Summary
7+ years building and scaling DevOps, IT, and InfoSec functions from scratch across early-stage and scale-up companies. Started as DevOps Engineer building HA GitLab clusters and infrastructure automation on Kubernetes and OpenStack; progressed to Head of DevOps running multi-cloud platforms across 4+ industries. At Stepico, unified three historically separate functions (DevOps, IT, Security) into one operating model, proving that engineering velocity and operational rigor are reinforcing, not competing.
Core pattern across all roles: collapsing organizational overhead through automation, standardization, and deliberate tool consolidation. Known for designing observability that survives scale, building team capability through structured onboarding, and translating technical decisions into business outcomes (FinOps, audit programs, SLA improvements). Equally comfortable with cloud architecture decisions, vendor evaluation, budget ownership, and recruiting/mentoring.
Detailed Experience
Stepico
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Gaming · Blockchain · Art
170–220 ppl · 8–12 direct reports + dedicated contractors
- Ran DevOps, IT, and InfoSec as a single function with 8–12 direct reports; owned $300–350K/yr combined infrastructure and IT spend; eliminated 3-team coordination tax
- Built IT helpdesk from zero; eliminated 30%+ month-long ticket backlog and achieved 45-min average SLA through workflow redesign and automation — not headcount addition
- Delivered ~$100K/yr in cumulative FinOps savings — 35% IT infra cost reduction and 40–70% DevOps infra cost reduction — through continuous AWS cost review and vendor consolidation
- Commissioned external Gap & Risk analysis of 100+ data assets (Estonian security firm); built ISO 27001 risk register, asset inventory, and access-review cadence; program built and scheduled for audit
- Replaced zero-observability posture (manual escalation, days-to-weeks MTTR) with Prometheus + Grafana + Loki + FluentBit and SLO-driven alerting; established on-call playbooks
- Unified deployment methodology across all 15–18 dev teams; AWS-native CI scaling delivered 150+ independent builds/project/day, eliminating shared build server bottleneck
- Reengineered application architecture across .NET / Unity / SLS Framework services; introduced unified deployment methodology adopted by all development teams
- Managed resource allocation across multi-team programs of up to 60 engineers; led customer communication and cross-department collaboration
Tech Stack
.NET ecosystemUnitySLS Framework
TerraformVaultGitLab CI
NodeJSHelm
AWS (EKS, Lambda, DynamoDB, CloudWatch, EventBridge, SQS)
BashPowerShell
PrometheusGrafanaLokiFluentBit
FinOpsAgile/Scrum/KanbanRICE
Viseven
·
Pharma · FinTech
600+ ppl
- Worked on fast-evolving microservices project (JS ecosystem) with Kubernetes, Serverless, and various best practices
- Reduced CI job times by ~15–20% and infra costs by ~10% via Kubernetes tuning, Lambda stack redesign, IaC restructuring
- Unified SSO for ~150 users (AAD + SAML); AWS service optimizations; redesigned Lambda-oriented stacks
- Reorganized IaC for maintainability; extensive mentoring and developer onboarding documentation
Tech Stack
TerraformVaultAWS Parameter Store
GitLabOctopus DeployTeamCity
NodeJSAAD + SAML SSO
KopsHelm
AWS (EKS, Lambda, DynamoDB, CloudWatch, EventBridge, SQS)
PrometheusGrafanaAlertmanager
FluentBitHetzner CloudProxmox
Ambisafe
·
Blockchain · FinTech · Supply Chain · IoT
1–2 to 30 ppl + dedicated teams
- Organized HR and delivery processes; conducted global customer communication; influenced team processes through Agile methodologies
- Fully reorganized CI/CD and development of all company projects; increased build frequency 5× (from ~10/week to 50–60/week) via GitLab-native pipelines
- Analyzed security bottlenecks in existing delivery schemas; implemented hardened pipelines and GitLab-native access controls
- Owned GitLab platform end-to-end — rolling out updates, integrating services, debugging, and extending functionalities
- Introduced new software development approaches; automated pipelines and processes via GitLab
- Later transitioned to full PM ownership, operating independently across dedicated subordinate teams
Tech Stack
GitLab CI (self-hosted)TerraformVault
AWS Parameter StoreNodeJS
KubernetesDocker
PostgreSQLRedis
SoftServe
·
Healthcare · FinTech
1–2 to 40–50 ppl
- Took on expanding responsibilities across fast-evolving microservice projects (JS ecosystem) — troubleshooting, refactoring infrastructure code, release management, new features
- Led migration of 20+ services from private VM clusters to self-hosted OpenStack; designed execution processes using binary files and Docker containers
- Built HA GitLab cluster from scratch: master-slave PostgreSQL, HAProxy, Gitaly + NFS, Redis HA, self-hosted OpenLDAP
- Implemented Prometheus + Grafana monitoring, Kubernetes CI/CD pipelines, centralized Sentry logging
- Facilitated mentoring, brainstorming, and developed master-slave monitoring system with alerting
Tech Stack
OpenStackDockerKubernetes
GitLab CITerraformAnsible
PostgreSQLHAProxy · Redis
PrometheusGrafanaSentry
Earlier commercial experience
- Maintained GitLab as primary SCM, SonarQube for code quality, Nexus for YUM repository and backup; managed CI/CD across multiple data centers with Jenkins and GitLab
- Automated deployment and configuration provisioning using Ansible and Terraform across KVM virtualization and AWS; supported Docker and on-premises deployments
- Spearheaded creation of a high-availability GitLab cluster: master-slave PostgreSQL, HAProxy load balancer, Gitaly + NFS file storage, Redis master-slave, self-hosted OpenLDAP
- Implemented comprehensive Prometheus + Grafana monitoring with alerting; maintained centralized Sentry logging
- Restructured a Ruby on Rails application lifecycle using Jenkins, Terraform, Ansible, Travis-CI, AWS (VPC, EC2, RDS, S3)
Tech Stack
OpenStack (Terraform · HEAT)
Terraform 0.10–0.12Java 8
AWSAzure
TomcatJenkinsGroovy
GitLabPostgreSQL
RedisGitaly + NFS
ConsulDocker
