Ilias User
@iliasuser
Experienced Senior Platform Engineer with a focus on DevOps.
What I'm looking for
I'm a dedicated and adaptable Senior Platform Engineer with a strong background in DevOps and cloud technologies. My journey in technology began with a solid educational foundation, culminating in an MSc in Web Information Management. Over the years, I have honed my skills across various roles, from leading DevOps teams to architecting scalable infrastructures for high-traffic applications.
My professional experience includes significant contributions to major organizations like J Sainsbury's and ITV, where I led initiatives to modernize cloud strategies and implement best practices in CI/CD. I thrive in environments that challenge my problem-solving abilities and allow me to leverage my expertise in Kubernetes, AWS, and automation tools. My passion for technology drives me to continuously learn and adapt, ensuring that I remain at the forefront of industry advancements.
Experience
Work history, roles, and key accomplishments
Consultant
Various Consulting Engagements
Jan 2024 - Present (1 year 6 months)
Engaged in multiple short-term consulting projects across various companies, providing expert advice and solutions. Focused on delivering specialized technical assistance and strategic guidance to meet diverse client needs.
Senior Platform Engineer
Lexis-Nexis
Jan 2024 - Dec 2024 (11 months)
Developed new features and debugged reported issues for the multi-cloud Kubernetes platform. Supported various product teams across the organization, ensuring platform stability and functionality.
Senior Platform Engineer
Pacific Life RE/Underwriteme
Mar 2023 - Dec 2023 (9 months)
Redesigned logging and monitoring solutions for cost efficiency and centralization. Migrated services to a shared Kubernetes platform to consolidate resources and optimize costs, improving platform evolution and automation tooling.
Senior DevOps Engineer
DWP Digital
Jan 2023 - Mar 2023 (2 months)
Consulted the Digital department on their DevOps approach, evaluating maturity and processes employed. Provided recommendations and Proof of Concepts for improved ways of working, focusing on reusability, standardization, and CI/CD.
Senior Platform Engineer
Funding Circle
Jul 2022 - Dec 2022 (5 months)
Migrated services from an old platform to a modern Kubernetes platform, including CI/CD pipelines to Drone CI and ArgoCD. Developed Terraform IaC and Helm charts with Istio and Prometheus, ensuring minimal disruption within financial institution constraints.
Lead DevOps/Kubernetes Engineer
Imagination
Jan 2021 - Dec 2022 (1 year 11 months)
Led the effort to deploy and improve Kubernetes platforms across multiple cloud providers, including AWS, Oracle Cloud, Google Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, and Azure. Focused on enhancing multi-cloud Kubernetes infrastructure and operations.
Senior DevOps/Developer Specialist
10x Banking
Feb 2022 - Jun 2022 (4 months)
Assisted in completing a complex migration automation project on AWS, Kubernetes, and Helm with Jenkins and Concourse-ci. Developed custom orchestration services for Kubernetes and microservices for AWS Lambda using Go.
Head of DevOps and Security
Play Magnus Group
Nov 2020 - Jan 2022 (1 year 2 months)
Built and led a DevOps team, setting group strategy, standards, and best practices. Modernized multiple services by migrating monoliths to microservice architectures on Kubernetes and AWS cloud, emphasizing automation and CI/CD.
Cloud Engineering Lead
J Sainsburys plc
Mar 2019 - Nov 2020 (1 year 8 months)
Shaped cloud strategy and led commonality-driven engineering efforts, overseeing 15 different projects and line managing 15 cloud engineers. Championed migration to a modern Kubernetes platform to improve delivery times and capability.
Principal Cloud Engineer
J Sainsburys plc
Jan 2016 - Feb 2019 (3 years 1 month)
Modernized a critical system to a greenfield fully serverless AWS architecture using Lambda, DynamoDB, and Go for massive concurrency. Designed and deployed a Kubernetes HA cluster on shared infrastructure with Terraform and created CI/CD service deployment pipelines.
