Based near Bonn, Germany

I build resilient
cloud systems.

Cloud engineer and long-time systems administrator with two decades of experience turning complex infrastructure into reliable, automated platforms.

Explore my work ↓Download CV

25+years in IT

22years on-call

200+domains managed

profile.sh

$ whoami
bernd — cloud engineer
$ focus
aws · automation · resilience
$ status
● ready to build

AWS ◆ LINUX ◆ TERRAFORM ◆ CONTAINERS ◆ OBSERVABILITY ◆ AUTOMATION ◆ GITHUB ◆ CI/CD ◆ DNS ◆ CERTIFICATION ◆ SCRUM MASTER ◆ IT ESCALATION MANAGER ◆ INTERNATIONAL PROJECT EXPERIENCE ◆ INFRASTRUCTURE AS CODE ◆ AI-ACADEMY MEMBER ◆ AI AUTOMATION WITH CLAUDE AND OPENCODE ◆ AWS ◆ LINUX ◆ TERRAFORM ◆ CONTAINERS ◆ OBSERVABILITY ◆ AUTOMATION ◆ GITHUB ◆ CI/CD ◆ DNS ◆ CERTIFICATION ◆ SCRUM MASTER ◆ IT ESCALATION MANAGER ◆ INTERNATIONAL PROJECT EXPERIENCE ◆ INFRASTRUCTURE AS CODE ◆ AI-ACADEMY MEMBER ◆ AI AUTOMATION WITH CLAUDE AND OPENCODE ◆

00 / ABOUT

From weather maps
to cloud maps.

I studied the atmosphere before I studied distributed systems. Both are dynamic, both punish false certainty, and both become especially interesting when a storm arrives.

Bernd Kuhlen with his dogs at the beach — Offline mode: fresh air, four paws, zero alerts.

01 · THE FORECAST

Science first

Meteorology taught me to observe complex systems, work with uncertainty, and respect what the data is actually saying. That mindset followed me from the University of Bonn straight into technology.

02 · THE STORM

When weather meets the internet

At WetterOnline, a dramatic forecast could become a dramatic traffic spike. Twenty-two years of on-call work turned resilience from an abstract idea into a daily discipline.

03 · THE CONTROL ROOM

Making systems observable

My monitoring journey began with Nagios and grew through Zabbix, Checkmk, Grafana, Prometheus, and CloudWatch. A system you cannot see is a system waiting to surprise you.

04 · SIDE QUESTS

Learning by building

Home labs, Kubernetes the Hard Way, Vagrant machines, Python experiments, browser games, and infrastructure as code: curiosity is still my favourite development environment.

05 · MEASURED PROGRESS

Systems thinking, applied personally

Kraftwerk, my training tracker, brings the same feedback-loop thinking to strength training: record the work, study the trend, make the next session a little better.

06 · OFFLINE MODE

Beyond the terminal

I live near Bonn, enjoy time with my dogs, and value the reset that happens away from dashboards. Reliable systems matter partly because they give people their time back.

“Build it so the quiet days stay quiet—and the stormy days remain manageable.”

01 / EXPERTISE

From bare metal
to the cloud.

I connect infrastructure, operations, and product thinking — always keeping reliability, maintainability, and cost in view.

☁

AWS Architecture

Designing secure, scalable environments with EC2, ECS, EKS, Lambda, CloudFormation, IAM, Route 53, CloudFront, and managed data services.

Infrastructure as code
Event-driven systems
Cost-aware design

⌘

Systems Engineering

Linux, networking, DNS, Apache, TLS, VMware, storage, and the operational discipline learned from production systems.

◉

Observability

Monitoring and dashboards with Checkmk, Nagios, Zabbix, Grafana, Prometheus, ELK, and CloudWatch.

⟳

Automation

Ansible, Puppet, Python, GitLab CI/CD, AWS Lambda, EventBridge, and repeatable deployment workflows.

◇

Technical Leadership

Team leadership, project delivery, architecture guidance, knowledge sharing, and communication in German and English.

02 / SELECTED IMPACT

Systems that hold up
when it matters.

PERFORMANCE · RESILIENCE

Introduced Akamai CDN

Connected WetterOnline with Akamai and ran the caching layer for years, offloading up to 90% of requests while improving resilience during severe-weather traffic peaks.

90%origin traffic offloaded

PLATFORM MODERNIZATION

Bare metal to virtualization

Led the move from racks of physical servers to VMware, creating flexibility, reducing idle capacity, and preparing the organization for its later cloud journey.

↓cost and hardware footprint

OBSERVABILITY

Built the monitoring practice

Introduced Nagios through an informatics thesis, later complementing it with Zabbix, Checkmk, Grafana, and cloud-native monitoring.

24/7operational visibility

PERSONAL BUILDS

AWS · INFRASTRUCTURE AS CODE · OBSERVABILITY

Cloud-native portfolio platform

Rebuilt a legacy WordPress portfolio as a fast static experience on private S3 and CloudFront, with origin access control, automated deployment, security headers, Route 53, access logging, and CloudWatch dashboards.

2AWS regions coordinated

FULL-STACK · DATA VISUALIZATION

Kraftwerk training analytics

Designed and built a responsive workout tracker with persistent records, validated APIs, adaptive training plans, CSV imports, progress charts, and mobile-first logging workflows.

59sessions tracked

CREATIVE CODING · REACT · CANVAS

Browser Arcade

Built two playable browser games with TypeScript, React, HTML Canvas, real-time collision systems, procedural waves, synthesized audio, scoring, and responsive touch controls.

2playable arcade games

03 / EDUCATION

Science meets
systems thinking.

