DevOps Engineer with 2.5 years of hands-on infrastructure work, CKA and CKAD certified (Nov 2025), specializing in Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, and DevSecOps automation.

Master's degree. Non-traditional background. Every skill here was deliberately built — not assigned by a curriculum.

Systems first, tools second. Document everything, understand everything, don't move forward until the foundation is solid.

• 2.5 years of full-time, self-directed DevOps engineering (Nov 2023 - Present)
• Designed and deployed CI/CD pipelines for Java, Python, and Node.js applications across 3+ stacks
• Built and managed Kubernetes clusters on bare-metal, AWS EKS, and AWS ECS
• Automated multi-environment deployments with Jenkins and GitHub Actions - from code commit to production
• Integrated security scanning (SonarQube, Trivy) into pipelines as first-class stages, not afterthoughts
• Set up and managed private container registry (Nexus), Nginx ingress, DNS, and SSL/TLS end-to-end
• No corporate employment yet - this profile and the linked projects below are the evidence

Orchestration: Kubernetes (bare-metal, EKS), Docker, Helm, Kustomize
CI/CD: Jenkins, GitHub Actions
Cloud: AWS (EKS, ECS, EC2, S3, IAM, VPC)
Security: SonarQube, Trivy, secrets management
IaC & Scripting: Bash, YAML, Groovy
Databases: MySQL, PostgreSQL
Networking: Nginx, DNS, SSL/TLS, Ingress controllers
OS: Linux (Ubuntu), macOS

All work is documented, versioned, and live:

• SilverStack - Production-ready Kubernetes manifests, Bash automation scripts, and IaC templates used across all projects
• Runbook - Real infrastructure commands, failures, and solutions documented as they happened - not sanitized after the fact
• Projects - Live project deployments with full CI/CD pipelines (Java, Python, Node.js apps on EKS, ECS, and bare-metal)
• Nectar - First-principles technical notes built while implementing, not while watching
• Blog - Distilled write-ups of what I built and what I learned
• DebugBox - A lightweight, variant-based debugging container suite for Kubernetes and Docker environments

How everything connects:

flowchart LR
    A("❓ Encounter a concept\nI don't understand")
    --> B[("📚 Nectar")]
    --> C("🔧 Apply it on\nreal infrastructure")
    --> D[("📋 Runbook")]
    --> E[("⚙️ SilverStack")]

    D --> F[("📖 Blog")]

    style B fill:#1565C0,color:#fff,stroke:#1565C0
    style D fill:#37474F,color:#fff,stroke:#37474F
    style E fill:#2E7D32,color:#fff,stroke:#2E7D32
    style F fill:#E65100,color:#fff,stroke:#E65100

• Rebuildable > runnable once
• Systems > individual tools
• Understanding > memorisation
• Clarity over shortcuts

Running something once is learning. Rebuilding it reliably is engineering.

📍 Islamabad, Pakistan · Open to remote roles globally
📬 Actively looking - reach me at linkedin.com/in/ibtisam-iq
🌐 Portfolio → ibtisam-iq.com