Hugo Lesta

DevOps Technical Lead at BESTSELLER, Amsterdam

December 2023 — Present

• Architected AI/ML infrastructure on AWS to support model training and inference workloads at scale.
• Designed fault-tolerant AI infrastructure patterns (multi-AZ failover, graceful degradation, automated retraining pipelines) to ensure resilience of production AI workloads.
• Integrated LLM-based tooling into internal developer platforms to accelerate incident triage and reduce operational toil.
• Established observability and guardrails (cost, latency, drift monitoring) for AI/ML services running alongside existing Kafka and Kubernetes infrastructure.
• Design and implementation of hybrid cloud infrastructures for secure data transfer.
• Optimize infrastructure costs aligned with business goals and performance metrics.
• Enhance cloud architecture (AWS) for improved scalability and reliability of services.
• Facilitate cross-department collaboration to streamline deployment processes and increase efficiency.
• Monitoring using Prometheus, Grafana, and Datadog.
• Migrated legacy self-hosted Apache Kafka to Strimzi.
• Executed migration of over 280 repositories to GitHub, ensuring data integrity and security.
• Design of Java, Python, Golang, and Node.js pipelines on GitHub reusable workflows.
• Streaming data from Apache Kafka to Snowflake.

DevOps Engineer at BESTSELLER, Amsterdam

2021 — December 2023

• Designed networking solutions to integrate on-premise infrastructure with AWS.
• Led service migration initiatives from on-premise to AWS, optimizing resource allocation.
• Enhanced security and efficiency through the application of AWS cloud engineering principles.
• Modernized Apache Kafka infrastructure, significantly improving system performance by scaling nodes.
• Automated deployment processes via transition from ECS to Kubernetes using CDK8s.
• Implemented instance reservations and a savings plan to enhance costs on AWS cloud.

Cloud Engineer at Edrans, Buenos Aires, Argentina

2019 — 2020

• Monitored systems using Prometheus, Grafana, Nagios, Sensu, and InfluxDB.
• Developed cloud infrastructure with AWS, enhancing deployment efficiency.
• Automated system monitoring and management processes for improved reliability.
• Executed enterprise systems migrations to cloud environments with minimal downtime.
• Collaborated with teams to optimize resource utilization and implemented Terraform for infrastructure as code.
• Implemented High-Availability Vault integrated with Kubernetes on record time.
• Direct collaboration with AWS engineers on a Datalake project.

Cloud Architect at Naranja, Córdoba, Argentina

February 2018 — February 2019

• Designed and implemented scalable, secure cloud solutions on AWS.
• Architected core network infrastructure, optimizing throughput and redundancy.
• Led deployment of multi-master Kubernetes clusters, ensuring high availability for low-latency applications.
• Automated cluster operations using custom operators and Ansible playbooks, minimizing downtime and manual intervention.
• Developed Helm charts to standardize deployments, enhancing team efficiency and compliance.
• Engineered observability stack with Prometheus and Grafana for performance monitoring.

Server Administrator at WebCentrix, Córdoba, Argentina

February 2015 — February 2018

• Managed multi-cloud infrastructure across AWS, Rackspace, and Google Cloud.
• Automated deployment processes using bash and batch scripting.
• Streamlined system monitoring and troubleshooting protocols to enhance operational efficiency.
• Implemented serverless architectures to optimize resource utilization.
• Collaborated with cross-functional teams to drive cloud innovation and infrastructure transformation.

Delivery Manager at emBlue Email Marketing Cloud, Córdoba, Argentina

February 2013 — February 2018

• Reached company milestone (30,000,000 emails sent a month) with a high inbox delivery rate.
• Led cross-functional teams to optimize delivery processes, enhancing efficiency and client satisfaction.
• Implemented cloud migration strategies, ensuring seamless transitions to AWS and improving system performance.
• Developed automation scripts using Python and Bash, reducing deployment times and minimizing errors.
• Facilitated continuous integration and deployment processes, increasing release frequency and quality.
• Mentored junior team members, fostering a culture of collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Senior Server Administrator at emBlue Marketing Cloud, Córdoba, Argentina

February 2013 — June 2018

• On-premise infrastructure & data center management: architected, deployed, and managed a large-scale bare-metal server fleet across global data centers, overseeing the entire hardware lifecycle from provisioning to decommissioning.
• Designed and implemented automated PXE-based provisioning systems for rapid, consistent OS deployment (Debian, CentOS) across hundreds of physical servers.
• Managed core data center services including DNS, VPNs, and firewall policies (iptables) for a complex multi-network environment.
• Systems engineering & performance optimization: performed deep Linux kernel and system tuning (TCP/IP stack, virtual memory, I/O schedulers) to maximize throughput and minimize latency.
• Engineered and maintained high-availability services using advanced MySQL features including replication, sharding, and migration strategies.
• Hardened Windows and Linux servers against threats by implementing stringent security baselines and proactively patching vulnerabilities.
• Automation & monitoring: developed Bash and Python automation scripts to streamline server maintenance, security audits, and backup verification.
• Implemented a comprehensive monitoring and alerting stack (Nagios, Cacti, SNMP) for deep visibility into system health and capacity planning.
• Disaster recovery & high availability: designed and rigorously tested company-wide disaster recovery plans, and managed reliable backup and restoration strategies for databases and filesystems.

AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate

AWS, Atlanta, GA · 2020 — 2020

Certified professional by AWS, with direct project collaboration alongside AWS engineers.

Cisco Certified Network Associate

Universidad Tecnológica Córdoba, Córdoba, Argentina · 2011 — 2013

Studied networking using Cisco technologies, applied throughout subsequent roles.