João Gilberto Magalhães
Windsor,Canada
Summary
Accomplished technology executive and DevOps leader with over 30 years of experience in architecting and scaling high-availability platforms across the iGaming, e-commerce, and SaaS industries. Renowned for expertise in Kubernetes, cloud infrastructure (AWS, DigitalOcean, Oracle Cloud), CI/CD automation, observability, and secure software delivery. As Founder and CTO at KingPanda and through previous roles at Skip The Dishes and Rivalry, as well as serving as CTO of Brazilian unicorn MaxMilhas, consistently demonstrated the ability to combine strategic leadership with deep technical skills. Adept at bridging architecture, operations, and software engineering to enhance performance and drive significant business growth.
Overview
15
15
years of professional experience
Work History
Founder & CTO
KingPanda
03.2024 - Current
- Architected and launched the KingPanda iGaming platform from scratch—containerized core services with Kubernetes and RabbitMQ.
- Implemented CI/CD pipelines, monitoring, and observability standards that enabled continuous delivery with zero-downtime deployments.
- Led the technology team and data strategy, optimizing cloud spend and defining KPIs for growth and player retention.
- Created core APIs in PHP and implemented data replication and caching strategies for high traffic loads.
Senior DevOps Engineer
Rivalry Ltd.
07.2021 - 02.2024
- Introduced DevOps culture and IaC standards across teams.
- Migrated legacy apps from VMs to Kubernetes, built MySQL replication and disaster-recovery pipelines.
- Centralized monitoring/logging stack with Prometheus + Loki + Grafana + Alertmanager.
- Automated critical deployments and trained developers on container and CI/CD best practices.
Senior DevOps Engineer
Skip The Dishes
07.2018 - 07.2021
- Maintained shared infrastructure (AWS ECS, RabbitMQ, RDS, Memcached).
- Re-engineered CI/CD system with Terraform + Ansible + Docker—migrated 200 + repos to Jenkins Pipelines on Kubernetes without downtime.
- Led the DevOps Incubator program for new hires; responsible for training and infra readiness.
- Contributed to Global Reference Architecture (UK/CA) adopting Kubernetes and microservices.
Consultant
Audima Inc.
03.2017 - 03.2018
- Built Docker/Rancher infra, CI/CD pipelines, and DB versioning for PHP apps.
- Automated testing and microservices deployment; administered Elasticsearch and Beanstalkd.
CTO
MaxMilhas S/A
08.2014 - 12.2016
- Re-architected platform and infra, reducing costs and improving performance by 40%.
- Led software and infra teams (25 + people); introduced DevOps tooling and process standardization.
e-Commerce Manager
Peixe Urbano
07.2010 - 11.2012
- Built multi-acquirer payment gateway for LATAM operations; enabled 10 × sales growth.
- Reduced fraud by 95 % and maintained > 88 % approval rate through resilient architecture.
Education
Postgraduate - Computer Networks
University of Salvador
01.2006
B.Sc. - Computer Science
Catholic University of Salvador
01.2003
Skills
- Cloud & Infra: AWS (ECS, EKS, EC2, Lambda, RDS), DigitalOcean, Oracle Cloud, Terraform, Ansible, Cloudflare Zero Trust
- Containers & Orchestration: Docker, Kubernetes, Podman, Helm, MicroK8s, Docker Swarm
- CI/CD & Automation: Jenkins Pipelines, GitHub Actions, Bitbucket Pipelines
- Programming: PHP (8), Python, Nodejs, Bash, Go (basic)
- Databases & Messaging: MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Elasticsearch, RabbitMQ, Redis
- Observability: NewRelic, Prometheus, Grafana, Fluent Bit, CloudWatch
- Security & Networking: WireGuard, Zero Trust Access, VPN, TLS/ACME, Bastion SSH
- Infrastructure as Code: Terraform, Ansible, Dockerfile, Compose
- Leadership & Strategy: CTO experience in startup and scale-up environments; team mentorship and process evangelism
- Team leadership
- Strategic thinking
- Entrepreneurial and innovative
SPEAKING & COMMUNITY
- DevFest Winnipeg (2019) — Intro to Kubernetes
- Prairie Dev Con (2019) — Use Case: Migrating to Jenkins Pipelines
- PHP Conference Brazil & local meetups — Cloud, API Design, and Automation talks
Languages
English
Professional Working
Timeline
Founder & CTO
KingPanda
03.2024 - Current
Senior DevOps Engineer
Rivalry Ltd.
07.2021 - 02.2024
Senior DevOps Engineer
Skip The Dishes
07.2018 - 07.2021
Consultant
Audima Inc.
03.2017 - 03.2018
CTO
MaxMilhas S/A
08.2014 - 12.2016
e-Commerce Manager
Peixe Urbano
07.2010 - 11.2012
B.Sc. - Computer Science
Catholic University of Salvador
Postgraduate - Computer Networks
University of Salvador