Hello,

This is Birtan

I am a Maker

About Me

I'm Birtan — an engineer by training and a maker at heart. My days are split between two worlds: 12 years of enterprise software engineering, and a hands-on drive to design, build, and understand how things actually work.

I hold a physics degree from METU, which probably explains why I care more about how something works than just that it works. That curiosity shows up in everything I build. An interest in robotics led me to design and build my own CNC machine from scratch. A fascination with embedded systems keeps me constantly tinkering with new hardware. And as a privacy enthusiast, I run my own private cloud — and enjoy encouraging others to take back control of their own data too.

I believe strongly in repairability, sustainability, and doing things properly — if you can make it, do it.

When I'm not working, I'm usually outdoors — hiking or trekking somewhere new, or out on the padel court. I balance that with pilates, and I genuinely love cooking, especially when it means learning something new. Music runs in the background of pretty much everything I do. I also volunteer at the repair cafe in the community center.

Portfolio

The Engineers Private Cloud

CNC Machine

Predictive Maintenance Solution

Curriculum Vitae

12 years of experience as a backend-focused software engineer, specializing in cloud-native solutions and enterprise architecture within the Azure ecosystem. Currently freelancing, delivering deployment pipelines and data transformation pipelines. Combines hands-on technical leadership with mentorship and cross-team alignment, and is currently exploring human-in-the-loop AI systems. Outside of enterprise delivery, applies the same architectural thinking to personal IoT, robotics, and infrastructure projects — from a self-built CNC machine to a self-hosted private cloud.

Experience

Freelancer — Self-Employed (02/2026 — Present)
Delivering deployment pipelines and data transformation pipelines for clients.

Team & Tech Lead — Salta Group, Hilversum (Netherlands) (10/2021 — 11/2025)
Led WFT Triple A, a legislation-tracking platform for financial professionals, from inception as both hands-on developer and Solution Architect, delivering a secure, scalable cloud-native solution including a Rabobank integration. Automated deployment pipelines and used Azure resources to cut critical operation times from up to 30 minutes down significantly. Promoted to Team & Tech Lead in 2023, where I introduced assessment pillars to help engineers grow individually and collectively.

Software Engineer — Imprima B.V., Amsterdam (Netherlands) (11/2018 — 09/2021)
Built AI-powered Smart Solutions for document search and summarization on a leading VDR platform, enabling Azure AI services and CI/CD pipelines for AI endpoints.

Full Stack .NET Developer — Various Companies, Turkey (05/2014 — 11/2018)
Delivered and maintained full-stack .NET solutions for occupational health & safety, training tracking, and rental car tracking systems used by clients across the automotive and industrial sectors.

Skills

Azure, Solution Architecture, C# .NET, Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, IaC, CI/CD Pipelines, DDD, Clean Architecture, Python, SQL, Agile, Scrum, Mentorship, Stakeholder Management, UI/UX Design, IoT & Embedded Systems, Self-Hosted Infrastructure

Articles

The Engineer's Private Cloud, Part 2: Self-Hosting Your Own Photos with Ente and Backblaze B2

Building a self-hosted, end-to-end encrypted photo backup system with Ente Photos and Backblaze B2 object storage.

The Engineer's Private Cloud: Passwords, Photos, Files and More — Hosted on Docker

Reclaiming control of my personal data by self-hosting a private cloud on Docker, Coolify, and Vaultwarden.

Let's Talk

Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn or by E-mail.

me@birtan.dev