Bartosz Ptaszynski
Verified Expert in Engineering
Software Developer
Bart is a software engineer with experience in cloud automation, security, and networking. Over the last two decades, Bart delivered solutions for small and big companies, including Fidelity, F-secure, Vectra AI, teamwork, and startups. His strength lies in Python, Go, and Elixir, with additional solid knowledge in JavaScript and TypeScript. Bart has years of experience managing Kubernetes, CI/CD, and web security outside software engineering.
Portfolio
Experience
Availability
Preferred Environment
Linux, Go, Elixir, Python, TypeScript, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible, Ubuntu
The most amazing...
...thing I've delivered is a state synchronization service for managed detection and response service at Vectra.
Work Experience
Full-stack Developer
Fabric
- Introduced Kubernetes (AWS EKS) as a platform for the service that replaced a home-brewed scaling solution based on Lambda and AWS Auto Scaling groups.
- Implemented a custom scheduler in Go on top of Kubernetes and ArgoCD, which allowed the deployment and management of the lifecycle of a very stateful WebRTC-based application.
- Improved virtual touchpad scrolling inside the virtual browser and a custom Chrome extension running in a Docker container and streaming data via WebRTC. This involved debugging and coding in C++, Go, and TypeScript.
- Fixed several issues in infrastructure configuration, improving a few security issues in the process. This included applying the changes to infrastructure with Terraform and new infrastructure elements deployed via ArgoCD/Kubernetes.
Senior Software Engineer
Vectra
- Designed and developed a synchronization service for managed detection and response (MDR). I delivered a working solution to full specifications and stakeholder satisfaction within the first three months of joining the company.
- Assisted in troubleshooting and fixing Terraform and Kubernetes deployments.
- Mentored junior software engineers on the team. Documented research and work delivered. Shared knowledge with the team via demos and Q&A sessions.
- Researched and proposed a non-trivial design for PostgreSQL database setup, which offered robust multi-tenancy features and data partitioning allowing for efficient queries on large data sets.
SysOps Engineer
Teamwork.com
- Migrated legacy applications from Windows servers to Kubernetes with custom deployment suited to this monolith's needs.
- Kept track of infrastructure security and performed regular internal pen tests on the web application.
- Managed Kubernetes clusters across three geographical regions.
- Developed and maintained automation tools in Go and Python.
- Worked with developer teams assisting with Helm charts and ArgoCD deployments.
- Provided on-call support and responded to infrastructure issues and outages.
Chief Technical Officer and Co-founder
Tisalabs
- Developed a solution for tracking tree-cutting machinery with custom UI and satellite communication on custom ARM-based Linux hardware.
- Created a custom plugin for VerneMQ MQTT broker, Elixir.
- Deployed and managed a Kubernetes cluster with an Argo CD/GitOps/CI/CD pipeline.
- Developed solutions using Arduino-based sensors, LoRa, and custom ARM-based Linux with Inmarsat satellite communications for monitoring fishing farms water conditions and location.
- Designed and developed Elixir Phoenix with a LiveView-based web portal for managing fleets of IoT devices. Integrated with MQTT and IoT Auth back end.
- Managed a team of junior developers on various projects.
- Performed security pen tests for customers with detailed reports on findings.
Site Reliability Engineer
Teamwork.com
- Modernized a developer environment from a single, bulky Vagrant-based VM to a more lean, configurable Docker-based solution.
- Introduced Kubernetes to the company. Managed production Kubernetes clusters and optimized for cost savings using Spot instances on AWS.
- Updated all existing microservices to be deployed on Kubernetes with Helm templates via Travis and Jenkins.
- Performed regular pen tests on the infrastructure and web apps. Set up ongoing automated security scans and alerts.
- Improved infrastructure monitoring by switching from Nagios to Datadog, which allowed for a more granular collection of metrics and alerting.
- Developed automation tools, including a custom database monitoring tool checking for long-running queries, reporting on them to chat, and automatically terminating any that fell beyond the acceptable threshold.
Principal Architect
Fidelity Investments
- Collaborated with a team of enterprise architects across business units to coordinate the direction of company-wide efforts.
