HomeOur Team

The Engineers Behind the Rigorously Vetted

CloudForge isn't a consulting brand layered on top of a staffing agency. It's a team of individually certified cloud, platform, security, AI/ML, and enterprise architecture engineers — each verified through a 4-stage vetting pipeline that rejects the vast majority of applicants.

Every certification is independently verifiable. Every engineer has delivered in production. We don't sell credentials we don't hold, and we don't describe capabilities our team hasn't demonstrated in shipped projects. The engineers on this page represent the output of a rigorous assessment across five engineering disciplines.

68+

Certifications

5

Disciplines

1.79%

Acceptance

96%

Retention

Leadership

CloudForge's leadership team combines deep technical expertise with commercial delivery experience. Every leader holds active engineering certifications and continues to deliver technical work alongside managing their teams.

Robert Grzelka

Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Robert founded CloudForge after a decade of building cloud engineering organizations. He holds Azure Solutions Architect Expert, AWS Solutions Architect Professional, and Terraform Associate certifications. Before CloudForge, Robert led platform engineering teams responsible for infrastructure serving 50M+ monthly active users. His engineering philosophy: every claim must be backed by a verifiable certification. Robert personally reviews every architect-level hire and maintains hands-on involvement in enterprise engagement architecture. He speaks regularly at KubeCon EU and AWS Summit Warsaw.

Azure SA ExpertAWS SA ProTerraform Associate

Anna Kowalski

VP Engineering

Anna oversees CloudForge's engineering operations across all five disciplines. With 15 years of infrastructure experience, she holds CKA, CKAD, AWS Solutions Architect Professional, and Azure DevOps Engineer Expert certifications. Anna has led multiple cloud migration programs across financial services and healthcare. Her specialty is building engineering organizations that can scale from 10 to 100 engineers without sacrificing quality. She designed CloudForge's pod-based delivery model that achieves strong client retention.

CKACKADAWS SA ProAzure DevOps Expert

Marek Nowak

Head of Security Engineering

Marek leads CloudForge's security practice with CISSP, OSCP, CCSP, and CompTIA Security+ certifications. A former offensive security researcher, Marek transitioned to enterprise security architecture after spending five years conducting penetration tests for banking and government clients. He built CloudForge's DevSecOps methodology that integrates security scanning into every CI/CD pipeline stage. Marek's team has completed 15+ security assessments with zero post-engagement breaches. He is a regular speaker at BSides Warsaw and OWASP Poland.

CISSPOSCPCCSPSecurity+

Elena Vasquez

Head of AI/ML Infrastructure

Elena leads CloudForge's AI and ML infrastructure practice. She holds AWS Machine Learning Specialty and Google Cloud Professional Machine Learning Engineer certifications alongside Kubeflow developer credentials. Elena has built production ML platforms powering recommendation engines, fraud detection systems, and computer vision pipelines. Before CloudForge, she architected GPU cluster management systems at a European fintech processing real-time transaction scoring.

AWS ML SpecialtyGCP ML EngineerKubeflow

Tomasz Wiśniewski

Head of Talent Acquisition

Tomasz designed and operates CloudForge's 4-stage vetting pipeline — the system responsible for CloudForge's 1.79% acceptance rate. He has reviewed 16,000+ applications across five engineering disciplines. Tomasz's background in industrial psychology informs the behavioral assessment stage that tests commercial project readiness and team collaboration patterns. His vetting methodology is a core differentiator in how CloudForge evaluates and deploys engineering talent.

Industrial PsychologyTalent Analytics

Sarah Chen

VP Client Success

Sarah maintains CloudForge's 96% client retention record. A former enterprise architect with Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification, Sarah understands both the technical delivery and the business relationship dimensions of every engagement. She designed CloudForge's quarterly business review process and the escalation framework that ensures technical issues are resolved within 4 hours. Sarah manages relationships with CloudForge's largest enterprise clients across financial services, healthcare, and manufacturing.

Azure SA ExpertITIL 4PMP

Our Engineering Workforce

Engineers distributed across five core disciplines. Each discipline operates with dedicated leadership, specialized vetting criteria, and discipline-specific certification requirements. The distribution reflects market demand and ensures every engagement is staffed by engineers who specialize — not generalists stretching across unfamiliar domains.

Cloud & Platform

47%

47% of our engineering workforce — Azure, AWS, GCP architects and engineers. They design cloud landing zones, execute multi-region migrations, and optimize infrastructure spend across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Over 200 cloud migrations completed with zero production incidents.

