Dimitrios Kounalakis
Heraklion
Summary
Engineering Manager with 20+ years of experience spanning DevOps, SRE, and infrastructure, and over 5 years leading distributed engineering teams in SaaS environments. Currently managing two cross-regional teams (13 engineers) at Sitecore, driving CI/CD modernization, multi-region observability, and reliability improvements across a global multi-tenant SaaS platform. Previously led a 6-engineer team at Niometrics/Mobileum, partnering with account managers, TPMs, and enterprise customers across APAC and EMEA to deliver high-value integrations and optimizations of network analytics products. Skilled at aligning engineering execution with business strategy, mentoring engineers, and fostering collaboration across product, security, and operations teams. Proven ability to scale platforms, improve reliability by up to 70%, and enable faster, more predictable delivery for customers and stakeholders.
Seasoned Engineering Manager adept at seamlessly integrating project technical aspects and making information relatable to non-technical personnel. Experienced leader and program manager with [Number]-year history in field. Clear communicator, decision maker and problem solver.
Overview
34
34
years of professional experience
3
3
Certifications
2
2
Languages
Work History
Engineering Manager
Sitecore
04.2022 - Current
- Current role: DevOps Engineering Manager and Systems Architect with Sitecore.
- Lead two distributed teams (13 engineers across Greece, Ukraine, and Sri Lanka) covering platform design, implementation, and operational support.
- Drive strategic alignment between engineering execution and business objectives in a global, multi-tenant SaaS environment.
- Modernized CI/CD strategy, reducing deployment time by 75% and significantly improving developer productivity.
- Designed and implemented multi-region observability on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), increasing uptime by 70% and standardizing monitoring practices across microservices.
- Established reliability practices (SLIs/SLOs, incident response, cost optimization) that improved service reliability by 60%.
- Foster a culture of accountability and growth through 1:1 coaching, mentorship, and knowledge-sharing initiatives.
Senior Manager
Niometrics
04.2020 - 04.2022
- Company Overview: (acquired by Mobileum in June 2021)
- Managed a team of 6 engineers delivering mobile network monitoring and analytics solutions across APAC and EMEA.
- Collaborated with account managers, TPMs, and enterprise customers to integrate and optimize multi-tenant SaaS products.
- Drove high-level design decisions, site reviews, and performance evaluations, providing custom tuning per customer.
- Served as the primary technical interface between customers and internal teams, accelerating integration success and strengthening relationships.
- Supported the company’s security incident response team, ensuring platform resilience.
Research Associate / DevOps Engineer
Colorado State University
07.2016 - 08.2020
- Design and implementation of a framework for implementing a DDoS detection/mitigation system
- Participated in the design and the implementation of a zero-loss fast packet capture tool for high speed networks (100/Gbps bi-directional traffic) using Golang
- Implemented a hybrid storage for network trace data
- Designed and implemented a multi-tenant framework for the analysis of network traces at real-time
Research Associate / DevOps Engineer
Crete Center for Quantum Complexity and Nanotechnology
09.2013 - 08.2016
- Designed, implemented and maintained a 50-node (CPU/GP-GPU) linux-based High Performance Computing facility for the research project «Crete Center for Quantum Complexity and Nanotechnology» (FP7-REGPOT-2012-2013-1).
- Code optimization and performance monitoring
- Provisioning and configuration the HPC facility nodes
- Implementation of priority queues with automatic code instrumentation
Systems Administrator/ DevOps Engineer
University of Crete & Institute of High Energy Physics
09.1997 - 08.2016
- Company Overview: (1997-2003)
- L3 support
- Design, deployment and maintenance of infrastructure services
- Network maintenance
- Provide centralized services (e-Mail, DNS, Identification/Authorization services, VPN etc.)
Systems Administrator
University of Crete
09.1991 - 08.1997
- Tier/Level 1 to Tier/Level 3 support including design, installation, implementation, support, and administration of LAN network services, AIX, IBM VM/CMS, DEC server machines, SUN workstations and X-Terminals and desktop PCs.
Education
MSc - Informatics
Hellenic Mediterranean University
BSc - Physics
University of Crete
Skills
Engineering leadership & people management (teams up to 13 engineers)
Certification
Microsoft Azure Administrator (November 2023)
Timeline
Engineering Manager
Sitecore
04.2022 - Current
Senior Manager
Niometrics
04.2020 - 04.2022
Research Associate / DevOps Engineer
Colorado State University
07.2016 - 08.2020
Research Associate / DevOps Engineer
Crete Center for Quantum Complexity and Nanotechnology
09.2013 - 08.2016
Systems Administrator/ DevOps Engineer
University of Crete & Institute of High Energy Physics
09.1997 - 08.2016
Systems Administrator
University of Crete
09.1991 - 08.1997
BSc - Physics
University of Crete
MSc - Informatics
Hellenic Mediterranean University