Kyle Bassett

Partner | Architecture(s) | Community

Kyle has been at the forefront of open source and transformative solutions throughout his IT career spanning a number of large North American organizations. Kyle focuses on designing and architecting Open Source solutions utilizing modern platforms and disruptive technologies. Providing deep hands-on consulting on today’s greatest IT challanges.

As a partner at Arctiq, Kyle focusses on the following core competencies:

• Architecture and design leadership
• Open source solution focused on modern platforms and disruptive technologies
• DevOps consulting and culture conditioning
• Virtualization, containers, security and microservices
• Application pipeline automation
• Strategic business planning and process execution

Mike Morrison

Partner | Ecosystem | Operations

Mike’s business and IT background with over 20 years experience led to the formation of Arctiq’s BPM focused business consulting practice. Business case development, technical process improvement, and consulting on DevOps culture are the foundations of this practice.

As a partner at Arctiq, Mike is prime on:

• Developing and delivering Arctiq’s business-focused consulting services
• Managing Arctiq’s business operations, ensuring we practice what we preach
• Automating and integrating back end processes using a DevOps approach to operations management and visibility
• Building an open ecosystem of technology and delivery partners
• Delivery Project Management services for complex Arctiq engagements

Aly Khimji

Partner | Linux & Containers | Development & ML

With design and solution architecture being a primary focus of his career, Aly has spent a great deal of time problem solving complex issues, creating designs and implementing infrastructure solutions. Having worked with multinational companies, he has spent a great deal of time working on globe spanning projects, including classified and bleeding edge technologies. Having a deep background working with security focused clients Aly has a strong knowledge base with regards to system compliance, audits and security hardening. He focuses on core technologies that run deep into the OS including kernel tuning, performance driven solutions and highly secure systems as well as a passion for development and writing code to help automate and streamline tasks.

Outside of Arctiq, Aly can be found spending time with this family, developing code, learning the next great technology and spending time outdoors.

Aly’s focus at Arctiq is in the following key areas:

• Foundations - All things RHEL, VMware, RHEV
• Security - Satellite, Image hardening, Identity Management, compliance/auditing
• Automation - Ansible, Puppet and home grown code
• Container and Orchestration - Docker, Kubernetes and Openshift
• DevOps Consulting - Team and culture improvements, development and R&D

Shea Stewart

Partner | Containers | Security

With the bulk of his career focused on infrastructure solution architecture and implementation, Shea now brings that knowledge into the development space. Working with software development and infrastructure teams, Shea focuses on improving technology processes through automation and collaboration tooling and culture changes. Being a technologist, Shea is happiest when found exploring emerging technologies and applying them to real-world customer challenges.

Outside of the office Shea can be found out with his friends enjoying a Jays game, being active, or hunting down a new craft brew.

Along with an eye on security processes and partnerships, Shea’s focus at Arctiq is in the following key areas:

• Automation & self-service of infrastructure systems
• Container platform deployment and training
• CI/CD pipeline development with integrated security
• DevOps culture improvements through process optimization and collaboration tooling

Tim Fairweather

Partner | Automation | Microservices

Tim has spent the bulk of his career in the solution architecture space, problem solving and designing solutions to meet very specific needs. Having worked across many vertical and technology areas, Tim applies this expertise to his work with Arctiq’s clients.

Along with marketing and website responsibilities, Tim’s focus at Arctiq is in the following key areas:

• Automation - Ansible, Puppet
• Microservices - Anthos, GKE, Openshift, Kubernetes, Docker, CI/CD
• Foundations - Red Hat Enterprise Linux, VMware, Cloud (GCP, AWS, Azure)
• Integrated Security - Satellite, image hardening, custom provisioning
• DevOps Consulting - Team and culture improvements, workflow and process improvements

Daniyal Javed

CICD Pipelines | Containers | Automation

Daniyal has served his time at all levels of development, working his way up to Arctiq. He has a varied knowledge of programming languages and a wealth of problem solving experience. Daniyal is intrigued by Big Data and Mobile Development but Daniyal’s focus is now on his newfound love - DevOps.

Daniyal enjoys helping customers by automating processes with Ansible, building CI/CD Jenkins pipelines on OpenShift and establishing infrastructure management with Satellite.

