gergelypolonkai-web-jekyll/resume.html

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layout: default
title: Resume
---
<h3>Resume <a id="keywords-button" data-toggle="popover" data-placement="bottom" role="button" tabindex="0" data-trigger="focus">[ want some keywords only? click this! ]</a></h3>

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Person">
    <p>
        I am <span class="b" itemprop="name">Gergely Polonkai</span>
        (sometimes referred to
        as <span itemprop="nickname">W00d5t0ck</span>
        or <span itemprop="nickname">Polesz</span>), a <span class="b"
        itemprop="jobTitle">software developer, systems engineer and
        administrator</span>. I was born on <span class="b"
        itemprop="birthDate">7 March, 1983</span> in Budapest,
        Hungary. I spent my life moving here-and-there in the country,
        and finally settled in <span class="b" itemprop="address"
        itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Address">
        <span itemprop="locality">Veresegyház</span></span>.
    </p>

    <p>
        You can reach me on
        <span class="b" itemprop="email">gergely@polonkai.eu</span>,
        or by phone on <span class="b" itemprop="telephone">+36 (30)
        7375-706</span>. I fluently speak and
        write <span class="b">English</span>
	and <span class="b">Hungarian</span> and currently learning Icelandic.
    </p>

    <p>
        I have <span class="b">graduated in 2001</span>
        from <span class="i">Táncsics Mihály Szakközépiskola,
        Szakiskola és Kollégium</span>, an architecture high school
        based in Veszprém, Hungary. There, I learned
        about <span class="b">electricity and elevators</span>, while
        getting my feet wet in the area of IT systems
        engineering. Together with some teachers, we
        developed <span class="b keyword" title="network building">the
        IT infrastructure of the school, building it from
        scratch</span> with <span class="b keyword">Windows XP</span>
        based clients, and <span class="b keyword">Debian
        GNU/Linux</span> servers with <span class="b keyword">Squid
        proxy</span>, an <span class="b keyword">Apache httpd</span>
        web server, <span class="b keyword">Exim</span>+<span class="b
        keyword">Courier IMAP</span> based internal mailing and
        a <span class="b keyword">Samba file server</span>. Meanwhile,
        I have created the school’s first <span class="b keyword"
        title="web development">web page</span> using <span class="b
        keyword">Perl CGI</span>, and later it’s replacement
        in <span class="b keyword">PHP</span>.  Although I did that as
        a student, I consider it my first job.
    </p>

    <p>
        My first contract was made in <span class="b">2002</span> with
        a small Budapest based ISP that served Internet connection to
        a large warren. I have mastered Linux based <span class="b
        keyword" title="firewalls">firewalling and routing</span>
        there using <span class="b keyword noupper">iptables</span>,
        and <span class="b keyword" title="QoS">tc for QoS</span>. I
        have also created a <span class="b">web page</span> for the
        company using <span class="b keyword">PHP</span>
        and <span class="b keyword" title="MySQL database
        development">MySQL</span>.
    </p>

    <p>
        After that I contracted with a small <span class="b">web
        development company</span> in <span class="b">2004</span>.
        Here I was in the role of both a <span class="b keyword"
        title="web development">web developer</span> and
        a <span class="b keyword" title="Systems
        administration">systems administrator</span>. I have
        mastered <span class="b keyword">PHP</span> there, together
        with <span class="b keyword">MySQL administration</span>. I
        also built a small <span class="b keyword"
        title="routers">router</span>/<span class="b keyword"
        title="firewalls">firewall</span> out of a PC for office
        needs.
    </p>

    <p>
        My next job came in <span class="b">2006</span>, when I
        contracted with a small <span class="b">VoIP company</span>
        developing a call center software based on <span class="b
        keyword">Asterisk</span>. My job here was to create a base
        system for this software as small as possible, while managing
        the old, Ubuntu based ones. For the new version we
        targeted <span class="b keyword">Gentoo Linux</span> because
        of its possible small size, and performance reasons.
    </p>

    <p>
        The job that followed was with a world-wide IT services
        company in <span class="b">2007</span>, where I became a
        member of a large team supporting and administering several
        thousand servers, mostly based on <span class="b keyword">Red
        Hat Enterprise Linux</span> and <span class="b keyword">SUSE
        Linux Enterprise Server</span>. There I mastered cluster
        technologies (both <span class="b keyword">Heartbeat 2</span>
        and <span class="b keyword">Red Hat
        Cluster</span>), <span class="b
        keyword">SAN</span>, <span class="b keyword
        noupper">iSCSI</span> and <span class="b keyword">NFS</span>
        based storages, <span class="b keyword">Apache httpd</span>
        and <span class="b keyword">Tomcat</span> web servers,
        administration of <span class="b keyword" title="MySQL
        administration">MySQL</span> and <span class="b keyword"
        title="Oracle 10g Database Administration">Oracle 10g
        Database</span>s, <span class="b keyword">Bacula</span> based
        backup, <span class="b keyword">Windows 2003 Server</span>
        and <span class="b keyword">Windows Server 2008</span> (both
        standalone and cluster) with <span class="b keyword">Active
        Directory</span>, <span class="b keyword">Group
        Policy</span>, <span class="b keyword">Microsoft Exchange
        Server 2005</span> and <span class="b keyword">Microsoft SQL
        Server 2005</span>, <span class="b keyword">Xen Open
        Source</span> virtualization, <span class="b keyword">Citrix
        XenServer</span> and <span class="b keyword" title="Citrix
        XenApp">XenApp</span>, <span class="b keyword">VMware
        ESXi</span> and <span class="b keyword" title="VMware
        vSphere">vSphere</span>, <span class="b keyword">Nagios</span>
        monitoring (and <span class="b keyword">monitoring</span> in
        general), and last, but not least, <span class="b
        keyword">Linux hardening</span> (<span class="b
        keyword">SELinux</span>, firewalls of different kinds,
        fighting <span class="b keyword">application security</span>
        issues).
    </p>

