Curriculum Vitæ

Radosław Żak-Brodalko

Professional Experience

2020-now

Enterprise Solutions Expert, Lead Enterprise Architect

In charge of leading the enterprise architecture initiatives. Drives holistic IT transformation programs for several government and commercial organizations. Responsible for forming the transformation strategy and further supporting its execution in different fields. Possessed strong experience working with middle and senior management on strategy formulation and initiative budgeting.

Distinguished achievement: Development of the DORIAN application

• formulates the core solution principles in cooperation with the customer's analysts team (responsible for business-to-business cooperation)
• formulates the risk assessment and calculation model of the solution (including the mathematical model concept and the core assessment methodology)
• acts as the product leader during its implementation process - change reasoning and suitability advocacy
• works together with the development team within the development process

Distinguished achievement: Driving organizational change in the IT Department of Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego

• acts as a chief change architect
• drives inception of new culture in the organization
• drives changes and sets up a 'guiding coalition'
• supports organizational initiatives related to DevOps practice inception
• acts as an agile coach (during the team forming phase)
• works with middle and senior management on change strategy

Distinguished achievement: Solution architecture management in the EAI field

• drives solution architecture change
• formulates solution change principles
• supports planning and development methodology
• provides substantive support in terms of service orientation and micro-service architecture
• takes part in solution development as a software architect

2013-2020

Information Technology Solutions Architect

Works for several companies as an IT solutions architect and consultant. He conducts and participates in many IT initiatives for major Polish enterprises in financial, insurance, and other fields. Focuses on solutions for operational intelligence, enterprise applications, and engineering of modern technologies, as well as architectural and professional training in the mentioned technology fields, tailored for the specific needs of both management and engineering staff. Conducts several public and customer-oriented presentations and lectures on Big Data, operational intelligence, machine data, and machine learning technology. Author of the Splunk Enterprise course released for customer companies and individuals nationwide (more than 150 trained students).

Distinguished achievement: Comprehensive deployment of Splunk Enterprise for mBank

• customer's operational intelligence domain analysis
• architecture recommendations
• deployment recommendations
• deployment plan
• engineering support
• business domain applications consultancy
• usability analysis
• customized training for engineering and business staff
• training for more than 50 staff members (diverse student profile: technicians, business staff, analysts)

Distinguished achievement: Development of a Security Information and Event Management system based on Splunk for the Warsaw Stock Exchange

• design of the system architecture (Splunk environment and integrations)
• design and programming of the SIEM application according to the collected customer's requirements (in-house solution)
• data analysis and modeling
• functional analysis and design of analytical models and queries, including innovative techniques for workflow-based incident processing
• functional analysis, design, and implementation of embedded workflow application (Splunk SPL based + SplunkJS Javascript framework)
• customer's technical staff training and support

Distinguished achievement: Participation in the development of a Splunk based Fraud Detection System for BGK

• integration module for online ZBP (Związek Banków Polskich) account, documents denylists
• several analytical modules related to user behavior analysis and transaction monitoring
• support functional solutions related to Big Data handling (aggregation, transformation, and analysis)
• data unification (implementation of CIM-like data model)

2008-2013

Chief ICT Architect – KBC Consumer Finance (ŻAGIEL SA)

Responsible for technology research, system design, and IT architecture management at the KBC Consumer Finance Poland and Romania corporate branch levels. He works with the KBC enterprise architecture team on international and local projects. Conducts complex system design across its life cycle. Solves crucial issues related to architecture management within a modern IT organization.

Distinguished achievement: Pan-European Consumer Finance Platform

• technology and application standards management (technical reference model, gap analysis)
• design and application of technology principles
• employment of service-oriented architecture patterns
• development of canonical data model required to fulfill the employed SOA patterns
• initial design of enterprise service bus based on Red Hat JBoss SOA Platform, including service and component inventory (more than 100 distributed services and service components)
• design of B2B integration patterns related to the so-called Open Architecture platform, including integration with sales and decision systems of major Polish banking institutions
• design and implementation of security services based on OpenAM (a.k.a. OpenSSO) and LDAP directory, initial development (prototype & research) of access control mechanism implementing Role Based Access Control pattern
• successful introduction and switch of analysis and development process to a unified modeling tool: Visual Paradigm for UML Suite
• technology research and design of Management Information System based on Pentaho BI Suite

2005-2008

Senior Systems and Network Administrator (team leader) – KBC Consumer Finance (ŻAGIEL SA)

Designs and manages IT infrastructure, including servers, enterprise storage, and virtual machines. Coordinates the systems administration team, providing proper task management (micro-planning). Conducts projects related to infrastructure changes and technology research. Responsible for implementing the technology research deliverables.

