Personal details
- Full name: Bogdan-Gabriel Grozoiu
- Area: Noord-Holland, The Netherlands
- Phone number: +31 6 25243579
- E-mail: bogdan@grozoiu.com
- Web: https://grozoiu.com
- Nationality: Romanian (EU passport)
Summary
I’m an experienced Cloud Solutions Architect in the information technology industry. Designing, planning, and delivering enterprise grade environments running on the latest technologies is what has kept me busy since my start in 2007. I have the mentality of getting it done properly and I strive for quality over quantity in everything I do. Throughout my career, all my activities were customer and partner facing.
Experience
January 2024 - Present | Freelancer - Azure Cloud Solutions Architect
As an Azure-minded Solutions Architect my focus is to shape the IT&C landscape of my end customers in the most future-proof, data driven and cost-conscious way. I run roadmap sessions, lead technical discussions, create solution designs, draw HLDs and LLDs, run proof of value sessions, and ultimately design rollout strategies for full blown DTAP Solution-as-Code. I love solving business challenges with innovative technologies, and I get a lot of energy from technically dense discussions that lead to more secure and resilient workloads. Part of my work is also dedicated to growing internal and external teams to be self-sufficient, inducing a growth mindset and shaping future consultants.
July 2021 - December 2023 | Azure Cloud Solutions Architect at Microsoft
In my role, I am helping Microsoft Partners to plan, build and deliver solutions on Azure. I think I may call myself an industry and technology visionary with a passion for designing complex Cloud solutions and automation.
The role of Azure CSA with Microsoft comes with a lot of duties, of which I can mention:
- Drive the adoption of Microsoft Azure cloud resources and services through technical engagements with customers and partners.
- Building PoCs and demos to showcase the value of Microsoft Azure.
- Co-Architect complex hybrid solutions to run securely in Azure.
- Support migrations from classical datacenters or from other cloud providers to Azure.
- Whiteboard-designing various cloud-native and hybrid architectures according to the Azure Well Architected Framework.
- Run Hackathons for strategic technologies as coach.
- Delivery of custom technical workshops and trainings (mostly around Azure networking, DevOps, Containers, Cost Optimization, Hybrid Cloud, AVD, WAF and CAF, etc.)
- Public speaker for Microsoft- or Partner- organized in-person events.
- Write automations and scripts to help customers and partners achieve their goals.
- Assess the cloud maturity of our partners and help them grow and get certified as Microsoft Specialized or as Expert Managed Services Providers.
- Help Microsoft Partners to create long-term cloud adoption strategies.
- Actively shape various Azure services by engaging with the Azure Product Groups and providing market-driven feedback.
In my daily work I touch base with all the Azure Solution Areas: Infrastructure, Digital and App Innovation, Data and AI, IoT, Identity and Security.
It all starts with a surreal scenario or very often with an exotic customer request and ends up with a solution that is deployed and managed on Azure. On a daily base I work with a highly skilled technical community of our partners (CTOs, Enterprise, and Lead Architects) and I collaborate with them to build solutions that are scalable, secure, and cost effective.
May 2019 – June 2021 | Azure Cloud Solutions Architect at SchubergPhilis B.V.
With SchubergPhilis I had two major achievements:
- First one: Replacement of the Citrix VDI with the modern Windows Virtual Desktop. Although it might seem a straightforward job, meeting a plethora of high securities demands made it a long yet successful process.
- Second one: convinced the oldest customer to extend their on-prem-only infrastructure into Azure in the most secure way possible nowadays. For this we had to partner with 2 other companies and Microsoft itself. To achieve this, I conducted Proof of Concepts, plenty of technical briefings with suppliers, internal and external architecture design sessions and automated any deployment possible.
Also involved with different modernization solutions while shifting from a classical datacenter to Azure, implemented new org-wide APIs as function apps (Naming Conventions, Exchange Online APIs), orchestration of Azure and non-Azure VMs patching, Azure Monitoring and Alerting by using Kusto Queries, Azure Monitor and various external APIs.
Contributed to the internal Azure Landing Zone and helped on turning it into an off-the-shelf product, paving this way the road to become an Independent Software Vendor (ISV).
I also participated in an Azure hackathon organized at SBP premises (pre-pandemic) around IoT topics. I also prepared a PowerShell Core training for 25 attendees.
100% of the technical work has been achieved by using Azure DevOps, ARM templates and PowerShell.
September 2018 – April 2019 | Azure Cloud Solutions Architect at SaaSplaza International B.V.
At SaaSplaza I created and delivered brand new technical architectures based on Microsoft Azure. I drove application transformation projects and helped customers adopt cloud native architectures instead of classic datacenter deployments. I achieved this by delivering detailed technical designs and introduced automation via Azure DevOps (Infrastructure as Code / Configuration as Code). Along with other internal teams, I ran consulting studies to transform the customers` IT and application landscapes. I analyzed, generated, and delivered solutions for cases of legacy application and services modernization requests.
At the same time, I piloted new technologies introduced in Azure (Service Fabric Mesh, Password-less sign-in, etc.) towards the inclusion or exclusion from the products and services portfolio. I met with new customers, analyzed the impact and benefits of transforming legacy IT into Cloud-ready deployments (SaaS); ran technical assessments for their needs and proposed cost-effective solutions. I had the role of pre-sales and drove the sale of new IT consulting services by participating in the offer creation processes, by contributing to the proposal materials (Services Offer, SLA, Technical Documentation, RFP) and answered technology related questions after contract sign-off.