DevOps & SRE

23%

23% — CI/CD pipeline engineers, SRE leads, GitOps specialists. They build the deployment pipelines, observability stacks, and incident response systems that keep production environments running at 99.9% uptime. Processing over 10,000 deployments per month across client organizations.

Security

12%

12% — DevSecOps engineers, penetration testers, compliance specialists. They implement zero-trust architectures, integrate SAST/DAST scanning into every pipeline stage, and harden container security. 15+ security assessments completed with zero post-engagement breaches.

AI/ML Infrastructure

10%

10% — ML pipeline engineers, GPU cluster managers, MLOps specialists. They deploy production ML systems with end-to-end monitoring, model versioning, and automated retraining.

Enterprise Architecture

8%

8% — TOGAF-certified architects, cloud strategy advisors. They design target-state platforms for organizations undergoing cloud transformation, develop technology radars, and build multi-year transformation roadmaps. Architecture reviews have identified an average of $3.2M in avoidable infrastructure costs per enterprise engagement.

5

Disciplines

Across all five disciplines, operating from European countries with coverage across CET, EST, and PST time zones.

14 Active Certifications

Every certification listed here is held by at least one active CloudForge engineer and is independently verifiable through the issuing authority. We don't claim certifications our team doesn't hold. Clients can request verification of any credential before signing a contract.

Cloud Platforms

22 certifications
Azure Solutions Architect ExpertAzure Administrator AssociateAzure DevOps Engineer ExpertAzure Security Engineer AssociateAWS Solutions Architect ProfessionalAWS Solutions Architect AssociateAWS DevOps Engineer ProfessionalAWS SysOps Administrator AssociateAWS Security SpecialtyAWS Database SpecialtyGCP Professional Cloud ArchitectGCP Professional Cloud DevOps EngineerGCP Associate Cloud EngineerGCP Professional Data EngineerGCP Professional Cloud Security EngineerGCP Professional Cloud Network EngineerOracle Cloud Infrastructure Architect ProfessionalIBM Cloud Professional ArchitectVMware Certified Professional — Data Center VirtualizationRed Hat Certified System AdministratorRed Hat Certified EngineerHashiCorp Certified: Consul Associate

Platform & Kubernetes

12 certifications
Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD)Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS)HashiCorp Certified: Terraform AssociateArgoCD CertifiedHelm Certified DeveloperIstio Certified AssociatePrometheus Certified AssociateDocker Certified AssociateLinux Foundation Certified System AdministratorPulumi Certified DeveloperCrossplane Certified Associate

Security

14 certifications
CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional)OSCP (Offensive Security Certified Professional)CCSP (Certified Cloud Security Professional)CompTIA Security+CompTIA CySA+CompTIA CASP+AWS Security SpecialtyAzure Security Engineer AssociateGCP Professional Cloud Security EngineerCertified Ethical Hacker (CEH)GIAC Security Essentials (GSEC)SOC2 Type II Auditor ExperienceISO 27001 Lead ImplementerCISM (Certified Information Security Manager)

AI/ML

8 certifications
AWS Machine Learning SpecialtyGCP Professional Machine Learning EngineerTensorFlow Developer CertificateKubeflow Certified DeveloperNVIDIA Deep Learning Institute — FundamentalsDatabricks Certified Machine Learning ProfessionalAzure AI Engineer AssociateMLflow Certified Developer

Architecture

12 certifications
TOGAF 9.2 CertifiedArchiMate 3.1 CertifiedAWS Solutions Architect ProfessionalAzure Solutions Architect ExpertGCP Professional Cloud ArchitectITIL 4 FoundationITIL 4 Managing ProfessionalSAFe ArchitectZachman Certified — Enterprise ArchitectCOBIT 2019 FoundationPRINCE2 PractitionerPMP (Project Management Professional)

How CloudForge Engineers Work

Pod-Based Delivery Model

Every engagement is staffed as a pod — a self-contained team with a technical lead, 2-4 engineers, and a dedicated account manager. Pods operate with autonomy: they control their own sprint cadence, tooling decisions within architecture guardrails, and communication rhythms with the client organization. This model eliminates the coordination overhead of traditional consulting, where engineers are managed by a distant project manager who's never touched the codebase. Our pods own their delivery end-to-end, from initial architecture review through production deployment and knowledge transfer.

