Kathera Akhil Kumar
Melbourne
Summary
Dynamic IT professional with over 9+ years of experience specializing in AWS and cloud management, configuration management, and DevOps automation. Proven expertise in implementing continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines, as well as managing infrastructure as code using tools such as Terraform and Ansible. Demonstrated leadership of high-performing teams while delivering impactful technology solutions, with a strong focus on collaboration and adaptability to evolving project requirements. Core competencies include software development, systems integration, and effective problem-solving within diverse cloud environments.
Overview
9
9
years of professional experience
Work History
Technology Lead
Synechron Company
09.2022 - Current
- Led the end-to-end design, implementation, and architecture of cloud-native solutions across multi-platform infrastructures, ensuring scalability, security, and performance.
- Developed enterprise-grade Terraform templates and reusable modules (compute, networking, operations, IAM) to standardize AWS Infrastructure as Code (IaC) deployments across staging, production, and multi-environment setups.
- Spearheaded Amazon EKS provisioning and application deployments via Terraform, enabling seamless orchestration of microservices at scale.
- Engineered modular Terraform solutions to provision core infrastructure components, including VPCs, EC2, ELBs, and S3, achieving consistency and reusability across projects.
- Established secure Terraform state management using remote backends (S3 + DynamoDB), ensuring scalability, collaboration, and data integrity for distributed teams.
- Championed version control excellence with Git/GitHub by managing repositories, enforcing branching strategies, and enabling cross-team collaboration on infrastructure and application code.
- Designed and automated CI/CD pipelines in Jenkins (Groovy DSL), integrating with GitHub, Maven, Nexus/Artifactory, and testing frameworks, reducing release cycle times and ensuring reliable, automated deployments.
- Built and maintained production-grade Kubernetes clusters (Amazon EKS, kubeadm) with a strong focus on high availability, fault tolerance, and scalability of mission-critical workloads.
- Defined and version-controlled Kubernetes manifests and Helm charts to enable declarative, reproducible infrastructure deployments.
- Automated infrastructure provisioning and deployments by integrating Terraform with Jenkins pipelines, driving continuous delivery of infrastructure as code (IaC).
- Architected and customized Grafana dashboards to visualize real-time KPIs, system health, and application performance using Prometheus, InfluxDB, Elasticsearch, and relational databases.
- Implemented alerting strategies with Grafana, Slack, and PagerDuty to proactively identify anomalies, performance bottlenecks, and outages, minimizing downtime and improving system resilience.
- Developed Python automation scripts leveraging AWS SDK (boto3) to streamline infrastructure provisioning, resource management, and operational workflows across AWS environments.
- Acted as a technical mentor, training peers on Terraform and IaC best practices, fostering a culture of DevOps automation, standardization, and continuous improvement across the organization.
Senior DevOps Engineer
Qentelli Solution Pvt Limited
02.2022 - 08.2022
- Delivered implementation, design, and support of multi-platform cloud infrastructures, ensuring availability, performance, capacity planning, and continuity through effective incident and problem management.
- Supported deployments in Nomad and maintained infrastructure in legacy private cloud environments, including orchestrators (Nomad, Consul, HAProxy, Compute Hosts).
- Developed Terraform templates and reusable modules for AWS infrastructure (staging and production), automating provisioning across AWS, VMware, and Docker environments.
- Integrated Splunk, ELK, and Datadog for log monitoring and metrics tracking, improving incident visibility and operational efficiency.
- Managed Kubernetes projects, Pods, Services, Routes, and scaling, troubleshooting workloads and implementing declarative infrastructure with YAML manifests and Helm charts.
- Configured Calico networking, Ingress controllers, and service discovery for secure, scalable microservice communication.
- Orchestrated multi-tier application deployments with Terraform, implementing infrastructure lifecycle practices such as tagging, versioning, and automated rollbacks.
- Automated infrastructure and compliance tasks using Python (boto3) and Shell scripting, including deployment of security agents across 100+ servers.
- Created Datadog dashboards and alerts for HAProxy traffic, CPU/memory utilization, and application performance, reducing MTTR for critical issues.
- Supported CI/CD pipelines (Rio/Jenkins), troubleshooting build and deployment failures for application teams.
- Deployed and configured Datadog agents and integrations across cloud and on-prem environments, enabling real-time monitoring of system- and application-level KPIs.
- Managed DNS for orchestrators via Shield and Akamai, ensuring reliable routing and availability.
- Administered infrastructure core services (Docker, Nomad, Consul, HAProxy) using Puppet, ensuring consistency across distributed environments.
- Authored technical documentation for critical production systems and provided on-call support for high-priority incidents.
DevOps Engineer
Mouritech Pvt Limited
09.2020 - 02.2022
- Supported multi-cloud infrastructure (AWS & Azure), managing hundreds of AWS accounts via Organizations and multiple Azure subscriptions.
- Provided end-to-end cloud infrastructure support for 300+ enterprise applications, ensuring adherence to company security, finance, and architectural standards.
- Collaborated cross-functionally with Cybersecurity, AD, Network, and Architecture teams to improve reliability, compliance, and customer support outcomes.
- Applied patch management for Windows servers (2012 R2, 2016, 2019) via SCCM and AWS Systems Manager, ensuring compliance and reducing vulnerabilities.
- Configured and monitored AWS WAF, analyzing blocked requests and tuning rules to improve application security.
- Troubleshot Active Directory (Domain Join), load balancer, and networking issues across cloud environments.
- Migrated workloads from on-premises to AWS using CloudEndure, ensuring seamless transitions with minimal downtime.
- Managed EFS (shared storage) with DataSync replication across regions, improving data availability and disaster recovery posture.
- Automated configuration and patching using Ansible, Python, and Shell scripts, including custom scripts for compliance reporting and Log4j vulnerability notifications.
