Franco Carrera

I build and operate reliable infrastructure at scale — from Linux systems engineering and RHEL administration to Kubernetes orchestration, infrastructure automation with Ansible, and cloud platform engineering on AWS and OpenShift.

About

I started working in tech unconventionally, and broke in without a degree through self-study, certifications, and hands-on projects. Over the past few years I have developed a strong foundation in Linux systems administration, with a focus on RHEL. Currently I work as a Linux Sys Admin, managing enterprise infrastructure and automating operational workflows. My focus is on container orchestration, platform reliability, and reducing toil through well-structured automation.

I hold a Public Trust T4 clearance and have earned certifications across Red Hat, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, and CompTIA.

Outside of production work I run a personal homelab on K3s where I self-host AI tooling, observability stacks, and practice environments for ongoing certification study.

Orchestration & Containers

  • Kubernetes
  • OpenShift
  • K3s
  • Helm
  • Docker

Infrastructure & Automation

  • Ansible
  • Bash
  • Terraform
  • Vagrant
  • n8n

Cloud & Platforms

  • AWS
  • S3 / CloudFront
  • Azure
  • rclone

Operating Systems

  • RHEL
  • AlmaLinux
  • Ubuntu
  • Debian

Observability & Security

  • Prometheus
  • Grafana
  • SELinux
  • Vaultwarden

Projects

A selection of open-source tools, homelab infrastructure, and study environments I have built and maintain.

CKAD Killercoda Scenarios

33 interactive Kubernetes scenarios hosted on Killercoda covering all five CKAD exam domains: Application Design, Deployment, Observability, Environment Configuration, and Services & Networking. Each scenario runs against a live cluster with automated pass/fail validation.

Kubernetes CKAD Killercoda YAML Bash

Ansible Study Lab

Terminal-based RHCE practice environment with 20 structured lessons and 4 timed practice exams. Features automated grading, incremental hints, and a reproducible AlmaLinux 9 multi-node Vagrant lab. Covers playbooks, roles, variables, templating, and system automation.

Ansible RHCE Vagrant AlmaLinux 9 Bash

Jarvis AI Homelab

In Progress

Self-hosted AI assistant ecosystem running on K3s. Includes a Morning Briefing Bot (daily digest delivered via Telegram), a Second Brain knowledge base powered by PostgreSQL with pgvector and Ollama for local embeddings, and a Social Media Pipeline for automated content workflows. Deployed with Helm and managed by n8n orchestration, with rclone handling cloud backup.

K3s Helm n8n Ollama PostgreSQL pgvector Telegram rclone

CloudUploader-CLI

Bash command-line tool for uploading files to Azure Blob Storage with progress feedback, configurable destination paths, and error handling. Demonstrates idiomatic shell scripting and cloud storage integration without external dependencies.

Bash Azure Azure CLI Blob Storage

Vaultwarden

Self-hosted Bitwarden-compatible password manager deployed on personal infrastructure. Configured with reverse proxy, HTTPS, persistent storage, and automatic backups. Demonstrates self-hosting discipline and operational security practices.

Docker Self-hosted Security Nginx

Certifications

Industry certifications across Linux administration, security, and cloud-native infrastructure.

CompTIA

A+

Earned

CompTIA

Security+

Earned

Red Hat

RHCSA

Earned

Red Hat

RHCE

Earned

CNCF / Linux Foundation

CKAD

Earned

Contact

I am open to Platform Engineering, DevOps, and Site Reliability Engineering roles. Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn or explore my work on GitHub.