Jens Laur
Tech Lead / DevOps Engineer
Crafting robust infrastructure, automating everything possible, and building cool stuff - from enterprise CI/CD pipelines to custom mechanical keyboards. When I'm not orchestrating containers, I'm tinkering with my homelab or programming another QMK firmware.
~/about
# Tech lead by day, keyboard builder by night, and homelab enthusiast 24/7
function getBackground() {
As a Tech Lead DevOps Engineer, I specialize in building and scaling infrastructure, mentoring teams, and implementing best practices. My approach combines enterprise-grade reliability with the innovative spirit of open-source communities.
When I'm not leading DevOps initiatives, you'll find me soldering switches for my latest keyboard build, automating my home with Home Assistant, or expanding my homelab cluster running everything from Pi-hole to Kubernetes.
}
OS: NixOS/Arch Linux
Role: Tech Lead DevOps
Shell: zsh + oh-my-zsh
Editor: Neovim + tmux
Keyboard: Custom ErgoDox
Homelab: 4-node cluster
Interests: Automation++
~/skills
# A comprehensive toolkit of DevOps technologies and methodologies I've mastered over the years.
Cloud Platforms
$ AWS (EC2, S3, RDS, Lambda)
$ DigitalOcean, Scaleway, Hetzner Cloud
Infrastructure as Code
$ Terraform
$ Ansible
$ Crossplane
$ Pulumi
CI/CD
$ GitHub Actions
$ GitLab CI/CD)
$ ArgoCD, Flux (GitOps)
Containerization
$ Docker
$ Kubernetes
$ CRI-O, containerd
Monitoring & Logging
$ Prometheus, Thanos
$ Grafana
$ Loki, Tempo
$ ELK Stack
$ Datadog, New Relic (APM)
Scripting & Programming
$ PHP (Laravel, Symfony)
$ Go
$ JavaScript/TypeScript
$ Bash
$ Python
Databases
$ PostgreSQL
$ MySQL/MariaDB
$ Elasticsearch
$ Redis, DynamoDB (NoSQL)
Security
$ HashiCorp Vault
$ SAST/DAST (code scanning)
$ Compliance Automation
DevOps Practices
$ GitOps
$ Infrastructure Automation
$ Chaos Engineering
~/projects
# Showcasing some of my most impactful DevOps projects and infrastructure solutions.
# Description:
Built a homelab environment with Proxmox VE, running various services and applications in Docker containers and virtual machines for learning and experimentation.
# Description:
Created a multi-node Kubernetes cluster using Talos OS, enabling self-hosted applications and services with persistent storage and automated backups.
Professional Journey
My career path and professional experience in the DevOps and infrastructure engineering space.
- Leading and mentoring a team of DevOps Engineers to optimize development and operational processes
- Analyzing and improving existing workflows to enhance efficiency and scalability for development teams
- Strategic planning and implementation of automation solutions to reduce manual tasks
- Collaborating with developers and other teams to ensure a stable and high-performing infrastructure
- Managing and optimizing infrastructure while ensuring system stability and performance
- Developing and implementing CI/CD pipelines to automate deployments and reduce time-to-market by 30%
- Designing, building, and operating highly available bare-metal Kubernetes clusters to improve service resilience
- Monitoring and troubleshooting systems to minimize downtime and enhance operational security
- Working closely with developers to refine deployment strategies and infrastructure architecture
- Developing and maintaining PHP-based services for the vacation rental industry with a focus on performance and scalability
- Architecting and designing software solutions based on internal and external stakeholder requirements
- Optimizing existing applications to enhance user experience and reduce latency
- Integrating external APIs and services to expand core system functionality
- Participating in agile development processes, code reviews, and technical decision-making to continuously improve the codebase