Welcome to the 2026 CDF Ambassadors!

A seasoned technology veteran with 30 years in software development, he brings infrastructure expertise, DevOps leadership, and a historian’s perspective to the software development field.

Technical Customer Engineer passionate about Cloud Native and GitOps technologies, with a strong focus on Continuous Delivery

Alexander Brandes is a Jenkins core maintainer and governance board member focused on UI/UX and CI/CD tooling, with extensive contributions to plugin development and infrastructure across the Jenkins ecosystem, and he is also active in attending community meetups and events.

Man of DevOps, Lead DevOps at EPAM Systems

Bachelor’s Degree in Information Systems, Postgraduate Degree in People Management and Leadership, and MBA in Artificial Intelligence. Technology leader with over 12 years of experience building and scaling cloud-native platforms, leading high-performing engineering teams, and driving DevOps transformation across national and international organizations. My expertise spans DevOps, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), Platform Engineering, Cloud Operations, Cyber Intelligence, and Cloud Architecture, with a strong focus on enabling engineering teams to deliver faster, safer, and more reliable software.

Throughout my career, I have led multidisciplinary teams responsible for mission-critical platforms, designing and implementing scalable Kubernetes environments, cloud modernization programs, GitOps-driven delivery pipelines, and reliability engineering practices that improved operational efficiency, developer productivity, and business outcomes.

My areas of expertise include:

• DevOps and Platform Engineering Leadership

• Kubernetes and Cloud-Native Technologies • Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) • Cloud Architecture and Multi-Cloud Environments

• CI/CD, GitOps, and Infrastructure as Code • Observability, Monitoring, and Incident Response

• Chaos Engineering and Reliability Practices

• Cyber Intelligence and Security Operations

• Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies

Highlights of my professional journey:

• Designed and scaled Kubernetes-based platforms supporting high-availability and mission-critical workloads.

• Led cloud transformation initiatives, modernizing infrastructure and accelerating software delivery through automation and platform engineering practices.

• Implemented observability strategies, reliability frameworks, and operational excellence programs focused on resilience, performance, and continuous improvement.

• Established engineering metrics and performance-driven cultures leveraging DORA metrics, SLOs, SLIs, and error budgets.

• Global speaker and contributor to the Open Source and Cloud Native ecosystem, presenting at major industry events including Open Source Summit, DEF CON, KubeCon + CloudNativeCon, and Kubernetes Community Days across more than 15 countries.

• Technical reviewer of the book Learning eBPF. I am passionate about building engineering cultures that combine automation, reliability, security, and innovation.

My mission is to empower teams, simplify complex systems, and transform technology into a strategic driver of business growth and operational excellence.

International speaker and a Technical Solution Architect, AI Native, at WWT, previously leading Developer Advocacy at OneStream Software, CircleCI, Solace, and Auth0.

Kubernetes obsessed GitOps enthusiast.

Kris Buytaert is a long time Devops and Open Source Expert and Engineering Leader. He’s one of instigators of the devops movement

Senior Developer Relations Engineer, Harness | Security & Open Source Enthusiast | Tech Writer | Speaker | AWS Community Builder

Passionate architect focusing on Platform engineering

Manuel is a senior DevOps evangelist, with a 25+ years international experience in both Dev and Ops solutions; DevOps Institute and CD Foundation Ambassador, Public Speaker (in events like DevOps World, DevOps Enterprise Summit, DevOpsCon.io and BrightTalk’s and TechStrong’s programs and broadcasts), “DevOps-ologist” with an extensive knowledge of both technologies and markets to solve business and technical challenges.

Michel Schildmeijer is an Enterprise Architect with the Dutch government, focusing on cloud-native platforms, CI/CD, platform engineering, and the intersection of governance and modern software delivery.

Sr. Distinguished Engineer, passionate about platform engineering and focused on simplifying CI/CD at scale through standardization, automation, and developer-centric design to empower teams to deliver high-quality software efficiently.

Cloud Architect at Codeace, Co-Organizer of CNCF, Grafana, and AWS Kochi Meetups, and Speaker at 20+ tech events and conferences —I blend Kubernetes ☸️, AI , Security , and Observability to simplify DevOps and share real-world hacks at devsecopshacks.com

Curious problem solver, explorer and in love with open source. Super passionate about Microservices, CICD, Observability, Developer productivity engineering and Distributed systems, also an alleged cynophile 🙂

Nagesh Kumar Vinnakota is an IEEE Senior Member and Senior Lead Software Engineer at Capital One with over 21 years of expertise in large-scale cloud-native architecture and continuous delivery, having designed foundational platforms such as the Shop with Rewards framework and led the complex migration of Discover’s 65 million customer loyalty records, while serving as Program Committee Member for PyTorch Conference North America, Open Source Summit Europe & Japan, and as a Grand Award Judge at Regeneron ISEF 2026.

Naveen Kumar, Founder and CEO of Truxt.ai, is a seasoned DevOps and AI innovator driving AI-powered continuous delivery and autonomous software operations.

Nikunj Doshi is a Cloud & DevOps Consultant and a Open Source Contributor and loves to learn new technologies

DevOps Institute Ambassador. CD.Foundation Ambassador. AWS Community Builder. Engineer, leader, mentor, speaker. My focus is on CALMS.  I am building better understanding of DevOps as driver for the organization.I am devoted to Serverless and CI/CD. I authored the framework for design the CI/CD: https://www.cicd.run/

Host of Last Week In IT and DevOps In Agile Way podcasts.

I am Senior Platform Engineer at AMBOSS SE (Berlin), with 10+ years of hands-on experience across Cloud Engineering, Cloud Operations, Infrastructure, DevOps, and Technical Solutions.  I am Kubernetes and AWS specialist with a deep passion for automation and orchestration. I thrive on solving tough infrastructure problems and building resilient, scalable systems. Also, an organiser of the Berlin DevOps Group meetup, I am driven by love for community and knowledge-sharing,  connecting engineers across Berlin’s DevOps scene to learn, collaborate, and grow together.

Multi Cloud Solution Architect with 19+ years of experience and expertise in Full Stack Development, DevOps, Microservices, App Modernization. TCS Platinum Certified Mentor | Letterkenny AWS User Group Leader & AWS Community Builder | Letterkenny HUG Leader| DevOps Institute Ambassador

Enterprise Architect helping clients accelerate their Digital transformation journey with expertise in DevOps, SRE and Cloud adoptions.

I’m a Solution Architect at Schaeffler and a Senior Expert for User-centric DevOps, where I focus on bridging technical modernization and community growth, particularly through my work as a Jenkins Event Officer.

Sudarshan Tirumani Narayanan is a Platform Engineering Architect specializing in GitOps, Kubernetes, AI-assisted platform operations, and cloud-native architectures, and is an active speaker, author, and open-source advocate focused on advancing modern platform engineering practices.

Solutions Architect, Tech Speaker, Open Source Advocate & doting father 🙂

Former tech recruiter turned Cloud & DevOps Consultant, passionate about cloud-native technologies, community building, and helping others grow in tech.

DevOps Engineer passionate about cloud-native technologies, continuous delivery, and community building, serving as an organizer, speaker, and advocate for open source and automation best practices.

Vutukuri is a senior AI, security, and kernel engineer, open source contributor, and CDF Ambassador. A frequent speaker at international tech conferences and a dedicated mentor, he also serves as an Org Admin and Project Mentor for Google Summer of Code for Jenkins. As a TOC Representative, Vutukuri is committed to advancing secure, scalable, and community-driven continuous delivery practices globally.