Two disciplines shaped the way I approach complex problems: understanding dynamic systems and building dependable technical ones.

1994—2000BONN, GERMANY

MET

UNIVERSITY DEGREE

Meteorology

University of Bonn

Final grade1.0

2003—2007TRIER, GERMANY

INF

UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES

Informatics

University of Applied Sciences Trier · studied alongside full-time work

Final grade1.1

BEYOND THE TERMINAL

Kraftwerk.
Progress, measured.

My strength-training log: 59 sessions, 16 exercises and a consistent focus on measurable improvement.

59sessions

16exercises

24 kgtop dumbbell

View training records ↗

04 / FUN

Serious systems.
Playful side quests.

Two browser games built for the joy of making things move, react, and occasionally explode. Choose your mission.

FUN / GAME 01

Snake.
Take a byte.

A small arcade detour from the terminal. Clear the dots, avoid your tail, and see how long you can keep the system alive.

BK ARCADE · SYSTEM 01

SNAKE

Built by Bernd Kuhlen and ChatGPT

PLAYER 10000000

HIGH SCORE0012480

LIVES● ● ●

READY PLAYER ONE

WAVE 01

ARROWS / WASD TO STEER

Built from my Coursera Nibbler project · Reimagined for this portfolio

FUN / GAME 02

Galaga.
Defend the sector.

A second arcade break: split the formation, dodge the dives, and survive a neon swarm that gets less polite with every wave.

SCORE000000

HIGH SCORE012500

WAVE01

✦

INCOMING SIGNAL

DEFEND THE SECTOR

Break the formation. Dodge the dives. Survive every wave.

Built from my Coursera Galaga project

05 / JOURNEY

Built on curiosity.

From meteorology and C++ to infrastructure leadership and cloud engineering.

1994—2000

Meteorology, University of Bonn

Graduated with a 1.0 degree and joined WetterOnline while completing the thesis.

2000—2004

C++ Developer

Started a professional IT career building weather software.

2003—2007

Informatics, University of Applied Sciences Trier

Studied alongside work, graduating with a 1.1 degree.

2004—2018

Systems Administration Lead

Led the administration team and shared responsibility for 24/7 operations.

2018—2022

Cloud Solutions Engineering

Focused on AWS architectures, automation, containers, and helping teams navigate the cloud.

2022—CURRENT

Cloud Engineer at Covestro

Joined Covestro as a Cloud Engineer and expanded into the roles of Scrum Master and IT Escalation Manager, while becoming an AI Academy member to help run AI projects at scale.

CertifiedAWS Solutions Architect

CertifiedAWS SysOps Administrator

View learning archive →

06 / PHOTOS

Beyond the terminal.

A visual journal for places, projects, people, and moments worth remembering.

Loading photo journal…

07 / FIELD NOTES

Lessons from the terminal.

Technical notes preserved from the original site. Select an article to read it here.

Loading archive…

08 / CERTIFICATIONS

Certified expertise.
Continuous learning.

Professional cloud credentials and recent AI learning, backed by verifiable records and a preserved training archive.

Open current CV ↗AWS certificate ↗

PROFESSIONAL

Industry certifications

Credentials earned through AWS and Scrum.org, with active and historical validity shown transparently.

ACTIVE · APR 2027

AWS Certified Advanced Networking – Specialty

Amazon Web Services · Certificate document coming soon

PERMANENT

Recent AI & cloud learning

Verified coursework completed from September 2025 through September 2026.

SCRIMBA · SEP 2026

Historical learning archive

Original certificates and course records preserved from the former portfolio.

LET’S CONNECT

Good systems start
with a good conversation.

LinkedIn ↗Facebook ↗X / Twitter ↗Xing ↗

I build resilientcloud systems.

From weather mapsto cloud maps.

Science first

When weather meets the internet

Making systems observable

Learning by building

Systems thinking, applied personally

Beyond the terminal

From bare metalto the cloud.

AWS Architecture

Systems Engineering

Observability

Automation

Technical Leadership

Systems that hold upwhen it matters.

Introduced Akamai CDN

Bare metal to virtualization

Built the monitoring practice

Cloud-native portfolio platform

Kraftwerk training analytics

Browser Arcade

Science meetssystems thinking.

Meteorology

Informatics

Kraftwerk.Progress, measured.

Serious systems.Playful side quests.

Snake.Take a byte.

WAVE 01

Galaga.Defend the sector.

GALAGA

DEFEND THE SECTOR

Built on curiosity.

Meteorology, University of Bonn

C++ Developer

Informatics, University of Applied Sciences Trier

Systems Administration Lead

Cloud Solutions Engineering

Cloud Engineer at Covestro

Beyond the terminal.

Lessons from the terminal.

Certified expertise.Continuous learning.

Industry certifications

AWS Certified Advanced Networking – Specialty

Professional Scrum Master™ I

AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional

AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional

AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate

AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate

Recent AI & cloud learning

Introduction to OpenAI Codex

ChatGPT Work

AWS Tools and Services for AI

Building RAG and MCP Servers with Claude

Smart Data Cleaning with Generative AI

MCP – Model Context Protocol

AI Agent Orchestration and Scaling

Vibe Coding with Claude Code

Claude Code in Action

GenAI and LLMs on AWS

Claude Code: Software Engineering with Generative AI Agents

Advanced Prompt Engineering for Everyone

Amazon Bedrock Customization, Optimization & Automation

Getting Started with AWS Generative AI for Developers

Interactive Dashboards with Streamlit and Python

Amazon S3 Deep Dive

Linear Algebra: Linear Systems and Matrix Equations

AWS Cloud Technical Essentials

Intro to DALL-E and GPT Vision

Generative AI with Large Language Models