SkilledUp Life

Simon Essien

Location: Oredo, Nigeria
Title: DevSecOps Engineer

I am a DevSecOps Engineer and an experienced Slack Administrator specializing in optimizing infrastructure, securing environments, and automating deployment workflows. I bridge the gap between team communication and technical operations. I am highly collaborative, structured, and driven by system efficiency. My goal is to help tech startups secure their digital assets, streamline internal communications, and build resilient pipelines that support rapid business scaling.

Skills

Video Pitch

About Me

Career Path and Aspirations

My career is built on system administration, cloud infrastructure, and security automation. As a Slack Administrator, I have designed secure workspace permissions, managed strict identity access controls, and integrated continuous delivery alerts to optimize operations. My established career path is DevSecOps engineering, focusing on CI/CD pipeline security, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), and automated vulnerability scanning. My aspiration is to scale into senior architectural roles where I lead the security strategy for high-growth tech platforms. I aim to ensure that companies can deploy software at lightning speed without ever exposing their data or infrastructure to vulnerabilities.

Ideal Volunteer Opportunity

My ideal volunteer opportunity is a strategic role within a tech startup where I can add immediate value to operational workflows while expanding my enterprise tech portfolio. I am looking for a position where I can audit system access, optimize internal Slack communications, and build automated ChatOps pipelines. While I am fully capable of supporting data research and capture initiatives to help the business grow, my ideal environment is one that allows me to step up and resolve technical bottlenecks, secure infrastructure gaps, and collaborate with the engineering team to safeguard company assets. 🚀

Education

Miva University

Expected Graduation: May 2025

Through my Cybersecurity degree at Miva Open University, I am developing a strong foundation in protecting digital assets, managing risk, and securing enterprise networks. My studies cover core security principles, including data privacy compliance, risk assessment, network architecture security, and identity and access management. I am learning how to analyze system vulnerabilities, monitor network traffic for potential threats, and apply security frameworks to safeguard infrastructure. This academic training directly complements my practical technical skills, giving me a deeper theoretical understanding of how to detect anomalies, configure access controls, and maintain system integrity. The flexible structure of the program allows me to actively translate these security concepts into real-world administrative and engineering tasks.

Experience

Slack Admin

Kubernetes
Duration: Feb 2026 - Present

APIsec Ambassador

APIsec U
Duration: Feb 2025 - Present

As an APIsec Ambassador, I actively engage with the application security community and promote best practices for securing API endpoints. During my time in this role, I have had the opportunity to test early access features and evaluate development platforms. A key milestone was locating a technical vulnerability within their beta application, which I systematically documented and reported to the security team for remediation. This hands-on experience allowed me to apply my DevSecOps and vulnerability assessment skills to a live environment, focusing on threat mitigation and application security testing. Through this position, I have deepened my knowledge of the OWASP API Top 10 vulnerabilities, sharpened my code auditing abilities, and learned how to identify critical security flaws in software architectures before they move to production.

Achievements

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