When Daniyal is not at Arctiq, he enjoys soccer, travelling, and cars (in that order). Daniyal also holds a Honours degree in Computer Science from the Lassonde School of Engineering in Toronto.

Jacob Mammoliti

Microservices | Automation | Development

Jacob has spent a lot of his early career in Python development as well as networking. Moving to Arctiq has allowed Jacob to transition to a more hybrid role and get hands on experience with microservices and automation tooling as well as still getting time to work on development projects.

One of Jacob’s main focuses is automation and security tooling working with Ansible, Terraform, and Vault. Outside of writing Ansible roles and Terraform modules for customers, Jacob has also used his development skills to write multiple Ansible modules in Python.

Outside of Arctiq, Jacob spends time sneaker shopping, watching sports (Leafs, Raptors, Toronto FC, Arsenal fan), and searching for new restaurants in Toronto. Jacob also spends lots of time building new projects with his multiple Raspberry Pis.

Aaren DeJong

Infra as Code | Virt & Storage | Linux

Through nearly all sizes of enterprise, Aaren has experience from end-user support, application deployment, through to system administration. Combined over 6 years, he is versed in enterprise technology architectures, data management, open-source methodology, systems compliance and general infrastructure technology. While neither for or against ‘DevOps’, he believes in the benefits that such methodologies provide, should any enterprise be willing to embrace change.

Aside from Arctiq, Aaren enjoys time with his wife and two daughters, deploying tech in his home-lab, admiring electric cars, and enjoying the outdoors.

Aaren tends to focus in the following key areas:

• Essentials - RHEL, RHV, GlusterFS, openZFS
• Automation & Languages - Ansible, Bash, Python
• Infra & Storage - practices and training, data integrity
• DevOps Consulting - team and culture improvements, legacy modernization

Phil Thomson

OpenShift | The Cloud | Infra as Code

Phil has spent the majority of his career in the infrastructure space focused on systems, storage, and virtualization. Phil has taken on Canadian and international roles working with developers and users to get their code running on systems, making sure those systems are monitored and redundant, and automating processes along the way, including underground mine haul trucks. Phil is super excited about the software defined DevOps world and the open and collaborative work environment that it brings.

Outside of Arctiq, Phil enjoys climbing mountains on bikes, SUP’ing on Okanagan Lake with his wife, tinkering with new tech in his home-lab, and dialing in his espresso machine.

Phil has a strong background in and focuses in on the following key areas:

• Essentials - Linux, VMware, and Windows
• Automation & Languages - Powershell and Bash
• Container and Orchestration - Docker and OpenShift
• DevOps Consulting - Team communication and collaboration

Kayla Matson

Operations | Ecosystem | Marketing

Kayla brings years of operations experience to Arctiq, with client support, inside sales, and real-world expertise across a wide range of companies. Kayla is building upon her exciting experiences in the IT industry, and deep background in the arts, through her role as Arctiq’s Operations Lead. With Kayla’s leadership, Arctiq is developing and refining modern processes in finance, partnerships, technical marketing, social media, and client support.

Kayla holds a degree in Creative Writing and English Literature from York University.

Outside of Arctiq, Kayla can be found attending theatrical events, trying out new foods, digging new tunes, and talking more about her cat than you were prepared for (or willing to hear)!

Kayla helps Arctiq with a focus on the following key areas:

• Operations - Programs, finance, contract management
• Business Development - Sales support, new opportunity management
• Partner Management - Ecosystem liason

Hart Ripley

Networking | Automation | Security

Hart has over 10 years experience in architecting enterprise environments, delivering, and managing global network and security solutions. Working in unique environments has provided Hart with a strong competence in multi-vendor interoperability and invaluable experience, which serves well to help clients in the most complex of environments. Hart has focused on building strong network foundational knowledge with an emphasis on security, environment hardening, and implementing best practices.

Outside of Arctiq, Hart enjoys spending time with his family, all things baseball, and live music.

Hart’s focus at Arctiq is in the following key areas:

• Network Automation and self-healing of enterprise systems
• Automating configuration consistency and network security hardening
• Integrations with on-premise or cloud-based network architectures using an automated and repeatable approach

Jeff Kelly

Automation | Networking | Linux

Jeff has spent the majority of his career architecting, delivering, and supporting enterprise environments. Working with many different business types from startup to government has given Jeff invaluable experience with multi-vendor solutions and technology as well as an appreciation for standards and best practices. Jeff is excited about automating everything and has jumped into the DevOps space with both feet.