Distinguished achievement: Design of Infrastructure for KBC Consumer Finance Romania

• design and sizing of server and storage infrastructure based on Sun SPARC platform and HP solutions
• design and configuration of high-availability services covering server and application layers (Linux Heartbeat, JBoss distributed cache management & JGroups, load-balancing based on CISCO content-switch)
• participation in the design of network infrastructure based on CISCO solutions
• design and configuration of storage infrastructure related to mission-critical applications (mid-range arrays: HP EVA 5000 and 8100, HP MSA series, Sun StorageTek 6000 series)
• configuration and hardening of HP (x86_64) and Sun (SPARC64) servers (mid-range servers: HP BL, HP Blade, Sun V490)
• optimization of Java Enterprise Edition execution environments (including OS layer) based on Tomcat, JBoss Application Server, and Apache Web Server (as proxy and load-balancer)
• installation and configuration of EKIP (financial management software), SAP BusinessObjects, Experian Scorex, in-house software
• installation and configuration of Oracle database, including HA deployment based on Oracle DataGuard (online log replication mechanism)

• conducts team management process based on micro-planning
• provides direct task assignment, manages problem-solving and communication between the team and other working groups (DevOps-like)
• ensures team-oriented problem-solving and knowledge sharing
• provides expertise in solution judgment and its organized implementation
• manages operational work through day-to-day procedures as well as dedicated projects and micro-projects

2001-2005

IT Infrastructure Administrator and Maintainer – CRH Akademos Lublin

Responsible for network and server configuration and their tuning. Conducts user training, provides operational procedures, and manages IT assets. Manages the design of domain name services for local and external networks and mail services based on Qmail & Sendmail. Implements an advanced setup of SAMBA services (open-source Windows domain server), including a working environment for over 800 student accounts.

Disctinct Soft and Professional Skills

• proven ability to perform analytical challenges (so-called "analytical mind")
• strong determination for self-development and improvement of knowledge
• distinct interpersonal skills related to team management and team motivation
• proven communication skills related to concept elaboration (e.g., architecture vision) and ability to translate technology vision to business language
• empathetic attitude to workmates and strong ability to mitigate conflicts within teams
• assertive attitude to problem-solving, therefore the ability to drive successful defense of own concepts while taking into account co-worker's remarks

• Operating system and network services, including:
  • DNS – domain name services based on BIND9
  • NTP – network time service advanced configuration on Linux & Solaris
  • CISCO VPN & Open VPN infrastructure management
  • SAMBA – advanced configuration of Windows domain emulation
  • Apache web server (HTTPD), NGINX – configured in various configurations: reversed proxy (also with JPA), standard web application server
  • Squid proxy server – advanced configuration with custom user authorization integration with mail servers and LDAP
  • Postfix & Dovecot mail services – configuration for more than 1500 user accounts (advanced configuration: cascade MTA, clustered Dovecot)
  • MPP Cloudmark – research, deployment, and management of advanced anti-spam based on neural network algorithms
  • Windows Domain services: ADAM, directory, printing, IIS, integration with Linux infrastructure
  • LDAP – configuration and integration
• broad knowledge of available and applicable open-source and commercial software
• system distribution (networked services, network configuration) and scalability (service load-balancing, fail-over, clustering)
• system monitoring (e.g., IBM Tivoli Monitoring + Netcool, Oracle EMGC and its integration with other tools, Zabbix, Nagios)
• configuration and advanced optimization of CPU, I/O, and network subsystems (Linux kernel hardening, including kernel code tuning)
• day-to-day administrative operation tools (e.g., OS commands, packaging, containerization (Red Hat OpenShift, Docker), system configuration automation: Puppet, Ansible, custom solutions)
• data management (e.g., ORACLE EE, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MySQL, InfluxDB – InfluxData solutions, Elasticsearch – Elastic Stack, Splunk Enterprise, Hadoop)
• security configuration (Selinux, embedded and OS-based IP firewalls)
• version control systems (Git, GitLab environment)
• security solutions (Elastic SIEM, Splunk Enterprise Security)