Platform Engineer/Architect
ITV plc
Jan 2015 - Jul 2016 (1 year 6 months)
Automated cost calculation, monitoring, and maintenance for large-scale public cloud deployments, including end-to-end Windows 2012R2 automation. Conducted a PoC for Docker containers in Kubernetes and integrated OpenStack with Netscaler load balancers.
Lead Infrastructure Architect
Synthesio
Jan 2011 - Dec 2014 (3 years 11 months)
Managed infrastructure for 100+ servers using Puppet, overseeing 2 Senior System Engineers and consulting R&D teams. Spearheaded migration to a new fully redundant and scalable SaaS infrastructure, ensuring compliance with strict SLAs and implementing DRP and ISMP.
Project Contractor
DIEPAFI Computer Technologies Consultants
Jan 2007 - Dec 2008 (1 year 11 months)
Designed and developed a wireless network for a university campus, implementing a unified authentication solution. Utilized OpenLDAP, FreeRadius, WPA2 Enterprise, OpenWRT APs, and PHP for the project.
Project Contractor
European Program of the Special Accounting, TEI of Lamia
Jan 2006 - Dec 2007 (1 year 11 months)
Created a platform for asynchronous tele-education content using PHP and Real Helix Server. Administered and maintained the necessary servers to run the platform effectively.
Project Lead, Web Portal Creation
Academic Internet GUNET
Jan 2006 - Dec 2006 (11 months)
Led the design and implementation of a Content Management System for the GUNET E-class Platform. Managed a small group of two developers, utilizing PHP, MySQL, and XML technologies.
Systems Administrator
Technological Educational Institute of Lamia
Jan 2004 - Dec 2007 (3 years 11 months)
Responsible for main and secondary web servers running LAMP and Solaris 10 environments. Managed server expansion, security procedures, and improved services like OpenLDAP, Samba, NFS, OpenBSD PF firewall, and VLAN routing.
Education
Degrees, certifications, and relevant coursework
Birkbeck College, University of London
MPhil/PhD Candidate, Unknown
Currently pursuing an MPhil/PhD as a part-time candidate at Birkbeck College, University of London. The program started in 2012 and is ongoing.
Birkbeck, University of London, School of Computer Science
MSc Web Information Management, Web Information Management
Grade: Merit
Activities and societies: MSc Dissertation Project, “Design and implementation of a Service Oriented Architecture for Lifelong learning in JAVA EE”
Completed a Master of Science in Web Information Management at Birkbeck, University of London, School of Computer Science. Graduated with Merit after completing the one-year program.
Technological Educational Institute of Lamia, Department of Informatics and Computer Technology
Graduate Engineer of Informatics and Computer Technology, Informatics and Computer Technology
Grade: 8.13 out of 10
Activities and societies: Diploma Thesis, “Design and implementation of an open source router with the use of OpenBSD as a platform basis and the creation of a management application with the use of AJAX and PHP technologies”
Graduated as an Engineer of Informatics and Computer Technology from the Technological Educational Institute of Lamia. Ranked 1st in class with a grade of 8.13 out of 10, completing the program within the normal four-year duration.
Tech stack
Software and tools used professionally
SAS
kops
GitHub
Kubernetes
Amazon CloudFront
Jenkins
Galera Cluster
MySQL
Memcached
Percona
Redis
Terraform
AWS CloudFormation
jQuery
JavaScript
Java
PHP
Perl
Java EE
XML
Istio
Grafana
Prometheus
Zabbix
Nagios
OpenStack
Zookeeper
Linux
Windows
OpenBSD
FreeBSD
Elasticsearch
Ansible
AWS Lambda
Serverless
FreeRADIUS
NGINX
Toolkit
SQL
Drone CI
Citrix
Sensu
Availability
Location
Authorized to work in
Website
iliasbertsimas.co.ukSkills
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