Outside of Arctiq, Jeff enjoys kayaking, tinkering with whatever technology he can sneak in the house before the kids get a hold of it, and doing whatever the kids like today (generally video games, soccer, basketball and whatever else seems cool).

Jeff has a strong background and focus in the following key areas:

• Essentials - Linux, Network services
• Automation & Languages - All things shell and ansible
• DevOps - Collaboration and troubleshooting

Marc LeBlanc

Automation | Linux | Virtualization

Marc has experience in automating and managing infrastructure. With 10+ years experience in small start up environments to enterprise, he uses his skills to provide solutions around process efficiencies and reliability.

When not working with Arctiq, Marc spends his time with his wife and kids and can often be found cooking up a storm on competition BBQ circuits.

Jenn Viau

Config Management | Automation | Infra as Code

Jenn is passionate about helping people find the “right” way ,and the “right” tooling, to get things done.

She likes to explore new approaches, tools and methodologies.

Outside of work, Jenn likes to read, spend time with her family, and taking far too many pictures of her dog Darwin.

Christopher Markieta

Linux | Automation | Señor Sysadmin

Prior to joining the Arctiq team, Chris was a professor at Seneca College teaching Web Programming Principles and Linux. He was also a system administrator and conducted research working with state of the art hardware and open source technologies for emerging platforms.

Chris spent his days configuring network and storage infrastructure, as well as monitoring resource availability and data/battery backups. He developed modules for clients to improve software productivity, and established a Unified Threat Management dedicated network firewall to counter worldwide brute-force attacks. He touched mobile development in both the Android and iOS space, but his passion is tailored towards automation of services. Chris maintains his own home server in a fully dockerized environment, dedicated towards monitoring his network, storage, sharing, and web hosting.

Below are some of the technologies Chris is experienced with:

• Languages - C/C++, CUDA, Java, Perl, Python, Bash, PowerShell, Git
• Automation - Ansible, (R)?ex, OpenStack
• Web - HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, jQuery, PHP, AJAX, ASP.NET, NGINX
• Platforms - IBM i, Linux (RHEL), Unix (AIX), Windows Server

Afan Rasool

Automation | Cloud | CICD Pipelines

Afan worked as an Application Security Developer in the early stages of his career. Having a profound passion for Web Development, Afan transitioned his focus/learning towards Cloud and implementing DevOps principles/culture.

At Arctiq, his focus is on these key areas:

• Implementing DevOps Principles
• CI/CD Pipelines
• Automation

Olena Shtepa

Client Advocate | Ecosystem & Go-To-Market | Holacracy

Olena brings 10+ years of IT industry experience working in a variety of business support roles from operational, office management, corporate finance to inside sales, team lead and account executive experiences.

Throughout her diverse career Olena remains an open-minded enthusiastic professional and a team player, who is flexible and open to learning better and more agile ways of helping build out efficient and successful business outcomes.

At Arctiq, Olena is focusing on these key areas:

• Creating positive customer experiences by directly engaging with our ecosystem partners and clients
• Delivering world-class customer service and project delivery support
• Accelerating client and community engagements by leading Arctiq’s Go-To-Market initiatives
• Discovering wholeness and deeper sense of purpose on the Teal journey of Arctiq as a self-managed Holacratic organization

Outside of Arctiq, Olena is a mom and a sports enthusiast (Muay Thai fighter, triathlete, and a skier). Painting brings balance to her life.

Paul Fischer

Kubernetes | Linux | Automation

Paul has over twenty years of experience designing and deploying data centre systems and infrastructure. Linux has always been his preferred operating system and he has been installing anywhere and everywhere he could. Over the last few years containers and Kubernetes has become his prime focus area as we move into an infrastructure as code, cloud native world.

Outside of Arctiq Paul enjoys spending time with his wife and two very active sons. He enjoys recording music and creating chaotic sounds with his collection of guitars and digital/analog synthesizers.

