Resume for Paul Czarkowski
January 1, 0001
Paul Czarkowski
Senior Principal, Cloud Services Black Belts @ Red Hat
🌍 tech.paulcz.net | 🛠 github.com/paulczar
🛂 Citizenships: Australia, UK, USA
Overview
Senior Cloud & DevOps Leader | Kubernetes | Open Source Advocate | Infrastructure Automation
Innovative and results-driven Senior Principal Engineer with 20+ years of experience in cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure), Kubernetes, DevOps, infrastructure automation, and Open Source. A recognized leader in the Kubernetes and Helm communities, I have successfully built and scaled engineering teams, driven enterprise cloud adoption, and architected large-scale, resilient infrastructure solutions.
I currently lead the Managed OpenShift Black Belt team at Red Hat, helping global enterprises remove technical blockers and accelerate cloud adoption. Previously, I was a Staff Technologist at VMware, shaping Kubernetes tooling and enhancing operator experiences.
Key Highlights:
✅ Cloud & Kubernetes Expertise – Deep hands-on experience with OpenShift, Kubernetes, Terraform, Helm, and cloud-native architectures.
✅ Thought Leadership & Open Source Advocacy – Frequent speaker and organizer for DevOpsDays, KubeCon and other industry conferences - driving DevOps best practices and community growth. (nonexhaustive list of key talks at speaking.paulcz.net)
✅ Infrastructure Automation & DevOps – Designed and implemented automation frameworks at IBM, Rackspace, and EA, streamlining operations resulting in improved efficiency and cost savings.
✅ Team Leadership & Mentorship – Built and scaled engineering teams at Red Hat, VMware and BlueBox, mentoring engineers and enabling enterprise cloud transformations.
Public projects, blogs, and speaking engagements at mobb.ninja and speaking.paulcz.net. Passionate about Open Source, cloud-native tech, and empowering teams to build scalable, high-performance infrastructure.
🛠 Technical Skills
| Category | Skills |
|---|---|
| Cloud Platforms | AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Pivotal Cloud Foundry |
| Infrastructure Automation | Terraform, Ansible, Chef |
| Kubernetes Ecosystem | Kubernetes, Helm, OpenShift, Istio, Cilium, Docker, Podman, Tanzu |
| CI/CD & DevOps | GitHub Actions, ArgoCD, Tekton, Spinnaker, Jenkins |
| Programming & Scripting | Go, Python, Bash, YAML |
| Observability & Monitoring | Prometheus, Grafana, Fluentd, OpenTelemetry, Grafana |
| Security & Compliance | STIG, Inspec, OPA/Gatekeeper, Red Hat Advanced Cluster Management |
| Version Control & Collaboration | Git, GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket |
| AI & Machine Learning | Red Hat OpenShift AI, IBM Granite Models, InstructLab, Ollama |
🎓 Certifications
| Certification | Issuing Organization |
|---|---|
| Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals | Microsoft |
| Red Hat Certified OpenShift Administrator | Red Hat |
| Red Hat Certified Specialist in Containers & Kubernetes | Red Hat |
| AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate | AWS |
| AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner | AWS |
🛠 Major Open Source Contributions
- Platform Operations on Kubernetes – Created a “platform in a box” project to deploy a full SRE/Ops stack, enabling teams to turn Kubernetes into a complete platform with monitoring, logging, and security automation.
- GCP Cloud Compute Operator – Developed the first viable Google Cloud Operator for Kubernetes, managing popular GCP services directly from Kubernetes clusters. Contributed to Google’s official “Config Connector” to expand its feature set.
- Helm Chart Releaser – Created a tool to automate Helm chart releases using GitHub Pages. Adopted as an official Helm project, now used in hundreds of production environments.
- Kargo/Kubespray – Contributed extensively to improve Ansible-based Kubernetes deployments, focusing on quality and composability.
- Inspec STIG Auditing for Red Hat 6 – Developed a Chef Inspec repository for STIG compliance auditing, helping organizations enforce security standards in Red Hat environments.
- omgwtfssl – Built a Docker-based OpenSSL automation tool to simplify local SSL/TLS certificate creation, reducing setup complexity for developers.
- Factorish – Created a prototype for managing application lifecycles in Docker using service discovery. Concepts influenced later tools like Container Pilot and Habitat.sh.
💼 Professional Experience
Red Hat (April 2021 – Present, Austin, Texas)
Senior Principal, Cloud Services Black Belts
- Established and scaled a global 40+ person team, leading hiring, onboarding, and mentoring initiatives.
- Developed mobb.ninja, a widely adopted documentation site, reducing onboarding time for customers.
- Created and hosted a technical video series on OpenSource AI projects, reaching thousands of viewers.
VMware / Pivotal Software (Nov 2017 – Apr 2021, Austin, Texas)
Staff Technologist / Developer Advocate
- Delivered 50+ technical talks and workshops across 20+ countries, influencing Kubernetes adoption.
- Founded and scaled tanzu.tv, a DevOps streaming platform with 5+ weekly developer-focused shows.
IBM / Blue Box (Nov 2014 – Nov 2017, Austin, Texas)
Technical Lead, IBM Cloud Developer Labs
- Engineered and led the porting of [ursula], enabling RHEL support and improving STIG compliance.
- Designed and implemented SiteController ([cuttle]), reducing infrastructure management time by X%.
Rackspace (Nov 2013 – Nov 2014, Austin, Texas)
Senior Operations Engineer
- Developed the initial Build/Push/Run workflow for OpenStack PaaS (Solum), streamlining application deployment.
Electronic Arts / BioWare (Apr 2008 – Nov 2013, Austin, Texas)
Manager, Systems Engineering (2012-2013) | Lead Systems Engineer (2010-2012) | Senior Systems Engineer (2008-2010)
- Designed and scaled infrastructure for SimCity Online (AWS) and Star Wars: The Old Republic (8,000+ servers, 2M+ subscribers).
- Led migration of game services to cost-effective data centers, increasing efficiency and reducing infrastructure costs.
Further experience / job details on request.
📌 References
Available upon request.