GitOps Experts

• Developed a browser-based platform for Kubernetes no-code deployment and cluster management
• Developed a CLI in TypeScript to deploy resources in the cluster without leaving the browser UI.
• Implemented DevSecOps pipelines: image scanning, SBOM, policy enforcement, supply-chain security, and used Kyverno. Implemented IAM integration for the command-line utility tool.
• Designed role and permission models for Keycloak, OAuth/OIDC, and social login flows.
• Used LLMs to convert user intent into diagrams.
• Worked on integration with multiple sovereign clouds like StackIT, Hetzner, CIVO, UpCloud, plus public clouds like AWS, GCP, and Azure
• The technology stack includes Java, Spring Boot, Kubernetes, OpenAI, Kubernetes multi-tenancy using vCluster, Karpenter, RBAC for CLI, Helm, React

• Worked as freelance Senior DevOps Consultant on-site for IBM at a European Union Agency, operating in a highly secure, air-gapped environment managing classified systems.
• Led automation and DevOps initiatives for a large-scale OpenShift platform (>400 nodes), driving deployment efficiency, GitOps adoption, and operational automation using Ansible, Python, and Bash while ensuring compliance with security requirements.
• Spearheaded automation of release and deployment workflows in a private cloud environment hosting 400+ OpenShift nodes, significantly improving deployment speed and reliability.
• Migrated existing playbooks, roles, and templates from Ansible Tower to Ansible Automation Platform (AAP), ensuring full compliance with fully-qualified collection names (FQCN) and preparing custom Execution Environments (EE) for containerized automation.
• Implemented GitOps Agent for AAP Controller Configuration as Code, enabling automated synchronization (CRUD) of Ansible Controller objects based on repository-stored configuration definitions using GitHub webhooks.
• Designed and automated complex multi-step operational workflows including environment cleanup, Helix cluster component re-creation, Kafka topic management, and OpenShift object lifecycle management across ~100 environments.
• Achieved a reduction of multi-day manual operations to under a few hours through automation improvements spanning multiple AAP clusters and OpenShift environments.
• Integrated Ansible Automation Platform with Thycotic (Delinea) Secret Server via lookup plugin to enhance secure credential management in automated processes.
• Managed deployment tasks, platform troubleshooting, and Istio network configurations while adhering to stringent EU PSC security and compliance standards.
• Collaborated with infrastructure and application teams to refine deployment procedures, develop naming conventions, and continuously improve automation coverage in an air-gapped, classified environment.

• Team leadership: Prioritization and coordination of four cross-functional teams.
• Platform strategy: Development and implementation of strategies to optimize existing IT platforms.
• Stakeholder management: Active management of expectations and communication with internal and external stakeholders.
• Program and innovation management: Prioritization and coordination of cross-department projects as well as innovation initiatives.
• Product Owner consulting: Advising Product Owners with a focus on product development and continuous product improvement.
• Organizational development: Improving communication and decision-making structures across all organizational levels.
• Change management: Implementing best-practice change management methods to ensure continuous optimization and innovation.
• Quality assurance: Ensuring high quality standards in processes, services, and deliverables.

• Architected the Yatta Integration Layer – a config-driven integration platform on Java 25, Spring Boot 4 (WebFlux), Temporal, gRPC and Kafka, enabling new third-party integrations (e.g. AVS fulfillment) via declarative JSON configs with zero code changes.
• Designed and implemented Tink integration with 0Auth IBAN verification to enhance fraud prevention and account validation workflows with Adyen payByBank.
• Architected and implemented an OpenFGA-based authorization model for centralized management of users, groups, and fine-grained access control in the vendor portal.
• Architected and led delivery of the Yatta API Gateway platform using GraphQL Federation, providing a unified enterprise API layer across distributed microservices with centralized authentication, authorization and request orchestration.
• Replaced NGINX + NLB with Istio service mesh and AWS ALB; rolled out WAF, OAuth (Cognito), IP whitelisting and RBAC across environments.
• Migrated CDC from Confluent Cloud connectors to a self-hosted Kafka Connect + Debezium stack, reducing operational cost by ~80% across multiple environments.
• Implemented the Transactional Outbox pattern with Debezium for reliable, exactly-once event publishing to Kafka with Avro and Schema Registry.
• Migrated dunning/payment-recovery workflows from Airflow to Temporal, achieving 99.9% reliability for settlement handling.
• Optimised Apache Airflow with deferrable sensors to handle 1000+ concurrent DAG runs without scaling the worker pool.
• Refactored a monolithic Terraform codebase into 3 modular projects, cutting deployment time by ~45%.
• Stood up full observability with OpenTelemetry, Tempo, Prometheus and Loki; automated dev/staging/prod with ArgoCD, Image Updater and Helm.
• Collaborated with product, operations and engineering stakeholders to define scalable platform architecture and integration standards aligned with long-term business and operational goals.

IT consulting, analysis, architecture design, new and further development, code review, test automation, continuous integration, continuous delivery in backend and frontend areas for Automotive Project Instavalo.

