Machendra K
8+ Years of Experience

Cloud & DevOps Engineer

I design and run secure, scalable cloud platforms across AWS and Azure, with a focus on Kubernetes, CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code, and cloud security โ€” building reliable, automated, and cost-efficient systems.

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Cloud Architecture

Multi-cloud environments across AWS and Azure โ€” provisioning, security, and disaster recovery.

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Certification

Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104).

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Automation & IaC

Terraform, Ansible, and CI/CD pipelines that cut manual work and control cloud spend.

Tech Stack

Technical Expertise

The technologies I use to build and run secure, scalable, and cost-efficient cloud platforms.

Cloud

AWSAzureDigitalOcean

CI/CD & Automation

Azure DevOpsGitHub ActionsArgo CD

Containers & Kubernetes

DockerKubernetesEKS HelmCalicoKEDA

Infrastructure as Code

TerraformTerragruntCloudFormation ARM Templates

Security

AWS WAFKMSIAM Azure Key VaultModSecurity

Observability

PrometheusGrafanaCloudWatch Azure MonitorNew Relic

Programming & Scripting

PythonShell

Databases & Code Quality

MySQLClickHouseSonarQube Maven
Career

Professional Journey

8+ years solving infrastructure problems for enterprise-scale products.

Oct 2025 โ€“ Present

Lead Consultant ยท HCL Tech

Managing the cloud and DevOps infrastructure for a PCI compliance platform serving a leading banking client โ€” driving secure deployments, scalability, high availability, and automated operations for mission-critical microservices.

MicroservicesBanking DomainCloud Consulting
Oct 2020 โ€“ Sep 2025

Lead DevOps Engineer ยท Infiniti Research

Own the cloud and DevOps practice for Bizvibe across AWS and Azure. Cut global page-load times by 40% with multi-origin CloudFront distributions, held 99.9% uptime across mission-critical Azure workloads, and blocked 70% of malicious traffic with custom WAF rules. Built zero-downtime Azure DevOps pipelines, rolled out OAuth2/OIDC B2C SSO, enforced Kubernetes RBAC and Calico network policies, and led quarterly DR tests against PCI-DSS and GDPR standards with zero critical findings.

AWSAzureKubernetesTerraform
Dec 2017 โ€“ Jun 2020

Cloud Engineer ยท HGS (Client: Coventry Healthcare)

Designed and maintained AWS environments for enterprise healthcare applications. Automated infrastructure provisioning with Terraform, ran CI/CD pipelines through Jenkins and Git, and configured IAM, security groups, and VPC peering for secure, cost-efficient deployments.

AWSTerraformJenkins
Selected Work

Initiatives & Outcomes

Real projects from my day-to-day work โ€” the problems, the stack, and what changed.

Cloud Security Hardening

Custom AWS WAF rule sets with managed rule groups and OWASP Top 10 protections across API Gateway and CloudFront.

AWS WAFCloudFrontAPI Gateway

Result: 70% of malicious requests blocked

Kubernetes Access & Segmentation

Namespace-level and cluster-wide RBAC plus Calico network policies to enforce least-privilege access and isolate workloads.

KubernetesCalicoRBAC

Result: 40% cut in lateral-movement risk

Multi-Cloud Cost Optimization

Terraform modules for automatic EC2 right-sizing, scheduled shutdowns of non-prod environments, and Spot/Reserved Instance provisioning.

TerraformAWSAzure

Result: 50% AWS / 25% Azure cost reduction

CI/CD Modernization

YAML-driven, multi-stage Azure DevOps pipelines with release approvals, artifact versioning, and integrated cost-gate checks.

Azure DevOpsFunction Apps

Result: Zero-downtime releases across dev/stage/prod

Impact

Measured Results

Outcomes I can point to, not just tools I've touched.

50%
AWS spend cut via Terraform right-sizing & Savings Plans
25%
Azure savings from Spot VMs & automated cleanup
40%
Faster page loads from optimised CloudFront delivery
70%
Malicious requests blocked by custom WAF rule sets
Beyond Work

Passions & Interests

Outside the terminal, I find rhythm through a lens, on the road, and in the soil.

Photography

Framing moments through a lens โ€” chasing light, texture, and compositions I didn't plan for.

Travel

Exploring new places and cultures โ€” resetting perspective, one city or trail at a time.

Organic Farming

Growing food naturally โ€” the same patience and systems-thinking I bring to infrastructure, applied to soil and harvest.

Credentials

Education & Certifications

Certification

Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104)

Validated expertise in Azure identities, governance, storage, compute, and networking.

Education

B.Sc, Computer Science

Sri Krishnadevaraya University, Anantapur

Writing

Latest Articles

Notes on AWS, Azure, Kubernetes, Terraform, and cloud security โ€” new posts land on the blog.

No posts published yet โ€” first articles are coming soon.

Visit the Blog