In a cross-team effort we succeeded in being recognized by Microsoft as an Azure Expert Managed Services Provider (MSP).
November 2015 – July 2018 | Manager and Azure Cloud Solution Architect at BearingPoint
I had multiple opportunities to grow and expand my career. Besides their detailed description below I’d like to stretch the fact that my team and I had to partner and work jointly with other companies and Microsoft.
Herewith a short selection and description of my tasks: Team management tasks included:
- Responsible with the career development of a team of 9.
- Performance Management.
- Making sure everybody develops in their natural career growing direction.
- Helping my team overcome any technical difficulty within their projects.
Customer and partner engagements included:
- Translating customer needs into cost-effective, scalable, and performant solutions.
- Architecting various solutions based on Azure, Office 365, and SharePoint (on-prem)
- Sales and Engagement Management
- Participating in the sales and pre-sales process to acquire new projects or extend the existing ones (RFI, RFP, RFC).
- Coordinating internal resources and vendors for the flawless execution of projects.
- Ensuring that all projects are delivered on-time, within scope and budget (applied Agile project management techniques).
- Drive the adoption of Microsoft cloud resources and services.
- Architect complex hybrid SharePoint applications to run securely in Azure.
- Strategically design the Provider Hosted Apps architecture according to Office 365 Patterns and Practices.
- Drive the hosted apps deployments and guide the developers to achieve corporate goals.
- Perform SharePoint migrations (from any source to any target) by leveraging PowerShell as the main actor and DevOps pipelines.
- Trainer of PowerShell Core & Advanced and SharePoint for Admins
- Company-wide Azure Subject Matter Expert.
During my time at BearingPoint I worked mainly for Schindler (CH), with a strong presence in the manufacturing industry.
September 2013 – October 2015 | Support Escalation Engineer (Public and Private Cloud Services) at Microsoft
As I was so passionate about Microsoft technologies, I joined the great family of Microsoft where I was initially busy with providing deep technical support for escalations all around Europe. My daily activities consisted in engaging & collaborating with other teams to obtain resolution to critical and complex issues, in being responsive to Microsoft’s customers` and partners` needs, which sometimes required support outside of the normal business hours. I created & maintained technical content including Knowledge Base articles, blog posts, whitepapers, and training documents.
As Office 365 and Azure were rapidly expanding platforms back then, I had the opportunity to work with and learn from various Product Groups (SharePoint, Azure, OneDrive, etc.). I opened numerous features and product improvement requests with the goal of bringing new solutions to the market. I demonstrated leadership through personal responsibility, accountability, and teamwork. Thanks to this attitude I joined the local Premier Field Engineers team and made again steps in the direction of technical enablement and engagement. I had the chance to share Microsoft’s best practices with customers and partners.
During this whole period, I discovered the huge potential of Azure and decided to gear my career towards it.
July 2008 – August 2013 | Technical Consultant at Green Light Group
At Green Light Group I had multiple roles. I started as Business Analyst and evolved into Technical Documentation Writer. Years later I was recognized and certified as a SharePoint Architect.
Other tasks and responsibilities included: analysis and simulation of business processes, requirements collection and workshops with software architects. I wrote use cases, maintained technical materials, collaborated with programmers, engineers, and product owners. Also identified realistic architecture solutions and designed them for both performance and low running costs.
During this whole period, I learned a lot about PowerShell and automated almost all the deployments and maintenance activities.
Education
2008 – 2010 | Master of Engineering (“Politehnica” University of Bucharest)
Domain: Advanced Electrical Engineering (Automation)
2003 – 2008 | Bachelor of Engineering (“Politehnica” University of Bucharest)
Domain: Electrical Engineering (Automation)
Training Courses and Self-Study
Microsoft
- DP-600 - Fabric Analytics Engineer Associate (in progress)
- AZ-305 - Designing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions
- AZ-104 - Azure Administrator Associate
- AZ-140 - Configuring and Operating Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop
- AZ-301 - Microsoft Azure Architect Design
- 70-533 - Implementing Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Solutions
- 70-347 - Enabling Office 365 Services
- 70-346 - Managing Office 365 Identities and Requirements
- 70-331 - Core Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013
- 70-332 - Advanced Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013
- 70-332 - Advanced Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013
- 70-667 - MCTS / TS: Microsoft SharePoint 2010, Configuring
Project Management
- Project Manager (CODECS Romania & Open University)
Other Trainings
- Data Management at Scale
- Pragmatic Microservices with C# and Azure
- Microsoft – Senior Technical Leadership Program
- Advanced Entrepreneurship
- ITIL Foundation V3
Languages
| Language | Speaking | Writing | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| Romanian (Native language) | Fluent (C2) | Fluent (C2) | Fluent (C2) |
| Dutch* | Basic (A2) | Basic (A2) | Basic (A2) |
| English | Fluent (C1+) | Fluent (C1+) | Fluent (C1+) |
- I am aiming for B2 fluency by EOY 2025.
Personal Skills
I don’t miss a chance to coach my customers and colleagues and help them find answers to various issues all by themselves. I have a great experience managing mid-sized teams as well as external customer teams. Along the time I learned the art of developing partnerships with other teams or companies.
Personal Interests
I am passionate about green and power efficient technologies in all its shapes and forms. I enjoy building small home IoT automations up to photovoltaic deployments and electrical engineering works. What keeps me awake at midnight? Challenges. The hardest to achieve, tailor-made for the future and built upon innovative solutions. I am always looking forward to the next challenge to be done properly.
This CV can be downloaded here