytics dashboards in Amazon QuickSight, integrating data from S3 and Redshift to deliver real-time business insights and visualizations with embedded access for multi-tenant users.
• Led cloud security assessments and full-lifecycle cybersecurity integration during M&A, covering AWS, Azure, IAM (Entra ID), and data protection, while aligning security posture with NIST, ISO 27001, and GDPR across hybrid and cloud-native environments.
• Reduced cloud costs by 64% for a client's dev environment by implementing automated start/stop schedules for EC2 and RDS instances via AWS CDK with EventBridge Scheduler or AWS Systems Manager.

Tech stack:

• Infrastructure as Code: Terraform, AWS CDK, Ansible.
• Containers: Kubernetes on EKS, AKS, Docker.
• Streaming Data Processing: Kafka to Confluent Cloud, after AWS MSK.
• Frontend: TypeScript, React, NextJS, Hooks, Styled Components.
• Backend: Python with FastAPI, also Node.js with NestJS.
• Database: Aurora on PostgreSQL with TypeORM, RDS on SQL Server, Azure Databricks full setup and administration, ETL Pipelines.
• CI/CD and GitOps: GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, ArgoCD.
• Monitoring and Observability: Prometheus and Grafana.
• Virtualization: Hyper-V, VMware Cloud on AWS, Azure Migrate.
• ERP Systems: Odoo, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central on Azure, integrated with Azure Arc.
• Networking: Site-to-Site VPNs, AWS Direct Connect, Azure ExpressRoute, Firewalls (AWS Network Firewall, Azure Firewall).
• Security: IAM, NIST Framework, Zero Trust Security, AWS WAF, AWS Shield, GuardDuty.

• Build and operate an end-to-end MLOps platform on Azure ML and Kubernetes (Kubeflow) for the automated deployment, monitoring, and scaling of forecasting models (including Temporal Fusion Transformer, Informer, Autoformer).
• Implement CI/CD pipelines in Azure DevOps for the full ML lifecycle – from resource provisioning (Terraform), data transformation (Hugging Face Datasets, Pandas, PyTorch, CUDA cluster) through training and evaluation to model registry and endpoint deployment.
• Integrate MLflow for experiment tracking, model versioning, performance monitoring, and automated registration in the Azure Model Registry.
• Develop and containerize PyTorch training jobs (Azure Notebook, Jupyter Notebooks) for price and time series forecasting (PFC models) with automatic rollout via Azure ML Endpoints and REST/gRPC interfaces, Docker containerization, secured with OAuth 2.0.
• Set up monitoring and alerting mechanisms (Prometheus, MLflow Metrics), log centralization, and cost monitoring.
• Automate infrastructure provisioning and model deployment using Terraform, Helm, and Azure CLI; connect to existing market data systems and event pipelines.
• Migrate existing workloads and databases (IONOS → Azure, MongoDB) with integration into central MLOps workflows and internal networks.
• Extend the platform with LLM-based tools (LangChain, LangServe) to integrate GPT-based analysis modules into existing Spring Boot services for market anomaly detection and automated reports.
• Analyze and architect a software solution to process large volumes of data efficiently (>3000 messages/sec.) (market data store).
• Spring Boot / Java 21 container development with RabbitMQ for distributing stock market data via MongoDB (Kubernetes) with fast storage of data in Redis RMaps, deduplication, forwarding messages to Read Model queues, and building Read Models for UI display in MongoDB.
• Integration of RESTHeart to create a REST API for MongoDB.
• Build an Angular frontend to simplify data queries and master data maintenance.
• Agentic coding with remote and local LLMs (Claude Sonnet, Ollama Qwen) and MCP servers.
• Develop Python scripts for transforming and cleaning incoming stock market data (Pandas, scikit-learn).

• Designing new apps as well as enhancing and running 29 Angular apps for digital claims in an Nx monorepo
• Maintaining and improving a shared component library with ~300 libraries for multiple product teams
• Migrating all apps to a new design system including its component library and systematic refactoring
• Developing and maintaining the CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, Azure DevOps, Terraform, AWS)
• Managing releases independently including branch handling, versioning, PR coordination and production deployment
• Implementing and maintaining tracking (Adobe Analytics)
• Ensuring accessibility according to BFSG/WCAG
• Test-driven development (TDD) with Jest and Cypress
• Code reviews, mentoring and setting up best practices in the team
• Technologies: TypeScript, Angular 16-20, RxJS, NgRx, Nx (Monorepo), npm, HTML, (S)CSS, Storybook, Jest, Cypress, Cucumber, Husky, Node.js, Git, AWS, Azure DevOps (Repos & Pipelines), Jenkins, Terraform, TDD, BFSG, WCAG, Nexus, IntelliJ, Adobe Analytics

• Operations and extensions of Azure DevOps pipelines

• Operations and extensions of AWS services

• Citrix (Windows 10, Bitwarden)

• AWS: ECR, EKS, CloudFront CDN, Route 53, VPC peering and CNI upgrade, Atlas MongoDB, S3 buckets, static website hosting

• Azure: build and deploy with DevOps pipelines

Conceptual design and implementation of a modular customer portal based on Laravel.

The focus was on defining a maintainable system architecture with broad use of Domain-Driven Design principles (within the Laravel architecture), introducing automated quality assurance processes (test strategy, CI integration), and preparing an auditable operation (logging, traceability of changes) in an AWS-based infrastructure, taking IT security standards according to NIST and process requirements according to ISO 9001 into account.

Achievements:

• Analysis and structuring of business requirements in close coordination with stakeholders
• Documentation of the system architecture and infrastructure incl. change and release management
• Design and implementation of an interface for integrating SAP systems
• Planning and implementation of automated tests for quality assurance
• Implementation of security and compliance requirements, including SBOM generation, software license management, and QA processes
• Technical consulting and support for the internal IT team
• Introduction and establishment of AI-supported development processes (Spec-Driven Development), including AI-readable specifications, integration of AI instructions into the development environment, and training developers for productive use

Technologies and tools: SAP, Docker, ddev, PHP 8.4, Laravel, Filament, C4 Model, Architecture Decision Records (ADR), Mermaid, PlantUML, Spec-Driven Development, Claude, GitHub Copilot, Codex

• Responsible for Openshift/Kubernetes on-prem administration and developer support.
• Developed URP infrastructure automation with Python, Ansible, Kustomize and ArgoCD, Argo Workflow/Events stack.
• Wrote smoke and load tests for URP infrastructure utilizing Python, Kustomize and ApplicationSets.
• Helped to set up and deploy URP infrastructure in Google Cloud, GKE.
• Set up monitoring for URP and ArgoCD stack with Splunk Cloud.
• Performed system administration tasks across RedHat Linux, Kubernetes/Openshift, ArgoCD, GitLab, Bitbucket Enterprise, Kafka and MongoDB.

• Migration of backups and complete workloads to AWS and Azure, including setup and management of AKS & EKS clusters.
• Automation with Terraform & ArgoCD, CI/CD pipelines implemented with GitLab.
• System monitoring on OpenShift 4 (on-premise) with Grafana & Prometheus, use of CloudWatch and X-Ray for analysis and logging.
• Building and maintaining secure network infrastructures (VPCs, SGs, WAF, ACLs), integration of Azure Log Analytics.
• Close collaboration with infrastructure and development teams, maintenance of technical documentation with Confluence, ticket handling via Jira, and promoting cloud knowledge within the company.

• 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.