Cloud Security Experts in Germany

Stabilizing an Azure/.NET landscape in live operation.

• Architecture, DevOps, and operational readiness; technical decisions under time pressure
• Azure DevOps, monitoring, ETL/ELT, cloud security, FinOps, and data-mesh-related topics

Technologies: Azure DevOps, .NET, CI/CD, monitoring, FinOps

• Industry: mechanical engineering, vehicle manufacturing
• Regulations: Data Act
• Project focus: data governance, legally compliant use of machine data, data platforms
• Assigned by: CFO, platform product owner

Successes/Results (early phase):

• Compliance support for the setup of an internal standardized data usage platform based on Databricks.
• Created the basis for the legally compliant and effective use of machine data, including:
• Technical: gap analysis and closing of gaps in the segmentation and maintenance of collected machine data.
• Technical: consideration of data flows from the platform to users and third parties.
• Organizational: drafting and finalizing the required data usage agreements.

• PMO lead for Security Clearance 2 (SÜ2) cleared
• Reporting to sub-program management GMN
• System maintenance 25+
• Functional control and coordination of Jira setup
• Preparation of decision papers (e.g. project planning, steering model, communication plans, controlling models, role and responsibility matrices)
• Development of program-wide knowledge management using Confluence, creation of Jira concept
• Development of an access concept for all project tools
• Analyzing existing processes, identifying improvement potential, and designing solutions to increase efficiency and effectiveness
• Development of a concept for introducing automation approaches in existing tools
• Creating intranet articles as project marketing
• Responsible for project governance through reporting and resource planning in the sub-program
• Agile further development of the project method
• Gathering customer requirements (requirements engineering)
• Preparation and support of contract negotiations (7-year term, budget of over 500 million)

• 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

• Short description: Leading 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 preserving the autonomy of decentralized business units within regulatory frameworks.

• Tasks and activities:

• Overall responsibility for designing, building, and implementing a company-wide cloud governance structure (Azure), including target picture, roadmap, and operating model.

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

• Planning and facilitating workshops on cloud strategy, governance principles, and the design of areas such as identity, connectivity, and platform management.

• Defining, implementing, and rolling out 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.

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

• Implementing cloud security and compliance monitoring mechanisms as well as continuous improvement processes.

• Establishing and operationalizing FinOps in an enterprise environment (central and decentralized FinOps teams), including cost management strategies, reporting, and guardrails.

• Integrating 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).

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

• Achievements:

• Created a unified, auditable governance and control set for Azure (policies, standards, compliance mapping) and thus laid the foundation for scalable cloud use in a regulated environment.

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

• Improved operational and decision-making capability across central and decentralized units (clearer roles, responsibilities, escalation paths, balance between autonomy and group requirements).

• 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.

• 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.

• Situation: Increasing demand for privacy-compliant AI solutions for clients in the KRITIS and mid-market sector that need to analyze sensitive media content (audio, video, documents) without sending data to public cloud LLMs.

• Task: Design, deployment, and secure operation of a fully self-hosted AI infrastructure including a custom-built digital management platform for automated media analysis.

• Action: Architected and implemented a multi-tier platform on hardened Proxmox infrastructure with frontend (Nuxt 3, Vue 3, TypeScript, Tailwind 4), backend (Laravel 13, PHP 8.4, Sanctum), data storage (PostgreSQL 16, MongoDB 7), caching/queuing (Redis 7, Laravel Queue), AI workers (Python 3.11, Whisper, DeepFace, Librosa), scheduling (Laravel Scheduler/Cron), and local LLMs (Gemma, DeepSeek, Qwen, Mistral, LLaMA, Phi) via OpenWebUI with segmented network access, API hardening, and audit logging following BSI recommendations.

• Result: Fully GDPR-compliant, on-premises AI platform with zero data leakage to third parties.

• Task: Overall responsibility as an external Head of Cyber Security / CISO-as-a-Service for the design, implementation, and continuous improvement of ISMS according to ISO 27001, BSI IT-Grundschutz, and NIS2.

• Action: Built and managed Cyber Defense Centers (CDC) with SOC operations, integrated SIEM solutions (Splunk, Graylog), established risk-based vulnerability management (Qualys, Nessus, OpenVAS), and conducted regular infrastructure, application, and physical penetration tests.

• Result: Audit-ready ISMS for multiple clients and a 60% reduction in critical vulnerabilities within 90 days.

• Task: Design and execution of NIS2 assessments and operational roll-out plans for KRITIS operators.

• Action: Developed an online assessment tool for automated identification of individual weakness profiles, implemented ISMS optimizations, penetration testing, awareness programs, GRC suite deployment, and delivered C-level presentations.

• Result: Accelerated the consulting process by 50% and successfully prepared multiple clients for NIS2 compliance.

• Task: Incident commander for crisis response, forensics, and business recovery in ransomware attacks and APT campaigns.

• Action: Coordinated with state and federal police (LKA, BKA), performed forensic analysis (OSForensics, Wireshark, Kali Linux), executed disaster recovery and BCM strategies, and developed BTC extortion response strategies.

• Result: 100% recovery rate within defined RTO windows and sustainable post-incident security architectures.

• Action: Planned, built, and operated a hardened multi-VM infrastructure (Proxmox, 15+ VMs) with web and mail servers, Graylog, OPNsense firewalls, CRM/ERP and LLM instances, network segmentation, DDoS mitigation, automated patch management, and backup strategies.

