About me
I’m Afsal Khan, a Cloud and DevOps Engineer with over 13 years of experience building secure, scalable, and automated infrastructure solutions. My expertise lies in AWS, Terraform, Kubernetes, and CI/CD pipelines. I’m passionate about reducing complexity through automation and enabling teams to ship faster with confidence.
My career began in production support, where I developed strong troubleshooting and system management skills. I then moved into deployment engineering, overseeing release processes and ensuring smooth production transitions.
Building on this foundation, I advanced into Cloud Engineering, where I design and manage scalable platforms using Infrastructure as Code (IaC), while also addressing vulnerabilities, managing risks, and implementing security controls for secure and reliable cloud environments.
I thrive on solving complex challenges and driving continuous improvement in infrastructure and processes. My collaborative approach, combined with a passion for technology and innovation, enables me to work effectively with cross-functional teams to achieve shared goals
Outside of work, I am committed to staying current with industry trends and advancements, continuously expanding my skill set to leverage the latest tools and methodologies. I am excited about the opportunities to contribute to transformative projects and drive technological excellence in my future endeavors.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Over the years, I've led cloud enablement initiatives, built DevOps platforms from the ground up, and collaborated across teams to streamline operations. Here’s a brief overview of my career path:Natwest Group
AVP, Lead Software Engineer | Jul 2023 - current
- Architected and maintained highly available AWS infrastructure, including EKS, EC2, CloudFront, and Route53, delivering reliable production environments.
- Implemented scalable container orchestration using Helm, DeamonSets, and Karpenter across EKS and OpenShift clusters.
- Established advanced monitoring and alerting through Splunk and CloudWatch for real-time visibility and faster incident response.
- Strengthened security posture with AWS Inspector, AWS Config, IAM governance, and automated vulnerability scanning.
- Managed DNS routing and failover strategies using Route53 latency and health checks.
- Mentored DevOps Engineers and collaborated with development and SRE teams to streamline releases, optimize performance, and drive automation maturity.
- Managed high-availability designs improving system resilience and reducing operational incidents.
- Standardized Terraform-based provisioning across teams enhancing environment consistency.
Senior Software Engineer | Dec 2021 - Jul 2023
- Served as SME for Identity Services, ensuring seamless SSO operations and SLA-driven incident resolution.
- Managed Ping Access and Ping Federate infrastructure, enabling secure SAML 2.0 and OAuth 2.0 integrations.
- Led training and upskilling programs for junior engineers in identity platforms.
- Troubleshot complex federation, SSO, and certificate-related issues across enterprise applications.
- Built proactive Splunk dashboards and alerts for identity infrastructure monitoring.
- Executed zero-downtime Disaster Recovery tests for 100+ integrations.
- Renewed signing certificates across 200+ dependent services without disruption.
Analyst - Production Managment | Dec 2017 - Dec 2021
- Delivered incident, change, and problem management for business-critical services.
- Created advanced Splunk dashboards improving observability and reducing mean time to detect.
- Supported key infrastructure upgrades including load balancer migration from NetScaler to AVI.
- Managed enterprise-wide SSL certificate renewals and vendor 2FA onboarding.
- Diagnosed TLS, ciphers, and protocol issues using tools like Fiddler.
- Automated NetScaler and AVI operations using Postman, improving operational efficiency.
- Simplified complex production workflows leading to faster troubleshooting.
Plintron Global Technology Pvt. Ltd
Implementation Engineer | December 2013 - December 2017
- Managed deployment and hosting of websites and Windows services, ensuring reliable production performance.
- Investigated and resolved deployment issues through detailed analysis of stored procedures and functions.
- Delivered tailored software solutions by analyzing client requirements and providing timely support.
- Collaborated with a UK-based Telecom MVNO for ongoing system maintenance and feature implementation.
Support Engineer | May 2012 - December 2013
- Provided production support by troubleshooting application issues and resolving bugs.
- Performed data mining and root cause analysis to improve system performance.
- Documented known errors and contributed to the Knowledge Base (KB).
- Collaborated with users to gather requirements and resolve MIS-related queries.
EDUCATION
Masters Degree
University of Madras
Jan 2013 - Dec 2014
M.B.A Major in Systems Management.
Chennai, Tamil Nadu, IN
College
PET Engineering College
June 2007 - May 2011
B.Tech Specialised in Information Technology.
Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, IN
High School
Holy Angels
June 2006 - Mar 2007
Major in Computer Science.
Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, IN