LinkedIn Profile — Target State

LinkedIn Profile — Kevin Ryan — Target State

February 2026. Paste-ready. Work top to bottom.

1. HEADLINE

DevOps Engineer · Platform Engineer · CI/CD · Kubernetes · Terraform · AI Governance · Author of AI Immigrants · Writing Spec Driven Development (sddbook.com)

2. LOCATION

Budapest, Hungary

3. INDUSTRY

IT Services and IT Consulting

4. ABOUT

I embed with enterprise clients and make complex technology work in production. That's the thread through my career. At every stage, I arrived early. XP and TDD in the late nineties. Agile in the early 2000s. Cloud-native and IaC in the 2010s. DORA metrics when Accelerate was still new. AI-native engineering now — and I'm writing the book on it.

I build pipeline architecture, operate platforms, and run the programmes that scale delivery across the enterprise. Most DevOps contractors are infrastructure specialists who've never run a client engagement, or consultants who've never shipped a production pipeline. I've done both.

At Nestlé, I was instrumental in a DevEx platform engineering project — thousands of developers across three continents. At Dematic, first through the door — CI/CD transformation, 98% time reduction. At CERN, Kubernetes architecture review for the Large Hadron Collider. At NatWest, AI-assisted development pilot with board-level adoption strategy. BBC Worldwide, £10m+ digital portfolio. Financial Times, platform rebuild before Nikkei's £844M acquisition.

I'm not theorising about AI-native engineering. I'm practising it, writing the book on it, and building the tooling.

📖 AI Immigrants: The Bloody Algos Are Here! — aiimmigrants.com
📖 Spec Driven Development: AI Native Software Engineering — sddbook.com
🔧 SpecMCP — open-source MCP server for spec-driven AI development
⚖️ Distributed Equity License — distributedequity.org

Available immediately. Remote preferred. Contract via Irish company.
kevin@kevinryan.io · kevinryan.io

5. CONTACT INFO

6. FEATURED

Pin in this order:

1. AI Immigrants: The Bloody Algos Are Here! — https://aiimmigrants.com
   • “70,000 words on AI governance, the EU AI Act, and societal impact. Free to read.”
2. Spec Driven Development — https://sddbook.com
   • “AI-native engineering methodology. The case for structure over prompts.”
3. Distributed Equity License — https://distributedequity.org
   • “Open-source AI licensing framework. Machine-readable licence for the AI era.”
4. SpecMCP — https://github.com/DevOpsKev/specmcp
   • “Open-source Model Context Protocol server for spec-driven AI development.”
5. kevinryan.io — https://kevinryan.io
   • “CV, consulting, SDD training, AI governance advisory.”
6. Dematic — Microsoft Customer Story — https://kevinryan.io/microsoft-customer-story-dematic.pdf
   • “Published by Microsoft. Warehouse design time from weeks to a day with Azure HPC and AKS.”
7. Lunar Vehicle CI/CD Pipeline — Cprime Case Study — https://www.cprime.com/resource/exploring-new-horizons-with-cprime-creating-a-continuous-integration-testing-pipeline-for-lunar-vehicle-development/
   • “Published by Cprime. CI/CD testing pipeline for autonomous moon rover. 75% reduction in trial-and-error.”

7. EXPERIENCE

kevinryan.io

• Title: Principal Consultant — DevOps, AI Governance, SDD Training
• Company: kevinryan.io
• Type: Self-employed
• Dates: Apr 2016 – Present
• Location: Budapest, Hungary · Remote

DevOps consulting, AI governance advisory, and Spec Driven Development training.

Expert network consulting via GLG, Guidepoint, and Techspert — AI governance, EU AI Act, enterprise AI adoption strategy.

Technical writing: runbooks, architecture guides, API documentation, contribution guidelines, governance frameworks, engineering playbooks, and technical proposals across 15+ years of enterprise engagements.

Published AI Immigrants: The Bloody Algos Are Here! — 70,000 words on AI governance and the EU AI Act. Free at aiimmigrants.com.