- Developed automation solutions for cost optimization (tag analysis, EC2/volume cleanups) and bulk software installations across hundreds of servers using AWS Lambda.
- Designed and implemented disaster recovery strategies, including on-demand backup scripts for EBS volumes and rescue operations for Linux boot issues.
- Built monitoring and visualization solutions using AWS CloudWatch (alerts), Power BI dashboards, and Athena for analyzing WAF logs stored in S3.
- Implemented AWS Step Functions for automated CloudWatch agent deployment via Systems Manager.
- Delivered day-to-day production support, authored technical documentation, and ensured SLA adherence (TTO/TTF) using ServiceNow.
- Provided knowledge transfer and mentorship for new team members, ensuring smooth onboarding and process adoption.
DevOps Engineer
Minfy Technologies
10.2019 - 09.2020
- Implemented and maintained CI/CD pipelines using Jenkins, GitHub Actions, and GitLab CI, automating builds, testing, and deployments to improve release efficiency.
- Deployed and managed containerized applications using Docker and Kubernetes (EKS/AKS), ensuring scalability and high availability.
- Automated infrastructure provisioning with Terraform and CloudFormation, building reusable modules and managing remote state securely.
- Configured monitoring and alerting with Prometheus, Grafana, and CloudWatch, enabling proactive detection of issues and reducing downtime.
- Integrated centralized logging solutions (Splunk, ELK stack) to improve observability and troubleshooting across distributed systems.
- Collaborated with development teams to implement infrastructure as code (IaC) and improve deployment consistency across environments.
- Supported cloud environments in AWS and Azure, managing compute, networking, storage, IAM policies, and security groups.
- Developed automation scripts in Python and Shell to streamline repetitive operational tasks and improve team productivity.
- Participated in on-call rotations, troubleshooting production issues (networking, deployments, scaling), and ensuring adherence to SLAs.
- Worked closely with security and networking teams to apply patches, manage firewalls, and support compliance requirements.
Systems Engineer
Infosun Technologies
07.2016 - 10.2019
- Provided end-to-end infrastructure support across AWS and on-premises systems, including server administration, patching, and networking, ensuring system availability and performance.
- Assisted in building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines using Jenkins, supporting automated builds, deployments, and testing.
- Supported deployment and management of Docker containers and initial Kubernetes projects, helping teams containerize applications for development and staging.
- Implemented Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform and CloudFormation to provision and manage cloud resources.
- Monitored cloud and on-premises infrastructure using CloudWatch, Grafana, and basic alerting, responding to incidents and assisting in root cause analysis.
- Developed automation scripts in Python and Shell to streamline repetitive operational tasks, compliance checks, and reporting.
- Assisted in cloud resource management on AWS (EC2, S3, IAM) and Azure (VMs, storage, subscriptions), performing routine maintenance and patching.
- Worked closely with senior engineers to troubleshoot deployments, network issues, and domain join errors, gaining cross-functional technical exposure.
- Documented infrastructure changes, troubleshooting procedures, and environment configurations to support team knowledge sharing.
- Participated in on-call rotations, supporting production environments and ensuring SLA compliance under guidance.
Education
Bachelor of Science - Computer Science
JNTU University
Hyderabad01.2016
Master of Science - Networking/Cyber Security
Melbourne Institute of Technology
Melbourne, VIC01.2023
Skills
Cloud Platforms & Services:
- AWS: EC2, ECR, ECS, EKS, Lambda, Auto Scaling, Load Balancers, S3, EBS, RDS (MySQL, MS-SQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, MariaDB), Aurora, DynamoDB, VPC, CloudFront, Route53, API Gateway, WAF, AWS Shield, KMS, Secrets Manager, CloudWatch, CloudTrail, Systems Manager, IAM, AWS Certificate Manager, CloudFormation, CloudEndure, SMS
- Azure: Azure IaaS, PaaS, Analytics, ARM Templates, Azure DevOps, Cloud Management
- Other Platforms: RedHat CloudForms, Windows Server, Linux (RedHat, Amazon Linux)
DevOps & CI/CD:
- Source Control: Git, AWS CodeCommit
- CI/CD Tools: Jenkins, AWS CodePipeline, CodeBuild, CodeDeploy, Cloud9
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Terraform, ARM Templates, CloudFormation
- Configuration Management: Ansible
- Scripting & Automation: Shell, Python, YAML, Groovy
Containerization & Orchestration:
- Docker, Docker Compose, Kubernetes (EKS), Helm
- Container security: Aqua, Trivy, Falco
- Kubernetes cluster security: Kube Hunter
Monitoring & Observability:
- Site24x7, Nagios, Sumologic, CloudWatch, Grafana, Prometheus, Datadog, Splunk
Web & Application Servers:
- Apache, Nginx
Security & Testing Tools:
- SonarQube, OWASP ZAP, JMeter, Selenium, Postman
- Identity & Compliance: IAM, KMS, Secrets Manager, SSL/TLS management
Networking & Content Delivery:
- VPC, Route53, CloudFront, CloudFront Functions, Load Balancers, API Gateway, WAF, AWS Shield
Migration & Transfer:
- CloudEndure, SMS
Timeline
Technology Lead
Synechron Company
09.2022 - Current
Senior DevOps Engineer
Qentelli Solution Pvt Limited
02.2022 - 08.2022
DevOps Engineer
Mouritech Pvt Limited
09.2020 - 02.2022
DevOps Engineer
Minfy Technologies
10.2019 - 09.2020
Systems Engineer
Infosun Technologies
07.2016 - 10.2019
Bachelor of Science - Computer Science
JNTU University
Master of Science - Networking/Cyber Security
Melbourne Institute of Technology