Rakesh Cheekoti
London,HIL
Summary
Senior DevOps Engineer with 10+ years of experience in designing, implementing, and maintaining scalable infrastructure and CI/CD pipelines. Proficient in Infrastructure as Code (IaC), cloud-native deployments, automation, and performance optimization. Strong expertise in Azure, Kubernetes, Terraform, and monitoring tools, with a passion for improving system reliability and security. Adept at mentoring junior engineers and working in fast-paced, distributed teams.
Overview
13
13
years of professional experience
Work History
Senior DevOps Engineer
Vodaphone
05.2024 - Current
- Designed, deployed, and maintained multi-site infrastructure using Terraform and Azure.
- Developed and optimized CI/CD pipelines for automated deployments and application lifecycle management.
- Automated workflows to enhance system reliability and scalability in high-traffic production environments.
- Implemented security best practices, reducing infrastructure vulnerabilities by 40%.
- Monitored system health using Prometheus, Grafana, and Azure Analytics, setting up proactive alerts.
- Led a team of Junior DevOps engineers, providing mentorship and technical guidance.
- Improved disaster recovery and backup strategies to ensure high availability.
- Coordinated with software development teams to optimize cloud infrastructure usage.
Site Reliability Engineer
Vanquis Bank
01.2021 - 05.2024
- Involved in SRE initiatives to improve system reliability, reducing incidents by 30%.
- Designed and deployed Kubernetes clusters across AWS/GCP, ensuring 99.99% uptime.
- Automated infrastructure provisioning using Terraform and Ansible, cutting manual efforts by 50%.
- Developed self-healing mechanisms and auto-scaling strategies for microservices.
- Improved CI/CD pipelines, reducing deployment time from hours to minutes.
- Established SLIs, SLOs, and error budgets to align engineering with business objectives.
- Spearheaded observability improvements with Prometheus, Grafana, and distributed tracing.
- Conducted incident postmortems, implemented runbooks, and reduced MTTR by 40%.
- Enhanced security by enforcing RBAC, IAM best practices, and infrastructure hardening.
- Mentored junior SREs and provided training on best practices and tooling.
DevOps Engineer
Ford Motor UK
08.2017 - 01.2021
- Managed cloud-native deployments with Kubernetes, Helm, and Docker for scalable application hosting.
- Developed Terraform modules and ARM templates to automate infrastructure provisioning.
- Designed and implemented CI/CD pipelines using GitLab CI/CD and Jenkins.
- Improved system observability with FluentD and ElasticStack, reducing incident response time by 30%.
- Performed security audits, configured access controls, and enforced network security policies.
- Spearheaded cloud migration projects to improve system scalability and reliability.
- Automated backup and restoration processes, ensuring business continuity.
- Collaborated with cross-functional teams to streamline development and deployment workflows.
Linux Administrator
SISL Global
07.2015 - 08.2017
- Automated deployment and validation processes, improving release efficiency by 50%.
- Troubleshot complex production issues and performed root cause analysis.
- Developed self-healing mechanisms for infrastructure, reducing downtime incidents.
- Enhanced monitoring solutions by integrating Prometheus and SumoLogic.
- Optimized Kubernetes cluster performance, reducing resource costs by 20%.
- Improved security policies, implementing IAM roles and network segmentation.
- Conducted load testing to optimize performance under high traffic conditions.
- Created comprehensive documentation for DevOps workflows and best practices.
Information Technology Operations Analyst
RSA Insurance
04.2012 - 06.2015
- Maintained Linux server environments and implemented system hardening.
- Assisted in migrating on-premises workloads to the cloud using Terraform and Kubernetes.
- Developed automation scripts to streamline deployment and system maintenance.
- Provided production deployment support and resolved performance bottlenecks.
- Created technical documentation for infrastructure and deployment workflows.
- Optimized CI/CD pipelines for improved deployment speed and reliability.
- Conducted security assessments to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities.
- Integrated monitoring tools to provide real-time insights into system performance.
Education
Master of Science - Computer Science
University of Sunderland
London, United Kingdom01-2012
Skills
Cloud & Infrastructure: Azure, AWS, Kubernetes (AKS), Docker, Helm
Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Terraform, Azure ARM Templates
CI/CD & Automation: GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins, Azure DevOps
Monitoring & Logging: Prometheus, Grafana, ElasticStack
Scripting & Development: Bash, Python, PowerShell
Networking & Security: TCP/IP, UDP, VPN, DNS, TLS, Firewalls, IAM, Security Best Practices
Databases & Storage: SQL, Blob Storage
OS & System Administration: Linux (Ubuntu, CentOS, Debian), Windows Server
Additional Information
- Excellent troubleshooting and problem-solving skills
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills
- Ability to work independently and in a team
- Adaptable to fast-paced, changing environments
- Experience in remote collaboration with distributed teams
Soft Skills
- Excellent troubleshooting and problem-solving skills
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills
- Ability to work independently and in a team
- Adaptable to fast-paced, changing environments
- Experience in remote collaboration with distributed teams
Timeline
Senior DevOps Engineer
Vodaphone
05.2024 - Current
Site Reliability Engineer
Vanquis Bank
01.2021 - 05.2024
DevOps Engineer
Ford Motor UK
08.2017 - 01.2021
Linux Administrator
SISL Global
07.2015 - 08.2017
Information Technology Operations Analyst
RSA Insurance
04.2012 - 06.2015
Master of Science - Computer Science
University of Sunderland
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