Skills & Expertise
As a co-founding engineer of Kubefirst and Konstruct, I've worked hands-on with the full cloud native stack. These aren't just tools I've read about—they're technologies I've integrated, debugged, documented, and shipped to production across our pioneering open source and enterprise platforms.
Platform Engineering
The core of what we build at Konstruct.
Kubernetes
Expert | The foundation of everything we do
- Cluster provisioning and lifecycle management
- Multi-cloud Kubernetes deployments
- Local development with k3d and K3s
- Production hardening and best practices
- RBAC, networking, and security policies
GitOps
Expert | The operational model for modern platforms
- ArgoCD - Application delivery and synchronization
- Flux - Alternative GitOps toolkit
- Declarative infrastructure management
- Git as single source of truth
- Automated reconciliation and drift detection
Infrastructure as Code
Expert | Codifying infrastructure decisions
- Terraform - Multi-cloud infrastructure provisioning
- Atlantis - GitOps for Terraform (PR-based workflows)
- Crossplane - Kubernetes-native infrastructure management
- State management and module design
- Cloud provider integrations
CI/CD
Expert | Automating the path to production
- Argo Workflows - Kubernetes-native workflow automation
- GitHub Actions - CI/CD for GitHub repositories
- GitLab CI - Pipeline automation for GitLab
- Container image building and publishing
- Helm chart packaging and distribution
Cloud Platforms
Multi-cloud expertise across major providers.
Primary Platforms
| Platform | Experience Level |
|---|---|
| AWS | Expert - EKS, IAM, VPC, Route53, and full ecosystem |
| Civo | Expert - Native integration, fast K8s provisioning |
| Google Cloud | Advanced - GKE, Cloud DNS, IAM |
| DigitalOcean | Advanced - DOKS, Spaces, networking |
| Azure | Advanced - AKS, Azure AD, networking |
Additional Platforms
- Vultr - Kubernetes deployments
- Akamai - Edge and cloud compute
- Bare Metal - Data center provisioning with Colony
Kubefirst & Konstruct Stack
The complete toolchain we integrate and ship.
Application Delivery
| Tool | Purpose | Expertise |
|---|---|---|
| ArgoCD | GitOps continuous delivery | Expert |
| Argo Workflows | Workflow automation | Expert |
| Argo Events | Event-driven automation | Advanced |
| Helm | Kubernetes package management | Expert |
Security & Secrets
| Tool | Purpose | Expertise |
|---|---|---|
| HashiCorp Vault | Secrets management | Expert |
| External Secrets Operator | Kubernetes secrets sync | Expert |
| cert-manager | TLS certificate automation | Expert |
| OIDC/SSO | Identity and access | Advanced |
Networking & Ingress
| Tool | Purpose | Expertise |
|---|---|---|
| Traefik | Ingress controller | Expert |
| Nginx Ingress | Ingress controller | Advanced |
| ExternalDNS | Automatic DNS management | Expert |
| MetalLB | Bare metal load balancing | Advanced |
Observability
| Tool | Purpose | Expertise |
|---|---|---|
| Prometheus | Metrics collection | Advanced |
| Grafana | Visualization and dashboards | Advanced |
| Loki | Log aggregation | Advanced |
| Datadog | Full-stack observability | Advanced |
Development & Tooling
| Tool | Purpose | Expertise |
|---|---|---|
| k3d | Local Kubernetes clusters | Expert |
| K3s | Lightweight Kubernetes | Expert |
| Docker | Container runtime | Expert |
| Go | Primary development language | Advanced |
Bare Metal & Data Center
Colony-specific expertise for on-premises deployments.
Provisioning
- Tinkerbell - CNCF bare metal provisioner
- PXE Boot - Network-based OS installation
- IPMI/BMC - Hardware management interfaces
- DHCP/TFTP - Network boot services
Operating Systems
- Ubuntu - Primary Linux distribution
- Talos Linux - Kubernetes-focused OS
- Flatcar Container Linux - Immutable container OS
Git Platforms
Full integration support across major Git providers.
| Platform | Capabilities |
|---|---|
| GitHub | Actions, Apps, OAuth, Repository management |
| GitLab | CI/CD, Self-hosted, OAuth, Repository management |
| Gitea | Self-hosted Git (coming soon) |
Leadership & Soft Skills
Technical skills paired with leadership experience.
Team Building
- Remote-first team management
- Engineering team scaling
- Open source community building
- Cross-functional collaboration
Product & Strategy
- Product vision and roadmap
- Open source business models
- Enterprise sales and solutions
- Technical architecture decisions
Communication
- Conference speaking
- Technical writing
- Podcast hosting and guesting
- Developer advocacy
Continuous Learning
The cloud native landscape evolves constantly. Current areas of focus:
- AI/ML Integration - AI-assisted platform engineering
- WebAssembly - Wasm workloads on Kubernetes
- Edge Computing - Distributed Kubernetes deployments
- Platform Engineering Maturity - Internal developer platform patterns
Certifications & Recognition
- CNCF Landscape - Kubefirst featured project
- Arctic Code Vault Contributor - GitHub recognition
- Multiple Successful Exits - Kubeshop (2022), Civo (2024)
Want to Learn These Skills?
The best way to learn this stack is to use Kubefirst:
# Install the CLI
brew install konstructio/taps/kubefirst
# Create a local cluster with the full stack
kubefirst k3d create
# Or deploy to any supported cloud
kubefirst civo create
In minutes, you'll have a complete platform with all these tools configured and working together. Then explore, break things, and learn.