    <p>
        All this knowledge came in very handy, when I went to a
        leading Hungarian financial company
        in <span class="b">2010</span>. The IT infrastructure was in a
        very bad shape there, and my job was to rebuild the Linux
        parts from scratch. We utilized <span class="b keyword">Debian
        GNU/Linux</span> servers (both standalone and <span class="b
        keyword">Heartbeat 2</span> clusters), <span class="b
        keyword">Apache httpd</span> web servers, <span class="b
        keyword">Exim</span>+<span class="b keyword">Courier
        IMAP</span> for mailing, <span class="b keyword">Bacula</span>
        based backup, <span class="b keyword" title="MySQL
        administration">MySQL</span> and <span class="b keyword"
        title="PostgreSQL administration">PostgreSQL</span> database
        servers, <span class="b">Oracle Database</span>s
        (both <span class="keyword" title="Oracle 10g Database
        Administration">10g</span> and <span class="keyword"
        title="Oracle 11g Database
        Administration">11g</span>), <span class="b">Microsoft SQL
        Server</span>s (both <span class="keyword" title="Microsoft
        SQL Server 2005">2005</span> and <span class="keyword"
        title="Microsoft SQL Server 2008">2008</span>), <span class="b
        keyword">Windows 2003 Server</span> and <span class="b
        keyword">Windows Server 2008</span> (both standalone and
        clusters), <span class="b keyword">Active
        Directory</span>, <span class="b keyword">Group Policy</span>,
        centralised <span class="b keyword">ESET NOD32
        anti-virus</span>, <span class="b keyword">Windows
        cluster</span> based <span class="b keyword" title="Microsoft
        File Server">file server with AD
        backend</span>, <span class="b
        keyword">WSUS</span>, <span class="b
        keyword">OTRS::ITSM</span> helpdesk, <span class="b
        keyword">Zabbix</span> based monitoring, virtualization
        with <span class="b keyword">Citrix XenServer</span>, IT
        security solutions with <span class="b
        keyword">SonicWall</span> appliances, <span class="b
        keyword">SELinux</span>, <span class="b keyword">Snort</span>
        and <span class="b keyword
        noupper">iptables</span>, <span class="b keyword">Perl</span>
        for system administration scripts, and <span class="b
        keyword">PHP</span> and the <span class="b keyword">Symfony
        2</span> framework for internal web development. Although much
        has changed in this list since then, it was my best and most
        challenging experience so far.
    </p>

    <p>
        I left that company in <span class="b">2013</span> to work as
        a <span class="b">freelancer developer</span> and
        a <span class="b">systems engineer</span> for
        a <span class="b">startup network monitoring
        company</span>. Here we were building a help desk system using
        open source products like <span class="b
        keyword">OTRS::ITSM</span>, <span class="b
        keyword">OpenLDAP</span>, and <span class="b
        keyword">Zabbix</span>. I also dug my nose into <span class="b
        keyword">Docsis</span> based ISP networks and <span class="b
        keyword">SIP</span>-based telephony.
    </p>

    <p>
        Unfortunately our main employer went bankrupt
        in <span class="b">2014</span>, so after a few months of
        freelancing I got a new job at the R&amp;D division of a
        leading telecommunications company. My current role is pretty
        close to DevOps. Nowadays I’m developing a <span class="b
        keyword">Django</span>-based internal web application, while
        maintaining internal scripts written in both <span class="b
        keyword">Perl</span>, <span class="b
        keyword">Python</span>, <span class="b keyword">bash</span>
        and
        <span class="b keyword">tcsh</span> or trying to migrate the
        internal source code repositories from <span class="b
        keyword">ClearCase</span> to <span class="b
        keyword">Git</span>.
    </p>

    <p>
        I left that company in 2016, as such a slow moving giant couldn’t
        really keep up with my pace.  I signed with another startup creating
        games capable of analysing work behaviour.  Here we mainly use
        <span class="b keyword">Flask</span>,
        <span class="b keyword">Cassandra</span>, and
        <span class="b keyword">Tensorflow</span>.  Unlike the previous one,
        this is a true learning organization, and given its size, it is
        capable of taking quick turns if market changes (and that’s exactly
        what I need).
    </p>

    <p>
        In my <span class="b">free time</span>, I wander in forests,
        take pictures, and sometimes manipulate them with
        the <span class="b keyword">GIMP</span>. Sometimes
        I <span class="b">write</span> short fantasy or sci-fi novels
        using <span class="b keyword">LibreOffice</span>. I am also
        developing some software in <span class="b keyword">C</span>,
        <span class="b keyword">Python</span>, and
        <span class="b keyword">Vala</span>, whose source code is managed
        with <span class="b keyword">Git</span>. When I’m not in the mood
        for writing, I go and check out the news on several technical areas,
        mostly IT and engineering, or give a try to a new programming
        language in the name of “why not?”.
    </p>
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