Senior DevOps Engineer at Tremend, on the EBRD platform
Senior DevOps & Platform Engineer
Hi, I'm Alexandru. I build the platform pieces other engineering teams plug into: CI/CD, secrets and identity, dependency automation, developer portals and observability on Azure.
years
0+
infrastructure, since 2020
applications
0+
on the EBRD platform I support
certifications
0
Microsoft · Cisco · HPE · cPanel
Azure certs
0×
Architect, DevOps Expert, Admin · valid to 2027
OpenHack
0
Microsoft Serverless hackathon · Prague
$ cat ~/about/README.md
I'm the engineer who gets curious about the problems everyone has quietly learned to live with. I find the friction that slows every team down, and I own the fix end-to-end, until it becomes something teams use without ever needing to call me. ▍
scope
I pick the cross-cutting problems that slow every team down.
approach
A small spike validates the idea before anything scales.
delivery
Docs, dashboards and pipelines teams plug into, so I'm never the bottleneck.
security
Short-lived, identity-based access instead of static credentials.
exploring
MCP servers that let AI coding agents query platform data.
tl;dr
Senior DevOps & Platform Engineer with six years in infrastructure, from on-prem sysadmin work to owning platform-wide initiatives on Azure for estates of 90+ applications.
I gravitate towards cross-cutting problems that slow every team down rather than just my own backlog: outdated dependencies, long-lived credentials, fragmented telemetry, undiscoverable services. I scope them from a one-line problem statement, validate with a small POC, then scale them into self-service capabilities that teams adopt without me being in the room.
Lately I'm exploring agentic AI for engineering tooling, including MCP servers that let AI coding agents query platform data directly.
$ git log --graph --all
commit d8ef59b · HEAD · 03/2025 – Present
client: EBRD – European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Platform engineering for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), across an estate of 90+ applications: dependency automation, secrets and identity, developer portal, observability and release engineering, owned end-to-end across teams.
1 / 5
commit 739db27 · 05/2024 – 03/2025
Microservice deployments on Kubernetes and VMs, tailored CI/CD pipelines and Azure cost optimisation.
2 / 5
commit e8623bb · 02/2024 – 05/2024
Azure framework for an internal developer team at the London Stock Exchange Group.
3 / 5
commit 043014a · 01/2023 – 02/2024
Migration from cPanel hosting to Azure (AKS and App Service), environments provisioned as code.
4 / 5
commit bddc6b2 · 10/2020 – 12/2022
Virtualisation, backup and SAN storage for the company and its clients.
5 / 5
$ gh pr list --state merged --author @me
Merged#01 · Tremend · EBRD · 90+ applications
−Dependency updates were a manual, team-by-team chore, so outdated packages piled up as security risk.
+Global Renovate configuration, onboarding of every repository, auto-merge and changelog automation, plus a pipeline that auto-heals lockfile conflicts.
#Updates flow without manual effort, and exposure to vulnerable dependencies dropped measurably.
Merged#02 · Tremend · EBRD
−Services, APIs and their dependencies were hard to discover across teams.
+Took Backstage from POC to production: full software catalog, API and dependency graph, Entra ID sign-in, and an MCP server so AI coding agents can query the catalog.
#Grew from a proof of concept into a portal developers across multiple teams use daily.
Merged#03 · Tremend · EBRD
−Long-lived secrets and static credentials needed manual rotation in every team.
+Migrated application secrets to Azure Key Vault and moved app-to-Azure auth to Workload Identity.
#Short-lived, identity-based access everywhere, with no manual rotation left to do.
Merged#04 · Tremend · EBRD
−Telemetry lacked consistent ownership and version data, and alerting relied on hand-written rules.
+Standardised service-version and team tags across Application Insights, introduced Azure Monitor smart detection, automated production smoke tests and centralised deployment notifications.
#Faster anomaly detection, fewer hand-maintained alerts and shared visibility into every deployment.
Merged#05 · HTSS
−Azure spend grew with idle VMs and lightweight apps running on full Kubernetes clusters.
+Scheduled VM shutdown/start outside working hours, workload-matched database scaling, and moved lightweight apps from Kubernetes to Dockerised VMs.
#Significantly lower cloud spend without hurting reliability.
Merged#06 · Luxoft · client LSEG
−An internal developer team needed reusable, trustworthy building blocks for Azure.
+Reusable Terraform modules with PowerShell automation and Pester tests validating every module.
#A consistent, tested foundation for the team's Azure environments.
Merged#07 · Personal
−I wanted a portfolio I host and operate myself rather than on a managed platform.
+Next.js on an Oracle Cloud VM behind nginx with Let's Encrypt TLS, security headers and static asset caching.
#A small production service I run end-to-end, from build to TLS.
$ kubectl get engineer alexandru -o yaml
spec.cloud 1/9
Azure · AKS · App Service · Azure Functions · Key Vault · Entra ID · Oracle Cloud
spec.infrastructureAsCode 2/9
Terraform · Ansible · Pester
spec.ciCdAndRelease 3/9
Azure DevOps Pipelines · GitLab CI · Jenkins · Renovate · SonarQube · Dependency-Track
spec.containers 4/9
Kubernetes · Docker · Helm
spec.observability 5/9
Application Insights · Azure Monitor · Prometheus · Grafana · ELK Stack
spec.platformAndDevex 6/9
Backstage · MCP servers · Workload Identity · Self-service pipelines
spec.scriptingAndOs 7/9
PowerShell · Bash · Linux · Windows Server
spec.dataAndMessaging 8/9
SQL · MongoDB · Redis · RabbitMQ · Consul
spec.networkingAndOnPrem 9/9
Networking (CCNA) · VMware vSphere · Veeam · HPE 3PAR / MSA
$ ls -l ~/certs
11 certifications across Microsoft, Cisco, HPE and cPanel. All three Azure role-based certs are renewed and valid until 2027.
Microsoft Certified
Microsoft Certified
Microsoft Certified
$ cat ~/education
Electronics, Telecommunications and IT at Politehnica University of Bucharest, where the networking and security foundations came from.
B.Sc. · Politehnica University of Bucharest
M.Sc. · Politehnica University of Bucharest
$ tail -f /var/log/openhack.log
A hands-on, team-based hackathon at Microsoft's Prague office where teams from across Europe solved real-world serverless challenges with Microsoft engineers as coaches.
[built] Our team built a complete event-driven Azure serverless solution, working through integration, API and monitoring challenges from scratch.
$ curl -s alexandrunicolaie.ro/contact | jq
Open to good conversations about platform engineering, DevOps and Azure. Email or LinkedIn work best.