Microsoft Entra ID Experts

Creation of concepts for M365 implementation, especially Tenants, EntraID, EntraConnect and ExchangeOnline, taking BAS standards into account (mandatory baseline security requirements) in the project "Concept M365" with the aim of transferring the concepts to the M365 environments of Bitmarck and then handing them over to the customer.

• Creation of a current-state analysis of the existing M365 environments as well as the on-premises environments and the BAS standards.
• Creation of concepts for the topics Tenants, EntraID, EntraConnect and ExchangeOnline taking the BAS standards into account
• Design and implementation of an automated solution for creating standardized M365 tenants based on Microsoft M365 DSC (Desired State Configuration)
• Transfer of the concepts into the M365 environments
• Creation of detailed technical documentation

• 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.

• Development of an AI-powered project organization tool for a civil engineering company that intelligently links project, task, tender, schedule, and document data through a knowledge graph.
• Implementation of AI features for document analysis, information extraction, context-based assistance, and voice-based data capture based on Microsoft Azure AI, reducing administrative effort, making information available faster, and supporting project teams in decision-making.
• Tech stack: Python, React, TypeScript, FastAPI, Claude Code, Codex, Graphify, PostgreSQL, Microsoft Azure AI Foundry, Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Speech, Azure AI Document Intelligence, Microsoft Graph, Microsoft Entra ID, Docker, Git, CI/CD.

• Gathering information
• Creating wave concepts for the rollout
• Coordinating employees
• Monitoring and steering measures
• Project management including analyses & reporting to the board
• Creating instructions and requirement specifications
• Training floorwalkers
• On-site rollout support
• VIP support
• Introducing SharePoint

• Integration of highly regulated countries such as China and South Korea into a company-wide M365 tenant.

• Technical contact for integrating special requirements for the executive board and German subsidiaries that are subject to BaFin compliance requirements.

• Subproject management.

• Coordination of requirements within the overall architecture.

• Design of the use of DLP features from Microsoft Purview.

• Design of special access restrictions via Entra ID Conditional Access.

• Support in designing the provisioning of Teams teams and SharePoint sites with higher compliance requirements.

• Technical support for implementing information classification with sensitivity labels for SharePoint Online and Teams.

• Technical support for the subproject introducing CoPilot for M365.

• Skills: M365, Purview, DLP, Entra ID, Sensitivity Labels, CoPilot, Teams, SharePoint Online.

Embedded Analytics & AI-assisted BI

Design and development of an integrated analytics solution based on ASP.NET Core, Power BI Embedded, and LLM services to provide context-based business information.

Development of an AI agent with Function/Tool Calling for the secure orchestration of REST APIs, SQL data sources, and technical services within defined business processes.

Building automated BI workflows including workspace management, deployment processes, and scheduled refresh via the Power BI REST API.

Implementation of secure service-to-service communication with Microsoft Entra ID and Service Principal, and integration into existing enterprise system landscapes.

Technologies: ASP.NET Core, C#/.NET, Power BI Embedded, Power BI REST API, LLM API, AI Agents, Function/Tool Calling, Entra ID

• 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.

• Designed and developed a multi-tenant SaaS platform enabling organizations to build their own knowledge bases and chat with brand-customized AI assistants (white-label approach with dynamic branding per organization).
• Implemented a scalable RAG architecture with a GPT-4o tool-use loop, hybrid semantic search, and strict tenant isolation at database and search index level.
• Built persistent, project-like chat sessions including a streaming API (SSE), multilingual support, and speech input/output (STT/TTS).
• Delivered the cloud infrastructure as Infrastructure-as-Code, fully automated per-customer CI/CD pipelines, and an onboarding process for new tenants.

Technologies used: Python, FastAPI, Pydantic (v2 noted), Next.js, React, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, OpenAI / LLMs (GPT-4o), Azure AI Search, Cosmos DB, Azure Blob Storage, Azure Cognitive Services Speech, Azure App Service, Azure Container Registry, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), Server-Sent Events (SSE), Docker, Terraform, GitHub Actions, REST, OpenID Connect (OIDC), Multi-Tenancy

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

• Tasks and activities:

• Overall responsibility for the design, setup, and implementation of an enterprise-wide cloud governance structure (Azure), incl. target picture, roadmap, and operating model.

• Management of internal and external stakeholders (C-level, IT, Security, Compliance, Cloud Architecture, DevOps) incl. decision-making 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 aligned with the Azure Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF), incl. 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), incl. 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 incl. RBAC design and "break 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 usage in a regulated environment.

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

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

• Significantly increased workload compliance for 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 a 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, "break glass" concepts.

• ACME / certificate automation.

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

• Led strategic IT and process consulting projects, streamlined business processes, and aligned IT systems with business goals, resulting in a 20% improvement in organizational efficiency.
• Led international transformation projects using agile and traditional methods, managing a cross-functional team of more than 15 professionals and delivering solutions on time and within budget.
• Developed cloud-based ERP/CRM systems (Salesforce, Infor, Microsoft) for clients, ensuring seamless integration and reducing system downtime by 30%.
• Led large-scale change management initiatives, actively involving stakeholders at all levels and driving the successful rollout of innovative systems in global organizations.
• Led requirements analysis and the tender process for clients, identified cost-saving opportunities, and improved operational workflows.