Writing Spec Driven Development: AI Native Software Engineering — sddbook.com.

Built SpecMCP — open-source MCP server for spec-driven AI development. github.com/DevOpsKev/specmcp.

Created the Distributed Equity License — open-source AI licensing framework. distributedequity.org.

Cprime, Inc (formerly Radtac)

• Title: Head of DevOps EMEA / Principal Consultant
• Company: Cprime, Inc
• Type: Full-time
• Dates: Aug 2014 – Nov 2025
• Location: Remote · EMEA

Multiple concurrent enterprise programmes. Built two professional services practices from zero. Hired and managed distributed teams. Owned client relationships end-to-end.

Nestlé — Platform Engineering & DevOps Modernisation
Won the engagement — wrote the technical proposal, led pre-sales, secured the account. Built platform engineering capability from zero. Distributed team across India, Spain, and the UK. Ran Nestlé's global DevOps platform — thousands of developers across three continents. Migrated Jenkins into AKS, implemented Terraform IaC governance. Migrated Bitbucket to GitHub. Wrote DevOps and SRE playbooks.

Dematic — DevOps Transformation
Won the engagement through GitLab partnership. First on the ground. Built the delivery team, transitioned to nearshore. Warehouse automation leader (6,000+ FTEs, Amazon as client). GitLab and Azure CI/CD platform. Reduced proposal turnaround from 8 weeks to 1 day, simulation times from 11 hours to 24 minutes — 98% reduction. Reusable CI/CD templates, Terraform IaC, Helm-based Kubernetes deployments. Short engagement extended indefinitely on delivery.

NatWest — AI-Assisted Development Pilot
Assessment framework across Java, Python, Node.js. Board-level AI adoption recommendations. Regulated environment.

CERN — Kubernetes and CI/CD architectural review for Large Hadron Collider control systems. Recommendations shipped to production.

Gilead Sciences — Pilot-to-production transition for Real World Evidence data platform.

Lunar Zebro / TU Delft — Coached 50-person team building Europe's first student-led moon rover. 75% reduction in trial-and-error development.

Practice Building — Built GitLab and GitHub Professional Services practices from scratch. Pre-sales and technical proposals across EMEA.

HelloFresh — Coached engineering teams through scaling to €1.5B IPO.

EY

• Title: Digital Product & Agile Coach
• Company: EY
• Type: Contract
• Dates: Jul 2015 – Apr 2016
• Location: London, UK

Digital product coaching and agile delivery advisory for Informa PLC.

McKinsey & Company

• Title: External Advisor
• Company: McKinsey & Company
• Type: Contract
• Dates: Feb 2015 – Jul 2015
• Location: London, UK

External advisory on digital product delivery.

BBC Worldwide

• Title: Interim Portfolio Director
• Company: BBC Worldwide
• Type: Contract
• Dates: Sep 2012 – May 2014
• Location: London, UK

£10m+ digital portfolio: BBC Good Food, Top Gear, Global iPlayer, BBC Store.

Programme management across product, engineering, editorial, and commercial teams. Full product refresh and technical re-platform of BBC Good Food including responsive templates for mobile. Product developed to prioritise consumer acquisition through personalisation and social engagement.

Three new bbc.com features delivered. Global iPlayer enhancements. Cross-functional stakeholder management across multiple business units.

Financial Times

• Title: Agile Coach
• Company: Financial Times
• Type: Contract
• Dates: Jan 2010 – Sep 2012
• Location: London, UK

Platform rebuild during the period leading to Nikkei's £844M acquisition. Agile coaching for product teams during rapid digital transformation.

The FT was transitioning from print to digital-first — online revenues competing with traditional media, premium digital subscriptions as the growth model. Coached product development teams adopting agile delivery to keep pace with evolving consumer behaviours and a fast-moving online ecosystem.

A.P. Moller – Maersk

• Title: Agile Coach
• Company: A.P. Moller - Maersk Group
• Dates: 2011 – 2011
• Location: Copenhagen, Denmark

Agile engineering coaching for logistics and shipping technology teams.

