About me

Why you'd want me to work for you

Hi! My name is Abel Hristodor (aka iamnorte on the web). I have the following qualities:

  • I rock a great mustache
  • I’m an introvert, but I speak fluently in code.

Note: one of the above is a lie. Can you guess which one?

What else do you need?

Disclaimer: Don’t take what you’ll read too seriously. It has been written jokingly… kind of

My story

Why me? To be honest, I’m having some trouble remembering right now, so why don’t you just watch me in action instead?

Between being an introvert who considers a quiet weekend the ultimate victory (I mean, who needs loud crowds when you have peace and quiet?) and mastering all things tech, I’m a Cloud DevOps Engineer who loves automating everything, from pipelines to snacks (more on that later).

I started my journey in Verona, Italy , and somewhere along the way, I got hooked on making infrastructure efficient and secure.

When I’m not optimizing costs or fine-tuning service meshes, I’m probably pushing my home lab to its limits or dominating beach volleyball.

Curious yet? Me neither, but stick around for the plot.

Fun fact: I use Nvim, so I can code faster than you can say “vim is hard.” <– skill issue here

Skills

  • Cloud Mastery: Google Cloud (GKE, GCE, ALB), AWS (EKS, Lambda, EC2), Docker, Kubernetes, Istio – you name it, I’ve probably deployed it.
  • CI/CD Wizardry: Git, GitHub Actions, CircleCI – my pipelines are smoother than an Italian espresso.
  • DevOps Enthusiast: Terraform, ArgoCD, Helm, Service Meshes – automating and securing infrastructure is kind of my thing.
  • Databases & Tools: PostgreSQL, MongoDB, MySQL, Redis, RabbitMQ – I make data persist, forever.

Languages

I talk a lot — less with people, more with machines!

  • Human Languages: Italian, Romanian, English – I talk many languages, what did you expect?
  • Non-Human Languages: Python, JavaScript, Golang, Rust, Bash - and some others my laptop will remind me of when I forget!

Relevant Experience

Cloud DevOps Engineer @ Equixly

AI powered Cybersecurity Mar 2024 – Present | Verona, Italy

  • Automated deployment processes with ArgoCD and Helm (bye-bye manual work).
  • Implemented and managed a service mesh using Istio to secure microservices (mTLS, anyone?).
  • Reduced infrastructure costs by ~40%, proving that security and savings can be best friends.
  • Deployed custom software to interact with the Kubernetes API to manage on-demand pods.
  • Authored documentation so clear that even your grandma could follow it.

Junior Backend Engineer/DevOps @ Al.Ta Cucina

Italian recipes social media app Sep 2022 – Mar 2024 | Remote

  • Migrated the entire infrastructure from AWS to GCP, optimizing costs and performance.
  • Implemented node autoscalers to boost efficiency in GCP’s Kubernetes cluster.
  • Built and optimized CI/CD pipelines with self-hosted runners and cache management (speeding things up like a boss).
  • Integrated GPT-powered AI into the app with real-time WebSocket communication.
  • Refactored backend code to modernize and streamline workflows, adding linters, formatters, and pre-commit hooks for maximum developer happiness.

Backend Web Developer Intern @ Al.Ta Cucina

Italian recipes social media app Apr 2022 – Sep 2022 | Remote

  • Developed new features and optimized the backend with Django Rest Framework.
  • Migrated the infrastructure to AWS with IaC and GitOps methodologies (yes, I really like infrastructure).
  • Built a video-on-demand solution using AWS to cut Vimeo costs and boost performance.

Oh wow – you made it to the end! You must really like me. As i promised earlier, here’s a snack for you:


Crepe Recipe

Ingredients

  • 125g flour
  • 2 eggs
  • 120ml milk
  • 120ml water
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 30g melted butter
  • (Optional) 1 tsp vanilla for sweet crepes

Instructions

  1. Whisk flour and eggs.
  2. Gradually add milk, water, salt, butter, and vanilla (if using).
  3. Heat a lightly oiled pan over medium-high heat.
  4. Pour 60ml batter, tilting pan to spread evenly.
  5. Cook 1-2 minutes, flip, and cook another 1-2 minutes.
  6. Repeat until all batter is used.

Hope you didn’t expect me to give you the snack without the need to work for it! At the end of the day we’re programmers, sometimes the recipe to something is more important than the result itself.

P.S. Yes i like cooking. Yes i love crepes.