• 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.

Unified ITSM framework

• Definition of a company-wide ITSM target picture
• Introduction of a uniform service structure across all business units

SLA and OLA management

• Building a standardized SLA framework
• Definition of service classes (Business Critical, Standard, Low Priority)
• Introduction of OLAs between internal teams
• Building meaningful SLA reporting
• Definition of KPI and service dashboards for business units

Service portfolio management

• Definition of service descriptions
• If needed, preparing possible cost and service billing

Ticketing & processes

• Incident management
• Uniform ticket categories
• Standardized prioritization
• Escalation matrix
• Automations
• Self-service optimization

Request fulfillment

• Service catalog across all business units
• Approval workflows

Problem management

• Introduction of root cause analysis
• Known error database
• Problem review process

Complete asset management concept

• Hardware lifecycle management
• Software lifecycle management
• Leasing lifecycle
• Mobile device lifecycle
• Monitor lifecycle
• Phone lifecycle

Processes

• Procurement
• Goods receipt
• Inventory
• Assignment
• Return
• Disposal
• Leasing return Goal: single source of truth for all assets

CMDB design

• Definition of all configuration items:
• Workplace
• Notebooks
• Monitors
• Mobile phones
• Printers

Infrastructure

• Servers
• Firewalls
• Switches
• WLAN
• Storage
• Backup systems

Cloud

• Azure resources
• Microsoft 365
• SaaS services

Relationships

• User ↔ Asset
• Asset ↔ Service
• Service ↔ Infrastructure
• Location ↔ Asset
• Goal: make all service dependencies visible

Software asset & license management

• License management concept
• License balancing
• Compliance reporting
• Microsoft license management
• Adobe license management
• SaaS management
• Contract management
• Renewal management

Interfaces & automation Existing systems

• Workday
• Joiner
• Mover
• Leaver

TESMA

• Leasing data
• Contract data

Matrix42

• Asset synchronization
• User synchronization

Active Directory / Entra ID

• User management

Microsoft 365

• License assignment
• Group management

Dormakaba

• Access processes

• Lifecycle services

Monitoring platforms

• PRTG
• Palo Alto
• Cisco

Reporting & KPI framework

• Definition of a management dashboard
• KPIs
• Ticket volume
• SLA fulfillment
• MTTR
• First resolution rate
• Asset accuracy
• License compliance
• Change success rate
• Service availability
• Degree of automation

Network redesign support

• Governance
• Support of the network redesign from an ITSM point of view
• Definition of affected services
• Change management structure
• Communication concept

CMDB integration

• Recording of all network components
• Service mapping
• Dependency analysis

Validation of documentation and knowledge base articles

• Network documentation
• Operations documentation
• Standard changes

Monitoring & event management

• Target picture
• Central monitoring concept
• Event management process
• Alerting strategy
• Escalation model

Systems

• Cisco

• Palo Alto

• Fortinet

• Rubrik

• Veeam

• Matrix42

• Azure

• Microsoft 365 Automation

• Ticket creation from monitoring

• Escalations

• Standard actions

Audit, compliance & information security

• ISO 27001 consulting
• TISAX consulting
• NIS2 preparation - consulting
• Audit-ready processes
• Documentation structure
• Evidence tracking in Matrix42

Roadmap

• 12-month roadmap
• Prioritization of all measures
• Quick wins
• Medium-term projects
• Long-term target picture
• Documentation

• Development and introduction of operations processes
• Preparation of complete documentation packages (including incident management and operations support) to meet compliance requirements
• Introduction of a workshop on IaC (Infrastructure as Code)
• Technical consulting for the project security concept (ISMS)
• Installation and operation of Kubernetes clusters on AWS, on-prem, and Azure
• Hybrid cloud architecture design (on-prem, Hetzner, AWS)
• Analysis and troubleshooting of incidents and system outages
• Network adjustments for firewall rules, gateways, OpenVPN settings, and IPsec tunnels (pfSense)
• Technical consulting on Bitbucket, Jenkins, and GitLab CI/CD pipelines
• Consulting on Ansible deployments and infrastructure automation
• Consulting on building a scalable system in the cloud (AWS / Azure)
• Technologies / Tools: Ansible, Terraform, AWS, Azure, VPN, pfSense, Jenkins, Bitbucket, Kubernetes, GitLab Runner, ISMS, Golang, Prometheus, Grafana, S3, Lambda, RDS, ECS, Cognito, OIDC, Harbor, MinIO, Postgres, Redis, Keycloak, Ceph, Proxmox, CloudFormation, PostgreSQL, Flux CD, Hetzner, IONOS, Sonatype Nexus Repository, Entra ID, Dex IdP, Pulumi

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.