Kevin Popken
Head of Cloud and Infrastructure @Rapid Data
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WORK HISTORY
Head of Cloud and Infrastructure @Rapid Data
Berlin, DE
Head of Cloud and Infrastructure at Rapid Data GmbH (3-person team). Overseeing infrastructure across 5 cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, DigitalOcean, UpCloud, Serit) with a strategic consolidation roadmap to Azure as the primary platform. Responsible for cloud infrastructure, platform engineering, security, and DevOps operations supporting 8+ product teams across a multi-product SaaS organisation. Accomplishments: • Migrated 2 production platforms to AKS, delivering €240K/yr in realized cost savings • Built cost optimization roadmap targeting €436K/yr across 19 initiatives spanning 5 cloud providers • Redesigned Azure IAM/RBAC across the entire Azure tenant (25+ subscriptions) • Implemented full network security stack from scratch: Azure Firewall, WAF, VPN, and network segmentation • Deployed and operationalized AKS as the company\'s container platform • Decommissioned 8+ Azure subscriptions, reducing overhead and cost • Led security audit identifying hardcoded production secrets; defined full remediation plan including Azure Key Vault migration and git history purging • Consolidated 235 domains across 5 registrars into a single-provider strategy • Support 8+ product teams (Nova, Bitnet, Timecut, PowerOrdo, Baldris, Taps, Minnestryck/Print, MemPage) across all infrastructure needs • Built IT Project Portfolio & Cost Savings Roadmap combining Jira tracking with quantified savings data for leadership visibility
EDUCATION
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Bachelor of Applied Science (B.A.Sc.), Management Information Systems, General
ABOUT KEVIN POPKEN
Platform engineering leader with 15+ years delivering automated, reliable cloud systems at scale. I specialise in Kubernetes, Azure, DevSecOps, and infrastructure-as-code — with a consistent track record of measurable cost savings, zero-trust security implementations, and enabling product teams to ship faster. Most recently Head of Cloud & Infrastructure at Rapid Data GmbH, where I oversee infrastructure across 5 cloud platforms and have driven €240K/yr in realized AKS migration savings, with a cost roadmap targeting €436K/yr. Previously embedded at Wheels, Inc.(multi-billion dollar fleet management) via Trility Consulting, where I led a 5-person team building an enterprise Azure platform from the ground up — lines of infrastructure-as-code, custom Kubernetes operators, zero-trust networking, and full Workload Identity Federation. Core stack: Azure · Kubernetes · Terraform/Terragrunt · AWS · Docker · Helm · C#/.NET · DevSecOps · Azure DevOps · Datadog
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