Yannick Dixken
$ cat about.md
Hi there!
I'm Yannick, a Freelance Cloud Architect, DevOps and Platform Engineer with more than 15 years of experience building and operating scalable platforms, including in managed hosting and e-commerce.
My current focus is modern cloud infrastructure - I remove roadblocks and get teams back into productive flow.
With deep knowledge in Linux system engineering I've gone through the "natural evolution" from classic system operations through DevOps to Platform Engineering & SRE, and today I design highly automated, secure, and scalable cloud and container platforms that let development teams concentrate fully on their core product.
Hyperscaler Exit?
A central theme for me is digital sovereignty: I've helped many companies free themselves from hyperscaler dependence and migrate workloads to self-hosted, open, and controllable platforms - from Kubernetes to storage, databases and networking.
I bring not only extensive technical experience but also a strong conviction that long-term control, cost optimization, and data sovereignty are crucial for sustainable success.
Performance First
Performance is also a continuous improvement process for me: I proactively analyze the entire platform - from underlay to overlay - to uncover bottlenecks and implement targeted optimizations that reduce latencies and push time-to-first-byte to the limits of what's possible.
Open Source & Security
Beyond pure technology I actively promote OSS adoption, strong encryption, and data protection.
In my free time I enjoy CTFs, web-security puzzles, and reverse engineering. And if there's still time left, I'll hack an IoT device.
$ tree technologies/
💡 Click on categories to expand/collapse
$ ls clients/
I have worked on projects in & around cloud and container platforms for clients including:
- Berlin Brands Group—E-Commerce
- BWI GmbH—Defence
- Cornelsen Verlag—Publishing / EdTech
- DATEV—Tax & Accounting Software
- Schäfer Shop Digital—E-Commerce
- T-Systems—Cloud / Telecom
- Tom Tailor—E-Commerce
- VW Group / Audi—Automotive
$ tail -n 3 blog/
Let's Burn Some Tokens - AI Chatbot Cost Exploitation as an Attack Vector
Many companies ship AI chatbots as thin wrappers around commercial LLM APIs with zero cost controls. What if a tool behaved like an overly engaged, perfectly valid user - and just burned through their budget?
Building Observable Systems: Monitoring and Observability Patterns
Learn how to implement comprehensive observability for microservices using Prometheus, Grafana, and Loki. Includes practical examples and dashboard configurations.
Kubernetes Deployment Strategies for Zero Downtime
Exploring advanced Kubernetes deployment strategies including rolling updates, blue-green deployments, and canary releases to achieve zero-downtime deployments for production applications.