EPISODE MMXXVI

A New Hire

It is a period of digital transformation. Rebel engineers, striking from hidden home offices, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Recruitment Agency.

During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Agency's ultimate weapon, the AUTOMATED LINKEDIN INMAIL, a mass-produced message with enough generic buzzwords to destroy an entire inbox.

Pursued by the Agency's sinister agents, one engineer races home aboard his standing desk, custodian of the stolen plans that can save his people and restore sanity to the hiring process...

CANDIDATE DOSSIER

NAME

Bas Franken

CURRENT TITLE

DevOps & AI Engineer at Cloudchamps

THREAT LEVEL

Will mass email the entire company on day one to introduce himself

LOCATION

Helmond, Netherlands. No, I will not relocate to "a vibrant tech hub"

SALARY EXPECTATIONS

Yes

CERTIFICATIONS

AZ-104: Azure Administrator Associate

AZ-305: Azure Solutions Architect Expert

Certified: I consider "reply all" a power move

SC-100: Cybersecurity Architect Expert

SC-300: Identity and Access Administrator Associate

AI-102: Azure AI Engineer Associate

Certified: I will mass revert your PR if the variable names aren't funny enough

MS-102: Microsoft 365 Administrator

PL-300: Power BI Data Analyst Associate

AZ-900, AI-900, SC-900, DP-900, PL-900, MS-900: Yes, all the fundamentals too

14 Microsoft certifications in total. I have a problem and I'm not seeking help.

TECH STACK

Azure (the entire ecosystem, even the parts Microsoft forgot about)

Terraform & Bicep

I mass delete production resources to feel alive

Azure DevOps & GitHub Actions

Python, TypeScript, PowerShell, Bash

Docker & Kubernetes

I take credit for other people's pipelines

LangGraph, LangChain, Claude API

Sentinel, Defender for Cloud, CIS Benchmarks

Microsoft Excel (this is a cry for help)

The coffee machine (Senior Barista, 8 years experience)

PROFESSIONAL STRENGTHS

Azure Landing Zones with Azure Verified Modules

CIS compliance baselines that auditors actually approve

I consider meetings my primary skill

CI/CD pipelines that don't break on Fridays

Making AI agents argue with each other about your cloud costs

I have strong opinions about tabs vs spaces and I WILL make it your problem

Reading the actual error message before Googling

Finding the one typo in a 2000-line Terraform plan at 4am

Blaming DNS before investigating (it's always DNS anyway)

WORK HISTORY HIGHLIGHTS

Migrated 400+ resources to Azure without downtime

Built multi-agent AI systems that work in production

I yell at interns to establish dominance (just kidding, I don't have interns, I AM the intern)

Implemented security baselines across 50+ subscriptions

Ran a sandwich shop (crisis management, customer-facing, food safety compliance is basically ISO 27001)

I once mass reverted an entire sprint because someone used Comic Sans in a dashboard

Twitch streamer (performing under pressure while strangers judge you, so basically standup meetings)

Survived 3 major Azure outages and only mass panicked once

WHAT I BRING TO YOUR TEAM

A mass sense of urgency about things that aren't urgent

Actual production experience with infrastructure at scale

I will eat your snacks

Deep knowledge of Azure security and compliance frameworks

I only work from the office if there's free food

Expertise in AI agent architectures (LangGraph, A2A, MCP)

A LinkedIn profile I haven't updated since the last recruiter annoyed me

The ability to say "it works on my machine" with complete confidence

REQUIREMENTS FOR YOUR "EXCITING OPPORTUNITY"

Don't say "competitive salary" and then offer below market

Don't say "fast-paced environment" when you mean understaffed

Don't say "we're like a family" because families don't do performance reviews

Don't call me a "rockstar" unless there is an actual stage

Don't send me a Java position because my CV says JavaScript

Do tell me the salary range. In the first message. I'm not playing guess-the-number.

Don't ask me to "hop on a quick call" that turns into 5 interview rounds and a take-home assignment

REFERENCES

None of them will back up my story

FINAL TRANSMISSION

If you've read this far, you're either genuinely interested or extremely bored at work. Either way, respect.

I'm available for interesting work with real technical challenges, a team that actually ships, and a company that doesn't name their meeting rooms "Innovation Hub" and "Disruption Lab."

Expected work-life balance: life.

basfrankenn@gmail.com

May the uptime be with you.

- END OF TRANSMISSION -