Pearson Education

• Title: Agile Engineering Coach
• Company: Pearson Education
• Dates: Sep 2008 – Dec 2009
• Location: London, UK

Pearson Business Solutions — migration to agile development lifecycle based on lean software development and lean service delivery. Scrum, Kanban, and XP implementation. Facilitated requirements gathering, coached engineering teams on TDD and continuous integration, introduced pair programming and refactoring practices.

BAA (Heathrow Airport)

• Title: Agile Engineering Coach
• Company: BAA
• Dates: Sep 2007 – Sep 2008
• Location: London, UK

Operations Performance Monitor — enterprise application providing real-time business intelligence and analytics for airport operational performance against KPIs and SLAs. Consumed raw data from multiple source systems within BAA's enterprise architecture, processed through business intelligence services. Agile engineering coaching for the development team.

Barclays

• Title: Agile Engineering Coach
• Company: Barclays
• Dates: Jan 2007 – Sep 2007
• Location: London, UK

Mortgage Loan Services — Origination Work Manager for processing mortgage applications. Web application, imaging system, and workflow manager interfacing with Barclays systems and external services. Agile engineering coaching for the origination team.

Xansa

• Title: Agile Engineer
• Company: Xansa
• Dates: Feb 2006 – Jan 2007
• Location: London, UK

Design and development lead for application components in the Learner Achievement Tracker for the Learning and Skills Council. Managed developer skills, coordinated development process, implemented design patterns, coached team on production-strength code practices.

8. SERVICES

• DevOps Consulting
• Platform Engineering
• CI/CD Architecture & Implementation
• AI Governance Advisory
• Technical Writing
• Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Kubernetes)
• IT Consulting
• Enterprise AI Adoption Strategy

9. SKILLS

Top 3 (pin these):

1. DevOps
2. Kubernetes
3. CI/CD Pipelines

Technical — Infrastructure & Platform: 4. Terraform 5. Docker 6. Infrastructure as Code 7. Platform Engineering 8. Azure 9. Amazon Web Services (AWS) 10. Helm 11. Jenkins 12. GitHub Actions 13. GitLab CI/CD 14. Ansible 15. Linux

Technical — Languages: 16. Python 17. Bash 18. JavaScript 19. Java 20. Go 21. C 22. C++ 23. C#

AI & Governance: 24. AI Governance 25. Artificial Intelligence 26. AI Strategy 27. EU AI Act 28. Model Context Protocol

Delivery & Management: 29. Agile Methodologies 30. Scrum 31. Programme Management 32. Stakeholder Management 33. Technical Leadership 34. Team Building 35. OKRs 36. DORA Metrics

Engineering Practices: 37. Test-Driven Development 38. Site Reliability Engineering 39. Developer Experience 40. Technical Writing 41. Architecture

Industry Knowledge: 42. Enterprise Software 43. Digital Transformation 44. Cloud Computing 45. Software Engineering

10. PUBLICATIONS

AI Immigrants: The Bloody Algos Are Here

• Publisher: Self-published
• Date: January 2026
• URL: https://aiimmigrants.com

70,000 words on AI governance, the EU AI Act, and societal impact. Explores how scapegoating AI mirrors scapegoating human newcomers — and how both distract from the real failures of policy and corporate power. Free to read. EPUB/PDF via CI/CD pipeline. Audiobook on Spotify.

Spec Driven Development: AI Native Software Engineering

• Publisher: Self-published (in progress)
• Date: 2026
• URL: https://sddbook.com

AI-native engineering methodology. The case that agentic software delivery needs structure, specifications, and governance — not prompts and hope. In progress. Live at sddbook.com with CI/CD publishing pipeline.