• Result: >99.5% uptime over 20+ years and zero compromises.

• Action: Designed coordinated phishing campaigns with five levels of difficulty, developed e-trainings and webinars in a PDCA cycle, and led red and blue teams.

• Result: Phishing click rate reduced from 35% to under 5% within three campaign cycles.

Conversational AI assistant for cloud infrastructure and security queries

• Designed FastAPI backend with multi-turn conversation handler, token budgeting, and context window management.
• Integrated Amazon Bedrock (Claude 3 Sonnet/Haiku); built RAG pipeline with MongoDB chat history and semantic search.
• Implemented Factory Pattern for modular LLM provider switching; reduced model onboarding effort by 60%.
• Reduced LLM inference cost by 35% through model tiering (Haiku vs Sonnet) and prompt/entity consolidation.

Tech: Python, FastAPI, Amazon Bedrock, MongoDB, Streamlit, Pydantic.

• Define the QA strategy and plan for the above mentioned OEMs project.

• Identify applicable processes, methods, and standards to be followed (eg, GS_95014, KGAS, ISO/IEC 15504, ISO 26262, ISO 21434, etc.).

• Plan reviews, audits, and assessments as per the strategy.

• Check whether the project follows defined processes (System, software, mechanical, hardware, testing, change, configuration, problem, risk etc.) as per strategy.

• Provide QA support to software process: software requirement analysis, software architectural design, software detailed design and unit construction, software unit verification, software component verification and integration verification, software verification processes.

• Monitor compliance with organization-wide and project-specific standards.

• Verify that deviations are documented and escalated.

• Review work products (requirements, design docs, test cases, code, reports (MISRA, C0, C1, coding standards), etc.).

• Check compliance with standards, templates, and checklists.

• Ensure that bi-directional traceability exists (e.g., requirements ↔ design ↔ tests).

• Give objective evidence (not influenced by delivery pressure) during assessments.

• Identify non-conformances (process not followed, missing approvals, wrong standard).

• Report deviations and track them until closure.

• Verify that corrective actions are implemented (5why, Ishikawa, 8D, FMEA, FTA, DFM, DRP, PCC, LLBP, PDCA).

• Provide QA status reports to management and project stakeholders.

• Highlight risks related to process non-compliance.

• Deliver objective evidence for assessments/audits (e.g., ASPICE, ISO/IEC 15504, ISO 26262, ISO 21434, ISO_PAS_8800).

• Collect and analyze QA findings.

• Suggest process improvements.

• Support lessons learned activities.

• Achieved ASPICE Level 1 and Level 2 for multiple Audi and Mercedes-Benz projects assessments.

• 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

• Perform secure code reviews and provide secure-coding guidance across the application and platform architecture.
• Engineer infrastructure security and design security-monitoring architecture, incident-response playbooks and Security-by-Design controls.

• Built an enterprise data lakehouse platform on Azure Databricks

• Developed production data pipelines and governance structures

• Implemented private cloud infrastructures using Terraform

• Introduced modern CI/CD standards in Azure DevOps

• Implemented secure IAM and governance concepts

• Developed scalable PySpark and Delta Lake frameworks

• Supported self-service analytics and data product approaches

• Provided architecture and platform consulting for enterprise data initiatives

• Built a central DataHub architecture for insurance data

• Integrated multiple subsystems into a lakehouse platform

• Introduced data governance and data lineage

• Supported modern analytics and reporting standards

• Optimized data delivery for business and analytics teams

• Complete overhaul of the ISMS according to ISO 27001
• Conducted a comprehensive gap analysis
• Reduced ISMS documentation by 30% through consolidation and process optimization
• Introduced a full PDCA cycle for continuous improvement
• Established the ISMS within the company
• Implemented the necessary processes
• Managed and conducted internal and external audits
• Developed and implemented a company-wide risk management system
• Deployed an ISMS tool including process design and training
• KRITIS compliance: Prepared and provided required evidence, liaised with regulatory authorities, planned, documented, and implemented an attack detection system (SIEM), co-led the BCMS/ITSCM implementation subproject
• NIS-2 implementation: Gap analysis, risk assessments, training for executives and staff
• Led a cybersecurity team of 3 members
• Conducted various internal and external audits, managed providers, introduced continuous improvement
• Project consulting: closely coordinated with business and system owners, launched an online shop, a mobile app, and a customer portal
• Redesigned the security architecture, reducing administrative efforts by 20%
• Implemented ITIL processes (e.g., change management)
• Revised service agreements with internal and external providers
• Developed a security awareness strategy, ran social engineering tests, introduced and monitored phishing simulations, created various awareness materials, gave presentations
• Managed a budget of one million euros

• IaC & Automation: Designed and automated provisioning of about 40 Linux servers and cloud resources using Terraform and Ansible (reducing manual effort by over 80%).
• Container Orchestration: Built and operated two production Kubernetes clusters with 70+ Docker containers to ensure high availability, scalability, and self-healing.
• CI/CD Optimization: Developed and maintained 15+ CI/CD pipelines with Jenkins and GitHub Actions (shortening deployment times from several hours to under 15 minutes).
• OS Hardening & Operations: Automated patch management, OS configuration, and security hardening for 40+ Linux servers with Ansible to improve compliance.
• Monitoring & Alerting: Implemented centralized monitoring and alerting solutions for proactive issue detection and minimized system downtime.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Worked across Dev, Ops, and Security teams to establish DevOps best practices and infrastructure-as-code standards.