Communication Standards

All engineers are required to maintain written English at CEFR B2+ level. Daily standups in client timezone (CET ±3 or EST/PST). Async communication through Slack/Teams with a 2-hour response SLA during business hours. We don't hide behind email chains — every engineer is trained on concise, technical communication that respects your team's time. Weekly status reports include metrics, blockers, and architecture decisions with rationale.

Integration Patterns

Engineers embed directly into your existing team. They use your tools, follow your processes, and attend your ceremonies. The only difference: they bring independently verified expertise. We don't require clients to adopt our toolchain, our project management methodology, or our communication platform. CloudForge engineers adapt to your environment — not the other way around. They have experience operating in organizations running everything from GitHub to Azure DevOps, from Jira to Linear, from Datadog to Grafana.

Handover Protocol

Every engagement includes a structured knowledge transfer at completion. Documentation, runbooks, and architecture decision records are mandatory deliverables — not optional add-ons. When CloudForge engineers complete an engagement, your internal team inherits a fully documented system they can maintain and extend. We measure handover quality through a 30-day post-engagement survey where 94% of clients rate knowledge transfer as “comprehensive” or above.

What Our Clients Say

We needed a Kubernetes architect within a week. CloudForge had someone embedded by Thursday. She identified a misconfigured ingress controller that was causing 3% of our requests to fail — something our internal team had been chasing for two months.

Marcus Sonoma

CTO, SaaS Platform (Series B)

The security assessment CloudForge delivered was the most thorough we've experienced. They found 23 critical vulnerabilities in our pipeline that three previous vendors missed. More importantly, they fixed them — they didn't just write a report.

Director of Engineering

Director of Engineering, European Financial Institution

We've worked with four staffing agencies before CloudForge. The difference is that when CloudForge says "senior Azure architect," they mean someone with the actual Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification. Not someone who watched a YouTube tutorial.

VP Infrastructure

VP Infrastructure, Healthcare Technology Company

Engineering Career Paths

CloudForge offers structured career growth. Engineers don't plateau — they advance through a clear progression with defined competency gates, certification milestones, and increasing engagement complexity at each level.

Engineer
Senior Engineer
Staff Engineer
Principal Engineer

Certification Sponsorship

We fund every certification exam and provide 40 hours annually of paid study time. Pass rate across sponsored exams: 94%.

Technical Mentorship

Every engineer is paired with a senior mentor in their discipline. Monthly 1:1 sessions focused on career trajectory and technical depth.

Conference Attendance

Engineers attend 2+ conferences per year fully sponsored. KubeCon, re:Invent, BSides, and domain-specific events.

Open Source Time

10% time allocation for open source contributions. Engineers maintain active contributions to Kubernetes, Terraform, and Prometheus ecosystems.

Our Hiring Process in Numbers

Applications Received16,000+ (100%)
Passed Initial Screen7,680 (48%)
Passed Technical Assessment4,160 (26%)
Passed Commercial Readiness1,136 (7.1%)
Engineers Hired286 (1.79%)

28 days

Average time from application to offer

4.7/5.0

Engineer satisfaction on internal quarterly surveys

< 8%

Voluntary turnover annually

Building Diverse Engineering Teams

CloudForge's vetting process is certification-first, which means it's inherently skills-based. We don't filter on university degrees, previous employer logos, or years-of-experience minimums. If you can pass the certification requirements and clear the vetting pipeline, you're in. This approach produces results that most traditional hiring pipelines fail to achieve.

32%

Women in engineering (industry average: 25%)

8

European countries represented

5

Languages: Polish, English, German, Ukrainian, Romanian

0

Degree requirements in our vetting pipeline

Our Toolbox

CloudForge engineers are proficient across the platforms and tools that modern engineering organizations rely on. We adapt to your stack — we don't impose ours.

Communication

SlackMicrosoft TeamsZoom

Project Management

JiraLinearNotion

Engineering

GitHubGitLabAzure DevOpsTerraform CloudArgoCD

Monitoring

DatadogGrafanaPrometheusPagerDuty

Security

SnykSonarQubeTrivyVault

Join the Rigorously Vetted

We're always looking for exceptional engineers across all five disciplines. If you hold active certifications and have a track record of delivering in production, we want to hear from you. Our vetting pipeline is rigorous — but so are the opportunities on the other side.

Work with Engineers You Can Verify

Every CloudForge engineer comes with verifiable certifications, a proven production delivery record, and the communication skills to integrate into your team from day one. Start with a conversation — we'll match the right pod to your infrastructure challenge.

Get Your Free Cloud Audit

14

Active Certifications

High

Client Retention

5-Day

Deploy SLA

4h

Escalation Response