Marek Anderson

Infra as Code | Virt & Automation | Linux

Keeping the lights on for diverse clients for over a decade, Marek has experience in Linux and Windows system administration in virtualized environments. Over the last seven years, he helped: private banks, aluminum smelters, hospitals, universities with virtualization, automation, endpoint management, and general system administration.

Some of Marek’s philosophies are:

• Keep it simple without oversimplifying.
• Think ahead on generalizability.
• Care about real impact rather than getting lost in technicalities
• Be ridiculously efficient with the fundamentals

Outside of Arctiq, Marek stays fit doing Crossfit, enjoys listening to educational podcasts and spending time with his wife.

Dave Ambrad

Client Advocate | Ecosystem | Audio & Video |

Dave brings over 15 years of business development and client management experience working in a variety of industries and roles, from founding a travel wholesaler to helping large scale companies manage their risk at one of Canada’s Top Insurance Companies.

An avid and open learner, Dave is excited to find new ways to help clients and partners achieve their goals and deliver value along the way.

At Arctiq Dave is focusing on these key areas:

• Go-to-market planning and support for Arctiq sales
• Ensuring a positive experience for both Clients and Partners
• Driving Client and Partner Engagement through focused success
• Delivery Program Management

Outside of Arctiq Dave is a rock and roller, an amateur podcaster, a life long learner of all things random, and most recently a student of BJJ and Muay Thai… Dave can’t block a punch to save his life.

Mohsin Raza

Automation | Networking | Linux

Mohsin has more than 10 years of experience in network and system administration. His work experience is diverse, working with large Telcos as well as small startups. He has always been a big fan of Linux and Open Source tools and has utilized them throughout his career. He has a keen interest in network and cloud automation. Mohsin also holds a Master’s degree in Computer Networks from Ryerson University.

Aside from Arctiq, Mohsin likes to read, enjoys music, poetry and spends time with his family.

Aurora Li

Cloud | Networking | Automation

Before joining Arctiq, Aurora worked in the Telco industry on network testing, architecture, and automation. She has helped multiple teams adopt new networking technologies. Her data centre operations experience has taught her a “measure twice, cut once” principle when developing solutions.

Outside of work, Aurora enjoys spending time with her husband playing sports, cooking, and visiting cats in pet stores.

Nic Saunders

Operations | HR | Wellness

Nic brings a passionately people-focused perspective, focused on building community through love and kindness. Her diverse background includes time in academic research on dynamics of power in proto-communities, technical theatre production, and legal office administration.

Outside of work, Nic spends time with her partner and two children, and maintains an avid interest in food history, sci-fi literature, and spending time out of doors whenever she can.

Greg Reboul

DevOps | Architecture | Linux

After 12 years working in Paris metropolitan area and 6 in Toronto in various companies ranging from early startups to big corporations, Greg decided to focus on his first passion, solving business problems with technology, simplifying what can be and learning every day. Carrying a broad scope of open source tools and programing techniques, he is always game for a new challenge.

Outside of work, Greg takes care of his partner and their three daughters, enjoys outdoors activities, discovering new places and enjoying an ale with good friends.

Sonja Zizek

Client Advocate | Ecosystem & Go-To-Market | Operations

Sonja has worked in IT Project Management for 15 years, with the last decade focused on the banking industry, consulting at four of Canada’s Big Five banks. She loves to use her organizational skills to lead projects to success, and her people skills ensure all stakeholders are happy.

At Arctiq, Sonja is focusing on these key areas:

• Providing world class project delivery with agile and modular approaches to accelerate effective project completion
• Driving Client and Partner engagement through focus on Arctiq’s Go-To-Market and Marketing initiatives
• Utilizing a continuous improvement approach to operations management and encouraging productivity

Outside of work, Sonja enjoys trying new Toronto restaurants with her husband, practicing yoga, all things cat related, going to concerts, planning upcoming travel, and karaoke with her friends.

Leo Gharapetian

DevOps | Architecture | Kubernetes

Leo brings 15+ years of experience in IT, consulting, and entrepreneurship - with a focus on startups. A striving minimalist, he values the simple things in life; time well shared with good friends over a delicious meal and wine, great conversation, exploring new ideas, and contributing to meaningful work. A lifelong learner and mentor, he volunteers his time to nonprofits and new grads in need of counsel.