Serhii
Zolotov
7+ years building resilient cloud platforms, delivery systems teams can trust, and DevOps practice across multiple engineering squads — on GCP, AWS, and Azure.
Ukraine · 7+ yrs · AWS / Azure / GCP · Kubernetes · Security operations
Serhii
Zolotov
Resilient cloud platforms, CI/CD that teams trust, and security operations baked in by default — across AWS, Azure & GCP.
I run the full DevOps lifecycle as one continuous loop — not a hand-off between silos. From planning and infrastructure-as-code through CI/CD, GitOps delivery, observability and security, I automate the toil and make the safe path the default so teams ship faster with fewer surprises.
GitOps, or it didn't happen.
Declarative infrastructure is the single source of truth. Terraform, Helm and ArgoCD describe the system; the cluster reconciles to match. No snowflakes, no manual drift.
Automate the toil.
If a human does it twice, it becomes a pipeline. Python, Bash, Go and Java turn repetitive ops into reliable, reviewable automation — so engineers spend time on the hard problems.
Resilient by default.
Platforms should scale and self-heal before anyone is paged. Kubernetes, sane autoscaling, spot/standard tiering and migration strategies that keep production calm under load.
Observe everything.
You can't operate what you can't see. Metrics, logs and dashboards — ELK, CloudWatch, Zabbix, Azure Monitor — wired in from day one, not bolted on after the incident.
Standards scale teams.
The biggest leverage isn't a clever pipeline — it's a shared way of working. As Specialization Lead I set DevOps standards, grow engineers, and align multiple delivery squads on consistent, repeatable practices. Good architecture is a team sport.
Staff DevOps Engineer · Specialization Lead
Staff engineer for a major retail cloud platform: operating Kubernetes on GCP, driving GitOps delivery, and leading DevOps practice across platform, delivery, operations, and mobile teams. Built a new DevOps function from the ground up and grew it to 22+ engineers.
- Managed 15+ platform projects end-to-end; authored 3- and 6-month onboarding plans adopted across two DevOps squads.
- Migrated deployments from Spinnaker to ArgoCD; introduced SLOs by metric priority — teams cut incident noise and responded faster to what mattered.
- Optimized GCP infrastructure in code — right-sized workloads, introduced zero-downtime maintenance where the architecture allowed it.
- Ran guilds, office hours, hiring loops, platform RFCs, runbooks, and a clear definition of done for platform changes.
Senior DevOps Engineer · Specialization Lead
Led migrations from on-prem into GCP with Terraform — Kubernetes, Artifactory, and delivery tooling — while standing up the standards that let three squads ship on one platform.
- Participated in on-prem → cloud migration; later owned the Spinnaker → ArgoCD transition for production deployments.
- On Jenkins, established the delivery flow and standards three squads followed; after migration to GitLab SaaS, introduced shared GitLab CI templates — deeper tool integration, stronger security, and higher reliability.
- Built cross-team workflow standards across three squads — not just process documentation, but the why behind each decision. Result: faster issue resolution and more delivery per cycle.
DevOps Engineer
Deepened CI/CD automation and platform reliability for containerized workloads — maintained delivery pipelines, improved image build standards, and contributed to Kubernetes operational runbooks used across squads.
Strong Junior Systems Engineer
Owned monitoring and incident response for US-based projects across Azure and AWS — Zabbix, CloudWatch/CloudTrail, Azure Monitor, and a custom status page covering on-prem infrastructure. Built Jenkins pipelines and managed the ELK stack (Logstash/Kibana) for log aggregation and alerting. On a separate on-prem delivery project: stood up Azure DevOps Build/Release pipelines, Harbor as the Docker registry, Ansible roles, HashiCorp Vault for secrets management, and certificate lifecycle for internal domains.
Junior Systems Engineer
Worked on bank-operations and security-improvement projects under NDA. Containerized workloads with Docker and Docker Compose; built and maintained delivery pipelines in GitLab CI.
Junior Systems Engineer
Configured Jenkins CI/CD pipelines and delivery flows for an OpenShift platform — SonarQube, Nexus, and Gerrit integrated into the standard build process. Separately on a GCP security squad: automated infrastructure governance with cloud-custodian, Python, and Google APIs — Terraform-provisioned resources with guardrails applied as code.
Cloud Platform on GCP
problem Three squads, fragmented delivery standards, and active migration risk on a retail-scale GCP estate.
approach Terraform platform, GitOps with ArgoCD, shared Helm patterns, SLOs by priority, GCP right-sizing.
outcome 15+ projects delivered, Spinnaker → ArgoCD migration, on-prem → cloud path, fewer priority incidents, zero-downtime maintenance where feasible — one platform for 3 DevOps squads.
Monitoring & Incident Platform
Built end-to-end monitoring for US projects spanning Azure and AWS — Zabbix, CloudWatch/CloudTrail and Azure Monitor — plus a custom status page for on-prem VMs and Stripe. Investigated and resolved incidents across a hybrid estate.
On-Prem Azure DevOps + Harbor
Stood up a fully on-prem delivery stack on a local Azure DevOps server: Build/Release pipelines, Harbor as the Docker registry, Ansible roles, HashiCorp Vault for credentials and access control, ELK for logs, and certificate management for domains.
GCP Policy-as-Code
Governed GCP infrastructure with cloud-custodian, Python and Google APIs — automated guardrails and Terraform-provisioned infrastructure, building security policy directly into the cloud estate as code.
I work at the intersection of platform, delivery, and team practice — not just clusters. I prefer boring, reversible decisions documented in RFCs over clever one-offs. I align squads by making the default path easy: shared CI templates, GitOps, observability, and security built into the platform from day one. Good architecture is a team sport; my job is to multiply the engineers around me.
▸scale & reliability
- Migrated production deployments from Spinnaker to ArgoCD across the retail platform.
- Participated in on-prem → GCP migration; optimized infrastructure in code and reduced unnecessary workloads.
- Introduced zero-downtime maintenance patterns for services where the architecture supported it.
- Defined SLOs by metric priority — teams focused on the right tickets and incident load dropped.
▸leadership & mentoring
- Built a new DevOps function from the ground up and led three squads — 22+ engineers total, several promoted from intern through to middle and senior.
- Authored 3- and 6-month onboarding plans with detailed curricula adopted across two DevOps squads.
- Ran guilds & office hours, review standards, hiring loops, platform RFCs, and internal runbooks.
- Set definition of done for platform changes so shipping stayed safe and reviewable.
▸standards that stuck
Built cross-team workflow standards so three squads understood why the process exists — not just which button to press. On Jenkins we defined the flow and standard the teams followed; after moving to GitLab SaaS, we migrated to GitLab CI and introduced shared pipeline templates — integrated with our toolchain, blending industry best practices with our own security and reliability ideas. Result: faster issue resolution and more delivery in the same cycle.
▸engagement
- Open to interesting Staff / Lead / Architect opportunities — remote, hybrid, or flexible arrangements.
- Based in Ukraine 🇺🇦 with EU timezone overlap; C1 English.
- Best fit: multi-team platform leadership — retail, regulated, or enterprise scale.