- Worked with engineering teams on introducing OpenStack to the existing private cloud developed in-house.
- Provided knowledge and training via an internal social media portal and in-person training sessions.
- Received multiple awards for excellence in communication and influencing change in the company.
- Collaborated on the proof of concept (POC) for container-based deployments, such as Mesos, Docker Swarm, and Kubernetes.
Principal Software Engineer
Fidelity Investments
- Collaborated on developing a private cloud service, custom-built using XenServers and integrating with other Fidelity infrastructure services.
- Developed automation for provisioning F5-based load balancers with optional DNS automation and SSL termination.
- Worked primarily on the back-end side of the project with Python 2 and contributed to the front-end side with RoR and JavaScript.
- Managed and customized Chef servers to provide features beyond open source Chef's capabilities.
- Created and managed Chef cookbooks for various automation tasks on VMs.
- Managed Jenkins CI/CD pipelines for the whole service.
- Assisted support engineers while on-call with XenServer and VM-related issues.
- Managed distributed RabbitMQ with custom rules for routing messages depending on which datacenter-specific message it should be handled.
- Delivered many features and bug fixes in Scrum sprints and later in Scrumban while maintaining high velocity.
- Mentored junior developers on the team. Shared knowledge via documentation and articles on the internal social media portal.
Chief Executive Officer and Founder | Lead Software Engineer
yazzgoth ltd.
- Provided contract-based software development for clients, such as LouderVoice, WeddingDates.ie, and F-Secure.
- Developed Django-based websites, led Jenkins CI/CD automation and JavaScript-based widgets, and integrated with social media website APIs.
- Built middleware extending features of existing APIs, namely adding a contact synchronization feature to file storage backup service.
- Led a team of software engineers. I was also providing code reviews and mentoring.
- Turned prospective clients into paying customers by working closely with them to gather requirements and present technical solutions proposals. Commended multiple times for clear communication and grasp of business needs.
- Provided quickly delivered proofs-of-concept, helping guide customers with challenging technical decisions.
- Worked with geographically distributed teams and customers in Ireland, France, Poland, and Finland.
- Developed a POC of a product for game developers. A scalable server back end in Erlang with integrations to Unity3D and Unreal Engine. This effort ultimately failed but was a great learning opportunity for business development.
Freelancer Software Engineer and Systems Administrator
Freelancer
- Developed XML and SOAP-based API for LouderVoice web service. Created integration with SMS and Facebook APIs. Created JavaScript-based embeddable widget.
- Created a web portal SL-messenger for tracking the history of travels in Second Life. Built the portal's front and back end (API and XML-RPC) and Second Life's scripts.
- Built an async API and web portal for home automation and video streaming using Python Twisted framework.
- Worked on short-term POC deliverables, including integration with WiFi-enabled SD cards and custom storage backends, custom backup service with binary block de-duplication, and integration between network-enabled chess board and Second Life.
- Managed PC repairs in Windows and Linux, network cabling, router configuration, advanced routing using Mikrotik and Motorola Canopy, firewall configuration, and network monitoring. Handled email server and email proxy.
Intern
Dell EMC XtremIO
- Converted a website from ASP to ASP.NET and tested it for any defects.
- Developed a POC using C# and ASP.NET asset tracking system using Cisco Wireless Location Appliance and wifi tags with a Google Maps-like interface.
- Assisted in manual testing of products and services developed by team members.
Network Engineer
Amocom Technologies
- Provided technical support to customers via phone and email.
- Debugged and fixed issues with wireless networking devices Motorola Canopy.
- Assisted in identifying viable locations for wireless access points and repeaters based on topological maps and radio signal propagation.
- Managed Mikrotik-based networking switches and routers.
Experience
Synchronization Service for Vectra AI's Sidekick MDR
https://www.vectra.ai/products/mdrAs the senior developer on the still small team, I had to hit the ground running and dive deep into the maze of existing source code, automation, and infrastructure. Within the first three months, we managed to hit our significant milestone of removing dependency on the existing POC back end and replacing it with our new scalable solution.
