Kevin Burns

Solution Architect & DevOps Engineer

Aachen, Germany · UK / German dual national

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LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kevinburns

GitHub: github.com/kevin-burns

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Kevin Burns

Summary

Solution Architect and DevOps engineer with more than 20 years in IT consulting, delivering cloud, serverless and data platforms for clients in telecommunications, retail, media, energy, construction and life sciences. AWS-certified at Professional level in architecture, DevOps and generative AI, with current Specialty certifications in security, machine learning, networking and data analytics. Hands-on with Terraform, Python and Kubernetes; comfortable leading delivery as architect, SRE manager or agile practitioner.

Skills

Cloud Platforms

  • AWS
  • Microsoft Azure
  • Google Cloud

Infrastructure as Code

  • Terraform
  • CloudFormation
  • Ansible
  • Helm

Languages & Scripting

  • Python
  • Bash

Containers & Orchestration

  • Docker
  • Kubernetes
  • ECS
  • EKS
  • AKS
  • GKE

Serverless

  • AWS Lambda
  • Step Functions
  • Kinesis
  • DynamoDB
  • SQS
  • SNS
  • Azure Functions

Data & Analytics

  • Redshift
  • BigQuery
  • Athena
  • EMR
  • Kafka
  • AWS MSK
  • Spark
  • Pandas
  • QuickSight
  • Tableau
  • Power BI

Observability

  • Grafana
  • Prometheus
  • Loki
  • Kibana
  • OpenTelemetry
  • New Relic
  • Instana
  • Splunk

Security & Compliance

  • CIS Benchmarks
  • NIST
  • Trivy
  • Sysdig
  • Rapid7

FinOps

  • Cloud cost optimisation
  • Usage reporting

Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment (CI/CD)

  • GitLab
  • GitHub
  • Jenkins
  • AWS CodeDeploy

Delivery & Methods

  • Agile (Scrum, DSDM)
  • PRINCE2
  • JIRA
  • Confluence

Certifications

AWS Certified Generative AI Developer – ProfessionalAmazon Web Services · Issued Jul 2026 AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – ProfessionalAmazon Web Services · Issued Jan 2022 AWS Certified Solutions Architect – ProfessionalAmazon Web Services · Issued Oct 2020 AWS Certified Security – SpecialtyAmazon Web Services · Issued Mar 2024 AWS Certified Machine Learning – SpecialtyAmazon Web Services · Issued Jul 2024 AWS Certified Advanced Networking – SpecialtyAmazon Web Services · Issued Mar 2025 AWS Certified Data Analytics – SpecialtyAmazon Web Services · Issued Sep 2023 AWS Certified Data Engineer – AssociateAmazon Web Services · Issued Jan 2025 AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer – AssociateAmazon Web Services · Issued Feb 2025 Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104)Microsoft · Issued Mar 2026 FinOps Certified PractitionerFinOps Foundation · Issued Nov 2023 Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I)Scrum.org · Issued Oct 2012 PRINCE2 PractitionerProject management Agile Project Management Practitioner (DSDM)Agile delivery

Experience

Zeppelin Konzern

May 2023 – Jul 2023

AWS Architect (freelance) · Construction & Engineering

  • AWS
  • Kubernetes
  • FinOps
  • IoT
  • Analysed AWS service usage and costs across an IoT streaming-data platform and implemented cost-reduction strategies to improve scalability and operational efficiency.
  • Optimised Kubernetes clusters with AWS best practices for resource allocation, autoscaling and rightsizing.
  • Introduced AWS resource-management best practices and presented findings and recommendations to stakeholders.

Vodafone

Oct 2020 – Apr 2023

DevOps Consultant · Telecommunications

  • Python
  • Terraform
  • AWS Serverless
  • Security
  • Architected and built a cost and usage reporting solution for a multi-cluster Kubernetes estate using Python (Pandas) on an AWS serverless stack (Step Functions, SNS, SQS, Lambda, Firehose).
  • Designed cloud security-hardening reporting from Rapid7 data, applying CIS benchmarking across multiple cloud accounts and Kubernetes clusters.
  • Automated consolidated container-vulnerability reporting across the Kubernetes clusters.
  • Built serverless housekeeping applications and improved the team's Terraform usage guidelines.

Eppendorf AG

Mar 2020 – May 2020

DevOps Consultant · Life Sciences

  • Azure
  • Terraform
  • Observability
  • Assessed observability processes and produced an architecture blueprint for operational monitoring of an Azure microservices stack (React, .NET Core).
  • Redesigned the backup and disaster-recovery strategy for the Azure application suite (storage, retention, IAM security).
  • Prototyped a Loki/Prometheus monitoring stack on Azure Kubernetes Service using Helm and built Grafana visualisations.

ICE Services

Feb 2019 – Dec 2019

Development Build Lead / Agile Project Manager (interim) · Music Copyright

  • AWS
  • Data Pipeline
  • Agile
  • Led the design and implementation of a serverless AWS data pipeline merging copyright data from legacy systems and distributing it to external consumers via Athena, QuickSight, SQS, S3, Kinesis and Lambda.
  • Provided Agile project management and DevOps guidance to local and near-shore development teams, moving the programme from red to green.
  • Built and executed the roadmap for a Java API team migrating APIs from IBM to AWS for the music platform.

McKinsey & Company, Belgium

Apr 2017 – Dec 2018

Technical SRE Manager (interim) · Consulting Services

  • AWS
  • SRE
  • Docker
  • Kubernetes
  • Led a global SRE team supporting an in-house SaaS cloud-analytics and sales-insight product.
  • Managed Windows and Linux estates on EC2; deployed applications with Docker and Kubernetes.
  • Owned technical lifecycle management, including application lifecycle monitoring.

Earlier engagements (2000 – 2016) available on request.