Solutions Architect

Patrik Polyak

I've managed some of the largest GitHub deployments in Europe, advising enterprise organisations through their hardest DevOps, cloud, AI, and security challenges.

Based in Stockholm, Sweden

Patrik Polyak — portrait

About

A generalist mindset with depth, built over a decade of advising enterprise organisations

I'm a Stockholm-based IT professional with over a decade of experience supporting and advising enterprise organisations through complex technical challenges.

I bring a generalist mindset with depth: comfortable across cloud platforms, DevOps practices, security, observability, and enterprise architecture. I think in systems, communicate in plain language, and focus on outcomes that last.

Through personal projects, I'm actively exploring AI- and agentic-first development, a genuine force multiplier that needs to be deployed with the right governance behind it. Helping organisations get that right is what I'm here for.

Experience

A decade of enterprise practice

  1. 2021 — 2026

    Senior Customer Reliability Engineer

    GitHub / Microsoft · Stockholm (Remote)

    Managed a portfolio of major European enterprise accounts, including some of the largest GitHub deployments in the world, as a trusted technical advisor across on-premise (GHES) and cloud (GHEC) infrastructure, architecture, and operations.Grew from solving technical problems to shaping how organisations think about them, bridging engineering, account, and customer teams to drive outcomes at enterprise scale.

    Portfolio: $19M+ ARR, 96k users, Individual CSAT: 4.89
  2. 2017 — 2021

    Senior Support Engineer

    Vizrt · Stockholm

    Supported global broadcast customers running mission-critical Vizrt Media Asset Management software on distributed on-premise Linux environments.Developed deep technical intuition for performance, reliability, and the cost of failure in systems that cannot go down.

    Individual NPS: 83, survey response rate: 26%
  3. 2012 — 2015

    IT Consultant

    T-Systems Hungary · Budapest

    Supported the rollout and live operation of Budapest's public transit information system (FUTÁR) for the Centre for Budapest Transport.First hands-on experience with mission-critical infrastructure, real users, and the realities of keeping complex systems running around the clock.

Education

  • Stockholm University
    MSc Information Systems Management · 2015 — 2018
  • Corvinus University of Budapest
    BSc Business Information Technology · 2010 — 2015

Skills

What I bring to the table

A scannable overview of where I'm comfortable working. Not exhaustive. The depth shows up in conversation.

Cloud & Infrastructure

  • AWS
  • Azure
  • Linux
  • Docker
  • Kubernetes
  • Nomad
  • HAProxy
  • Nginx
  • Redis
  • Memcached
  • TCP/IP
  • Elasticsearch
  • High Availability
  • Disaster Recovery

GitHub Platform

  • GitHub Enterprise Server (GHES)
  • GitHub Enterprise Cloud (GHEC)
  • GitHub Apps
  • GitHub Copilot
  • GitHub Well-Architected Framework
  • Enterprise & Organization Policies

DevSecOps & CI/CD

  • GitHub Actions
  • Dependabot
  • GitHub Advanced Security
  • Secret scanning
  • Code scanning
  • Supply chain security
  • Audit logs

Identity & Access Management

  • SAML 2.0
  • OpenID Connect (OIDC)
  • SCIM
  • Entra ID (Azure AD)
  • Enterprise Managed Users (EMU)
  • SSL/TLS Certificate Management

Observability & Performance

  • Splunk
  • Azure Data Explorer
  • Grafana
  • Datadog
  • RRDTool
  • Performance Tuning
  • Capacity Planning

Data & Storage

  • MySQL
  • MSSQL
  • REST APIs
  • GraphQL APIs
  • Webhooks
  • MCP Servers

Programming

  • Git
  • Shell Scripting
  • Python
  • Ruby
  • Go
  • SQL
  • Agentic Development

Advisory & Customer Success

  • Technical Account Management
  • Executive Communication
  • Escalation & Crisis Management
  • Business Reviews
  • Enterprise Architecture
  • Enablement

Certifications

  • AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (2021)
  • AWS Solutions Architect — Associate (2021)
  • IABM Advanced Broadcast IP Networks for Engineers (2021)

Selected Work

Real engagements

A few highlights from recent enterprise work.

Case 01

Global Manufacturing Conglomerate

40,000+ GitHub Enterprise Server users across global operations

  • Advised on HA architecture best practices and co-designed a pragmatic alternative aligned to actual infrastructure constraints, ensuring long-term platform performance.
  • Coordinated complex GHES upgrade cycles and infrastructure migration initiatives across multiple critical environments, with a strong focus on maintaining uptime throughout.
  • Analysed and streamlined backup procedures to satisfy disaster recovery requirements, establishing clear RPO and RTO targets.
  • Continuous efforts led to a highly available, reliable, and robust platform — one the organisation could depend on at scale.
Case 02

Consumer Goods Manufacturer

GitHub Enterprise Cloud

  • Navigated a supply chain incident and trust breakdown to rebuild and strengthen a damaged customer relationship.
  • Led a comprehensive review of enterprise policies and security posture in alignment with the GitHub Well-Architected Framework.
  • Delivered actionable security improvements covering audit log forwarding, Dependabot configuration, token scoping, and PAT-to-GitHub-App migration.
  • Identified the disconnect between technical reality and management perception, and proposed structural improvements to align better going forward.
Case 03

Cross-customer initiative

GitHub Enterprise Server Performance & Scaling

  • Identified a recurring pattern of GHES performance and scaling challenges across the enterprise customer portfolio.
  • Contributed to develop dedicated tooling to increase support and administrator observability over instance performance.
  • Authored a holistic framework for GHES performance and scaling conversations, including a comprehensive review of available tooling.
  • Presented findings to an internal audience and the framework was adopted across the team and applied to multiple enterprise accounts.

Beyond Work

Things I love outside of work

Bouldering

Reading the problem from the ground, piecing together beta move by move, then throwing everything at the send. Equal parts physical and mental, the problem-solving mindset transfers surprisingly well.

3D Printing

My main creative outlet: designing an idea, printing it, and iterating until it's exactly right. Currently sharing an NFC keychain project on GitHub.

See the project on GitHub

Puzzles

Strategy games, crosswords, escape rooms. Any good puzzle. Working backwards from clues to a solution feels a lot like debugging a tricky system.

Contact

Let's start a conversation.

Whether you're hiring for a senior role or looking for a trusted advisor on a complex engagement, I'd love to hear from you.