The service itself is composed of a Linux service running alongside the detect software on physical and cloud servers, synchronizing data selectively with the cloud's back end used by security analysts. This work involved creating a new service, which integrates tightly with an existing large project and new cloud-based services supporting communication at scale.
Mobile Backup Backend for F-Secure
The project was successfully deployed to the global user base through F-Secure partners, namely mobile carriers in France, Australia, and Mexico.
IoT Fleet Management Service At Tisalabs
https://www.tisalabs.com/secure-iot-platform/Various components in this solution include Arduino, C++ sensors, Go, ARM IoT edge gateway, Elixir with Phoenix queuing through MQTT and Inmarsat satellite modems, and an API with web portal. Deployed with GitLab CI and ArgoCD onto Kubernetes running on GCP. The solution had to be robust as the sensors were deployed at sea with the unreliable connections. Mobile 4G was used, falling back to satellite communications.
The back end by design had to be scalable and responsive, hence Elixir and deployment on Kubernetes.
Modernizing Infrastructure and Automation at Teamwork
https://www.teamwork.com/Private Cloud at Fidelity
https://www.fidelity.com/Automating and integrating F5 load balancing into C2C, external monitoring, and SSL certification. I've coordinated work with other teams on most of these efforts, helping with requirement gathering, documentation, and analysis.
Later, I joined the architects' team as an enterprise architect, aiding work on modernizing Fidelity's cloud infrastructure.
WeddingDates
https://www.weddingdates.ie/Fabric
http://fabric.soDuring my contract with Fabric, I introduced Kubernetes (AWS EKS) as a platform for the service, replacing a home-brewed scaling solution based on Lambda and AWS Auto Scaling groups. Moreover, I implemented a custom scheduler in Go on top of Kubernetes and ArgoCD, which allowed the deployment and management of the lifecycle of a very stateful WebRTC-based application. I improved the virtual touchpad scrolling inside the virtual browser and a custom Chrome extension running in a Docker container and streaming data via WebRTC. This involved debugging and coding in C++, Go, and TypeScript. Finally, I fixed several issues in infrastructure configuration, improving a few security issues in the process. This included applying the changes to infrastructure with Terraform and new infrastructure elements deployed via ArgoCD/Kubernetes.
Skills
Languages
Python, Python 3, Python 2, Go, Elixir, TypeScript, JavaScript, Erlang (OTP), Erlang, LSL, C#, C#.NET, TypeScript 3, C++, GraphQL, SQL
Frameworks
Django, Flask, Ruby on Rails (RoR), TurboGears, Twisted, Django REST Framework
Tools
Helm, Chef, RabbitMQ, Jenkins, Terraform, Ansible, MQTT, Mesos, NGINX, Pytest, Amazon CloudFront CDN, Amazon CloudWatch
Platforms
Kubernetes, Docker, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Ubuntu, Linux, ARM Linux, Burp Suite, Kali Linux, Amazon EC2, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), AWS Lambda, Arduino, OpenStack, Xen, Windows
Storage
MySQL, Amazon S3 (AWS S3), PostgreSQL, Datadog, Redis, Redis Cache, CouchDB, MariaDB, XML-RPC, Amazon DynamoDB, Elasticsearch
Other
AWS Cloud Architecture, Back-end, Startups, Early-stage Startups, Web Security, Argo CD, Kubernetes Operations (kOps), Scrumban, IT Networking, System Administration, Networking, IP Routing, Software Architecture, Architecture, APIs, CTO, Virtual Machines, WebSockets, Full-stack Development, Booking Systems, Booking Apps, HAProxy, LoRa, LoRaWAN, F5 Networks, NFS, Cisco, Wireless Protocols, Customer Support, Technical Support, Exploits, Debugging Tools, Scrum Master, Internet of Things (IoT), FastAPI, CEO, Cloud Architecture, Incident Management, Incident Response, Amazon RDS
Paradigms
DevOps, Scrum, Penetration Testing, Microservices
Libraries/APIs
jQuery, React, Node.js, WebRTC, REST APIs
Certifications
Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP)
OffSec Services Ltd
CITA-F
International Association of Software Architects (IASA)
Certified Scrum Master
Scrum Alliance
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