Frontend:

• Implementation of UI components according to specifications, especially style guides and responsive design eith React and Typescript
• Component testing
• Code documentation
• CI/CD with Gitlab Pipeline

Backend / IoT:

• Analysis and architectural design with AWS Greengrass IoT on Edge Devices
• Setting up Microservices containers with Docker Compose on Edge device with AWS Greengrass and AWS IoT IAM, Token Exchange Service, Ansible
• CI/CD with Gitlab Pipeline, Terraform, AWS ECR
• Logging with Fluentbit Lua Language for AWS Cloudwatch
• Python Lambda for AWS Greengrass Recipe deployment on Edge Devices
• Implementation of test-driven development with JUnit, Mockito, and code Coverage
• Jacoco
• Definition of REST interfaces with OpenAPI / Swagger
• Development and enhancement of software based on Java Quarkus, Typescript NestJs NodeJs and Python
• Authentication and authorization in Aws IAM
• Development of REST and gRPC interfaces for the frontend and backend
• Implementation of Maven dependencies with DevSecOps OWASP
• Spring AI, Jetbrains AI Assistant, Junie, Github Copilot, Claude Code, Agents, Skills, Command, Hooks, Subagents

• 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

• 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.

• Error analysis and fixes including performance optimization of the in-house developed platform API
• Change and incident management in day-to-day operations
• Responsible for compliance with security and compliance requirements
• Vendor management for software development and maintenance
• Planning and execution of migration of legacy services to a cloud native platform

Role in the project: project staff, implementation team

Used skills: requirements analysis, IT service and application management, IT operations, error analysis and performance optimization, software maintenance and lifecycle management

Project environment: Cloud Native Platform (Kubernetes, Crossplane, AWS, ArgoCD, Grafana)

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

Temporary employment

• System black-box integration tests (BBIT, IVVQ): Execution of regression, release, acceptance, and compliance tests for safety-critical brake control units in the rail industry
• Software test application & integration: Runtime configuration of software components and libraries, validation of interfaces, configuration dependencies, and component interactions
• Test automation (FEAT framework): Co-development and further development of an automated test framework for test execution, reporting, and result analysis
• Functional safety (SiL4, FuSi): Ensuring compliance with safety requirements, traceability and coverage, as well as standards compliance according to EN50126/28/29
• Test automation for communication components: Configuration and validation of fieldbus (CAN) and Ethernet-based TCMS data communication interfaces (TRDP and CIP)
• Requirements analysis & shift-left (PTC Windchill ALM): Analysis of software and system artifacts to identify gaps, ambiguities, and redundancies early in the SDLC
• Test design & test case development: Derivation of test conditions, coverage strategies, and implementation of data-driven test cases (DDT), including reusable test data fixtures
• CI/CD & automation (Python, PowerShell, Jenkins, SVN): Automation of build, test, and HIL deployment processes as well as integration into CI/CD pipelines
• Test data & configuration management (XML): Maintenance and adaptation of XML test vectors and system configurations with automated integration into test environments
• Non-functional testing: Execution of performance and load tests to assess stability and system behavior
• Agile development & defect management (JIRA, Confluence): Participation in Scrum teams, test coordination, review of test artifacts, as well as defect tracking and root-cause analysis
• Error analysis & debugging (CANoe, CANalyzer): Analysis of errors and message flows across multiple system layers (application to bus)
• Model-based analysis (UML, Enterprise Architect): Specification of SUT/SOW and support for systematic test control
• Process & test documentation: Creation of integration and test documentation according to internal quality and certification requirements

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 the architecture of an enterprise SCM/CI platform for Kubernetes-native delivery and GitOps workflows.
• Implemented infrastructure automation and Vault & IAM integration for secure, compliant pipelines.
• Coordinated cross-functional teams to improve DevOps, security, and architecture in release processes.
• Increased platform adoption and developer experience by automating onboarding and artifact pipelines.

• 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

• Led discovery phase and POC for Shopware to Shopify Plus migration across EMEA markets, evaluating platform suitability, technical architecture, and multi-brand/multi-country capabilities against business requirements.
• Designed reference architecture for Shopify Plus implementation incorporating headless front-end patterns (Vue.js, Nuxt.js), CMS integration (Magnolia), and Azure middleware (APIM, Functions, Logic Apps, Service Bus) for 11 EMEA markets.
• Defined migration strategy analyzing data mapping, cutover approach, and zero-downtime deployment patterns using Varnish caching, GitOps pipelines, and CI/CD orchestration across six vendor teams.
• Architected multi-tenant Shopify Plus governance model with centralized admin, localized storefront customization, and compliance controls (GDPR, data residency).
• Prototyped AI-driven search optimization (LLM.txt, JSON-LD) for product discoverability in Google AI results, demonstrating post-launch performance opportunities.
• Defined EMEA expansion roadmap for 15+ markets through C-level strategic workshops, identifying phased rollout, market-specific configurations, and resource requirements.
• Tech Stack: React, Nuxt.js, Vue.js, Magnolia CMS, Shopware, Shopify Plus, Azure (APIM, Functions, Logic Apps, Service Bus, Front Door), Varnish, SAP, MS Dynamics, Docker, Kubernetes, GitHub Actions, PostgreSQL, Kafka