• The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF), including practical usage of the Architecture Development Method (ADM)
• practical knowledge of other frameworks, like e.g., Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DoDAF) management methods
• ability to drive implementation and further coordination of architecture management organization (structures, processes, committees) – practical knowledge, especially in the context of a long time being a chairman of the company's Architecture Board
• ability to conduct successful cooperation with programmers and designers (including domain architects and technical committees)
• strong experience in successful organizational diffusion of ITIL practice and architectural framework (TOGAF)
• knowledge of enterprise integration patterns, backed with long-time practice in the financial enterprise field

• ANSI C – UNIX system programming
• C++ – GNU compilers framework
• PHP (3, 4, 5) – structural and object-oriented programming of Web applications and modules (embedded functional modules for ProcessMaker), standalone applications in the Yii framework
• Python, PERL – scripting (e.g., plugins, automation)
• R Language – statistical computation
• SPL (Search Processing Language) – Splunk data analysis language
• SQL (PL/SQL, PL/pgSQL) – the ability to write advanced database procedures, queries, and design optimized technical data models
• POSIX.2 shell scripting (BASH, KSH, CSH, SH) – high level of expertise, including trainer competencies
• ETL – data warehouse, data integration, and implementation of EAI patterns with Pentaho BI Suite and Talend ETL Suite
• Apache Hadoop (Hortonworks suite) – Big Data analysis, integration, infrastructure planning
• Splunk Enterprise – Big Data analysis and operational intelligence (financial fraud detection systems, custom SIEM solutions, SOA environment monitoring)
• open source event management solutions (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana, and similar) – practical knowledge of system event management, correlation, and analysis
• Service Oriented Architecture – proven skills in pattern application and SOA government
• knowledge of structured and object-oriented analysis methods (OOAD & SSADM) and Unified Modeling Language (UML), especially in the context of different aspects of system design and analysis
• long-time experience in projects realized with PRINCE2 methodology as well as agile methodologies (Scrum, extreme programming), including Scrum of Scrums technique applied to SOA-oriented development project (5-10, depending on project stage, scrum teams working together)

Languages

Polish

Native

English

Working proficiency — proven ability to run teamwork, strong ability to clearly express technical concepts to non-technical people

Education

2001-2005

Applied Computer Science, College of Enterprise and Administration, Poland Lublin — while studying acts as the co-founder and for two years amanuensis and activist of the Computer Science Students Circle.

Relevant Topics

Network Security, Database Systems, Software Design and Development, Business Management, Economy

Completed 98% of degree requirements prior to pursuing full-time professional opportunities

1998-2000

Secondary Technical Education Courses, CRH Akademos, Poland Lublin — provides active support for creation of Linux education courses as well as examination and assessment patterns.

Professional Certificates

• Splunk Certified Architect (2013 - 2022)
• Splunk Certified Support Engineer
• Certified Splunk Sales Specialist
• Professional Scrum Master (PSM I)

Professional Education

• Academy of Efficiency Champions (Pol. Akademia Mistrzów Efektywności)
• Six Sigma Yellow Belt Specialization (Kennesaw State University)
  • Six Sigma Priciples
  • Six Sigma Tools for Define and Measure
  • Six Sigma Tools for Analyze
  • Six Sigma Tools for Improve and Control
• Leading SAFe
• Elasticsearch Engineer (I and II)
• Implementing Splunk IT Service Intelligence
• Administering Splunk Enterprise Security
• Splunk Enterprise Cluster Administration
• Architecting Splunk Enterprise Deployments
• Apache Hadoop 2.0: Data Analysis with the Hortonworks Data Platform using Pig and Hive
• Apache Hadoop 2.0: Developing Applications with the Hortonworks Data Platform using Java
• Scrum Methodology Course (associated with PSM I certification)
• Architecting and Deploying Splunk 5.0
• Advanced Splunk 5.0 Administration
• Splunk 5.0 Administration
• Searching and Reporting with Splunk 5.0
• RH300 RHCE Rapid Track Course with RHCSA and RHCE Exams (RHEL 6)
• Pentaho Data Integration
• Project & Team Management Workshops (conducted for ŻAGIEL SA management staff)
• Oracle 10g: Administration
• Training: JBoss, J2EE (conducted by Javart, tailored for ŻAGIEL SA)
• Implementing, Managing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003
• Managing a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment
• Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server Environment
• Implementing a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network Infrastructure: Network Hosts
• Installing, Administering, and Configuring Microsoft Windows XP Professional
• Deploying and Managing Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000