Senior Platform Engineer
Ethan Kane
Building and operating Kubernetes platforms at scale — 150+ EKS clusters across AWS regions, local zones, and Outposts.
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About
Background
Came into tech through an unconventional route — Earth Science degree, civil engineering on water infrastructure, then a postgrad in software development. That shapes how I think: I care about what actually breaks in production, not what looks elegant in a design doc.
Location
Edinburgh, Scotland
Originally from Galway, Ireland
Current Role
Senior Platform Engineer
FanDuel
Focus
Kubernetes fleet management, GitOps, cluster automation, and keeping things reliable at scale.
Projects
FanDuel
EKS Fleet Architecture
Architected the EKS estate to run across AWS regions, local zones, and Outposts. 2nd highest contributor to the custom Terraform module that provisions every cluster in the fleet.
FanDuel
ArgoCD Platform Bootstrap
Project lead on the ArgoCD implementation. Designed the App of Apps pattern so every new EKS cluster auto-provisions Karpenter node pools, target group bindings, ingress, Kyverno policies, and the full observability stack on day one.
FanDuel
Karpenter Fleet Migration
Migrated the entire EKS fleet from Cluster Autoscaler to Karpenter — configuring node provisioners per workload class. Outposts clusters excluded due to hardware constraints.
FanDuel
Helmfile to Argo Migration
Migrated all platform services from Helmfile-based deployments to ArgoCD-managed Applications, establishing GitOps as the single deployment path across the estate.
Infostretch / Saggezza
Green Field K8s Platform
Built a complete Kubernetes-native platform from scratch with one other engineer. Ground-up infrastructure: CI/CD pipelines, networking, service mesh, and progressive delivery — the full stack from zero.
Experience
Senior Platform Engineer
CurrentFanDuel
- ▸ Platform Engineering and Compute Operations teams — provisioning and managing a fleet of 150+ EKS clusters across AWS regions and Outposts
- ▸ Designed and implemented the ArgoCD App of Apps pattern to bootstrap all core cluster utilities: ingress controllers, cert-manager, external-dns, cluster autoscaling, and the Datadog Operator — each cluster gets a complete set of Datadog monitors and dashboards on day one via operator CRs managed in a centralised utilities repo
- ▸ Deployed and tuned Karpenter across the fleet, replacing Cluster Autoscaler with node provisioner configs tailored per workload class
- ▸ Built Bottlerocket bootstrap container pipelines for custom node initialisation, enabling secure and reproducible cluster join flows
- ▸ Wrote Golang tooling for internal platform automation — cluster provisioning workflows, fleet reconciliation, and operational utilities
- ▸ Maintained and extended CI/CD pipelines for platform components, driving consistent delivery across all environments
DevOps Engineer
Infostretch / Saggezza
- ▸ Placed on a US client engagement as the sole DevOps engineer within a small cross-functional team
- ▸ Built all CI/CD pipelines from scratch, provisioning AWS infrastructure and Kubernetes workloads via IaC
- ▸ Implemented and owned the full AWS environment — EKS, networking, IAM, and supporting services — including a Prometheus, Grafana, and Loki monitoring stack
- ▸ Started as an associate developer working Java backend before moving into the platform role
Technical Support Engineer
10x Future Technologies
- ▸ Supported a cloud-native AWS banking platform built on microservices running on Kubernetes
- ▸ Triaged and managed developer tickets across PROD, INT, E2E, and NFT environments
- ▸ Led high-severity incident response — communication, root cause analysis, and post-mortems
Junior Civil Engineer
Irish Water
- ▸ Worked on a watermain rehabilitation project in Galway City
- ▸ Transitioned into software development by pursuing a postgraduate degree concurrently
Skills
Technical
Approach
▸ Operational excellence — zero downtime, zero surprises
▸ Simpler is better, especially at scale
▸ Driving high standards across teams
▸ Risk-first thinking before every change
▸ Calm troubleshooting under pressure
▸ Helping others grow, learning from peers
▸ Attention to detail in everything
▸ Wide-scale platform impact over local optimisation
Education
Higher Diploma in Software Design and Development (NFQ Level 8)
National University of Ireland, Galway
Galway, Ireland
Final project: mobile study application built with React Native
Postgraduate Diploma in Climate Change: Impacts and Mitigation (NFQ Level 9)
Heriot-Watt University
Edinburgh, UK
Dissertation: review of microalgae as sustainable feedstock for biofuel production
BSc Earth and Ocean Science (NFQ Level 8)
National University of Ireland, Galway
Galway, Ireland
Dissertation: distribution of Radium 223/224 as tracers of groundwater mixing in Galway Bay
Contact
Open to interesting platform engineering conversations, consulting, or just talking Kubernetes.