Iljo De Poorter

DevOps Engineer | Infrastructure as Code & Automation

iljodp@gmail.com • linkedin.com/in/iljo-de-poorter • iljo.xyz • Erpe-Mere, Belgium

Professional Profile

Driven DevOps Teamlead with a strong focus on Infrastructure as Code and automation, backed by extensive certifications in cloud technologies, Kubernetes, GitOps, and DevOps methodologies. Currently leading infrastructure at VIC HoGent, managing Proxmox clusters, Kubernetes deployments, and OpenTofu/Ansible automation.

  • • Proficiency in Terraform / OpenTofu, Kubernetes and Ansible for IaC
  • • Building robust CI/CD pipelines (GitLab CI, Jenkins, n8n)
  • • Hands-on Linux administration (Debian/RHEL), Kubernetes orchestration, and implementing monitoring/logging stacks

Core Competencies

IaC & Cloud

Terraform, Ansible, Kubernetes, AWS (EC2/S3), Proxmox VE

Automation & CI/CD

GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins, n8n, Bash

OS & Containers

Linux (Debian & RHEL), Docker, Kubernetes (k8s)

Monitoring

Prometheus, Grafana, Loki

Experience

Teamlead VIC Sep 2025 -- Present

Virtual IT Company (VIC) HoGent, Ghent Belgium • vichogent.be

  • • Teamlead & Main Infrastructure engineer for entire cluster (Proxmox, Kubernetes, Terraform/OpenTofu)
  • • Overseeing infrastructure architecture, mentoring team members, and driving DevOps best practices
  • • Leading development of custom Kubernetes deployment modules for student projects
  • • Writing a paper about Kubernetes at large scale for educational purposes

ICT-teamlid VIC Oct 2024 -- Jul 2025

Virtual IT Company (VIC) HoGent, Ghent, Belgium

  • • Led migration from Terraform to OpenTofu for internal hosting platform, refactoring modules for improved maintainability and managing state migration
  • • Developed and maintained infrastructure components using Ansible, OpenTofu, and GitOps workflows via GitLab CI
  • • Network administration and general development of OpenTofu infrastructure + Ansible scripting

Projects

Infrastructure Contract -- Stealth Health Tech Startup 2025

Freelance infrastructure architecture for a Series A health tech startup (NDA, name withheld)

  • • Designed and deployed highly available Kubernetes infrastructure on Hetzner Cloud using OpenTofu, ensuring 99.9%+ uptime for patient-facing services
  • • Implemented HIPAA-compliant GitOps workflow with ArgoCD, cert-manager for automated SSL/TLS, and Traefik ingress with mTLS between services
  • • Built zero-trust networking with Tailscale mesh VPN, WireGuard overlays, and strict network policies for PHI (Protected Health Information) isolation
  • • Architected observability stack (Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, Tempo) with PII/PHI redaction pipelines and 30-day retention for audit compliance
  • • Delivered production-grade IaC codebase, runbooks, and disaster recovery procedures enabling engineering team to scale from 0 to 10,000 daily active patients

Homelab: Advanced Automation Platform

Ongoing personal project demonstrating practical DevOps skills

  • • Stack: Proxmox VE cluster provisioned via OpenTofu, running 15+ VMs/LXCs including Kubernetes cluster with HAProxy ingress. Managed declaratively via OpenTofu & Ansible. Secured via Tailscale mesh
  • • Automation: GitOps deployment via ArgoCD. n8n workflows for self-healing (Prometheus alerts → automatic pod restarts)
  • • Monitoring: Prometheus/Grafana/Loki stack with Matrix/Telegram alerts

Education, Certifications & Leadership

BSc Informatics

System & Network Management, HoGent (Expected 2026)

• Completed: CS50 Introduction to Computer Science (Harvard, 2023)

Certifications

IBM: Docker Essentials, Introduction to Containers/Kubernetes/OpenShift

Linux Foundation: OpenTelemetry, OpenTofu, Kubeflow, Cilium, Cloud Infrastructure Technologies, DevOps/SRE, GitOps, Jenkins, Kubernetes, Nephio, Serverless on Kubernetes

Cloud: AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials, AWS Technical Essentials

Networking/Security: Cisco Networking Basics, Cisco Ethical Hacker, Junior Cybersecurity Analyst, Linux Essentials

Other: Animator in het jeugdwerk

• Pursuing: Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) (Target 2025-2026)

Leadership

Head Leader, Jokri Youth Movement (Managed team of 9+ volunteers)

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