Cloud Engineer · Sydney, AU

Diego
Cruz

Learning, building, and experimenting in public.

I spend my days at the intersection of cloud infrastructure and curiosity — tinkering with Azure environments, chasing certifications, and writing down what I discover so the next person doesn't have to start from scratch.

Who I am

I'm a Cloud Engineer based in Sydney with over 8 years in IT infrastructure. My comfort zone is Microsoft Azure and M365, but I'm always reaching past the edges of what I already know — whether that's diving into networking architecture, exploring pre-sales engineering, or chasing a new certification.

This space is my public notebook. I use it to document experiments, share half-formed ideas, and keep myself accountable to the learning I say I'm doing.

When I'm not in the cloud, I'm probably running a home lab, watching football, or overcooking something on the BBQ.

Currently learning
AZ-700 GitHub GH-900 GitHub GH-300 Solutions Architecture
Stack
Azure Microsoft 365 Entra ID PowerShell Networking
Interests
Home Lab Pre-Sales Cloud Cost Optimisation

Experiments & Notes

Things I'm building, studying, or breaking — documented as I go.

In Progress

AZ-700 — Azure Network Engineer

Studying Azure networking concepts: VPN Gateways, ExpressRoute, Azure Firewall, DNS, Load Balancers, and Private Endpoints. Targeting certification by April 2026.

In Progress

GitHub Foundations (GH-900)

Building on my Azure background to add GitHub to the stack — repositories, Actions, Codespaces, and GitHub's security features.

Queued

GitHub Advanced Security (GH-300)

Next after GH-900 — code scanning, secret detection, dependency review, and security policy enforcement at scale.

Active

Home Network Lab

Running a home lab to practice networking concepts hands-on. Exploring Ubiquiti gear, VLANs, and replicating enterprise patterns at home scale.

Done

Azure Cost Optimisation Patterns

Notes on using Reservations, Hybrid Benefits, and rightsizing to reduce Azure spend — patterns I apply daily with customers at Ingram Micro.

Queued

AI-102 — Azure AI Engineer

Researching the path toward AI-102 as an extension of the Azure stack. Cognitive Services, Azure OpenAI, and responsible AI design.

Things on my mind

Half-formed ideas, opinions, and things worth writing down.

Why I'm learning in public

Accountability and serendipity. Writing things down forces you to actually understand them — and occasionally someone useful finds your notes.

The jump from admin to architect

What changes when you move from operating cloud environments to designing them? More than I expected.

CSP migrations: what nobody tells you

After hundreds of Azure CSP migrations, I've learned which gotchas will bite you and which fears are overblown.

More posts coming as I write them.