Dematic Cuts Warehouse Design Time from Weeks to a Day with Azure HPC and Azure Kubernetes Service

• Publisher: Microsoft
• Date: March 2023
• URL: https://kevinryan.io/microsoft-customer-story-dematic.pdf

Microsoft customer story featuring the Azure HPC and AKS modernisation I delivered as Head of DevOps at Cprime EMEA. Led rearchitecture of Dematic's warehouse design engine from shared VMs to microservice architecture on Azure Kubernetes Service. Simulation time reduced from 11 hours to 24 minutes. Time-to-solution from 8 weeks to 1 day. Automated CI/CD with Terraform and Helm. 90-minute spec-to-deployment record.

Automation and Emulation Software Leader Streamlines Development with Expert-Led GitLab Solutions and DevOps Services

• Publisher: Cprime
• Date: 2024
• URL: https://www.cprime.com/resource/automation-and-emulation-software-leader-streamlines-development-processes-with-cprimes-expert-led-gitlab-solutions-and-devops-services/

Cprime case study on the GitLab elite DevOps implementation I led for Dematic. 98% reduction in time-to-solution. 96% decrease in proposal submission time. GitLab CI/CD + Terraform + Helm + Azure Batch. Engagement extended indefinitely based on delivery performance. Quoted as Head of DevOps, EMEA.

Exploring New Horizons — Creating a CI/CD Testing Pipeline for Lunar Vehicle Development

• Publisher: Cprime
• Date: 2024
• URL: https://www.cprime.com/resource/exploring-new-horizons-with-cprime-creating-a-continuous-integration-testing-pipeline-for-lunar-vehicle-development/

Cprime case study on the CI/CD pipeline I built for an autonomous moon rover's embedded firmware and ML/AI systems at TU Delft. 75% reduction in trial-and-error development. First-of-kind aerospace-grade testing framework using GitLab, Docker dev containers, and Google Test. 18-month engagement. Quoted as Agile and DevOps Coach, Cprime EMEA.

11. PROJECTS

SpecMCP

• Date: January 2026
• URL: https://github.com/DevOpsKev/specmcp
• Associated with: kevinryan.io

Open-source Model Context Protocol server for spec-driven AI development. Transforms static API specifications into actionable tools for AI assistants. Makes API standards enforceable at development time — not advisory, enforceable.

Distributed Equity License

• Date: October 2025
• URL: https://distributedequity.org
• Associated with: kevinryan.io

Open-source AI licensing framework. Machine-readable licence for the AI era with manifesto, protocol, and legal terms. Addresses creator rights in the age of generative AI. CC BY 4.0.

12. LICENSES & CERTIFICATIONS

GitHub (4)

GitLab (9)

LaunchDarkly (4)

13. EDUCATION

Trinity College Dublin

• Degree: HCI CPD AI and Ethics

Birmingham City University

• Degree: Hons Digital Media
• Dates: 1994 – 1997

14. HONORS & AWARDS

Best Use of Agile in the Private Sector

• Issuer: UK Agile Awards
• Date: September 2014

Won as part of the William Hill Online team. Kevin was Radtac's Principal Agile Coach supporting William Hill Online's agile adoption programme.

15. COMPANY PAGE — kevinryan.io

Tagline:

DevOps, AI Governance, and Spec Driven Development

Description:

DevOps consulting, AI governance advisory, and Spec Driven Development training. Kevin Ryan & Associates works with enterprise clients on platform engineering, CI/CD architecture, and AI-native engineering strategy.

Publications: AI Immigrants (aiimmigrants.com), Spec Driven Development (sddbook.com).
Open source: SpecMCP, Distributed Equity License (distributedequity.org).

16. CREATOR MODE

• Custom link button: https://kevinryan.io (label: “Visit my website”)
• Topics: #DevOps #PlatformEngineering #AIGovernance #CICD #Kubernetes

17. OPEN TO WORK

• Roles: DevOps Engineer, Platform Engineer, Site Reliability Engineer
• Work type: Remote, Contract
• Visibility: All LinkedIn members

18. ARTICLES (existing — keep)

These are already published and demonstrate thought leadership. No changes needed:

• Neo-Feudalism: AI, UBI, and the Future of Power
• The Rise of AI Corporations: Agents of Dystopia
• Provenance in AI: The Hidden Key to Trust and Transparency