Tony Rouillard

Rakuten Group, Inc. is a global technology leader offering more than 70 services and over 2 billion members worldwide. The group has more than 30,000 employees and operates in 30 countries and regions. I was promoted from Java Technical Team Lead to Vice Manager, with an Architect role. I supported multiple teams, with up to: - 4 development teams (15 onsite, 10 offshore) - 3 product managers - 2 project managers As an architect, my responsibilities included: - Requirements gathering and analysis - Promoting the architecture roadmap / transition strategy - Writing ADRs (Architecture Decision Records) - Writing and maintaining architecture principles - Verifying deliverables’ compliance with the designed architecture - Technical feasibility studies for business needs - Supporting technical/business projects throughout the full project lifecycle - Mapping existing systems and migrating to the target solution - Server cost optimization - Improving observability (logs, metrics, traces) - Supporting technical teams (1:1s, objectives, upskilling) - Communication with all stakeholders (50 clients, 40 backend teams, infra teams) - Ensuring smooth execution of Rakuten Super Sale events - Production monitoring, including Grafana, ELK, and Alertmanager - Bug analysis process, fix tracking, and handling sensitive topics Context: Modernization and operation of a high-traffic cloud-native application, with requirements for resilience, observability, performance, and business continuity. Role: Architect / cross-functional Cloud lead (strategic + operational), interfacing with Infrastructure, Security, SRE, application teams, and platform teams (LB/CDN). Collaboration: ~50 client teams, ~40 backend teams, infra teams (IaaS/CaaS/LBaaS/CDN/EaaS/MonaaS/TAM/Cyber). Technical environment: - Runtime / App: Java 21, Redis - Kubernetes / Mesh: Kubernetes, Istio Gateway - Observability: Prometheus, Grafana, Filebeat (sidecar), ELK - Network / LB: multi-AZ, IPVS/HAProxy, GSLB - CDN: Akamai, Fastly - Security: TLS requirements / audits / Cyber collaboration - FinOps: server cost management / reduction strategy Summary of contributions: - Defined resilience patterns (circuit breakers, traffic limiting) to prevent cascading failures. - Designed a landing zone (governance, infra coordination) and associated architecture standards. - Implemented a multi-AZ HA/BCP strategy (4 Kubernetes clusters) and contributed to DR strategies. - Led CI/CD practices and the canary deployment strategy via Istio Gateway. - Implemented responsiveness-focused observability: executive Grafana dashboards + low-noise alerting strategy. - Prepared and secured very high-load events (Rakuten Super Sale): estimation, readiness checklist, performance tests, incident process. Detailed achievements: 1. Platform architecture & landing zone - Designed the landing zone on Rakuten Cloud: framing, coordination, and follow-up with the infrastructure team. - Wrote/maintained Technical Architecture Documents (DAT) and ADRs to formalize architecture decisions and trade-offs (cost/security/performance). - Halved server costs (savings of €200k+ per month). - Architecture reviews and migration advisory (50 clients in 6 months). - Designed and migrated a middleware capable of supporting 100k requests per second. 2. Network, traffic & exposure - Designed the multi-AZ load balancer with the LBaaS team. - Defined the domain name strategy (with the TAM team). - CDN collaboration (Akamai/Fastly): established a communication format and aligned TLS certificates between CDN settings and the load balancer. 3. Resilience, BCP & DR (Business Continuity Plan & Disaster Recovery) - Implemented circuit breakers to limit the impact of cascading failures. - Designed a traffic limiter to strengthen resilience (with the enterprise architect). - Designed BCP redundancy: multi-AZ, 4 Kubernetes clusters. - Risk management and preventive measures, including DR strategy design. 4. CI/CD & deployment strategy - Led CI/CD strategies, balancing speed and security. - Defined the canary deployment strategy via Istio Gateway (progressive rollout, rollback-ready, risk control). 5. Observability & responsiveness - Built a Grafana “Overview” dashboard enabling immediate health validation (global max CPU, filtered response times, multi-layer views: app, Istio GW, IPVS/HAProxy, GSLB…), providing an “all green” status view in 1 second for executives. - Deployed similar dashboards to support other teams. - Implemented an alerting strategy minimizing noise (useful signal, reduced false positives). 6. Performance, functional validation & readiness - Designed application performance tests on the target infrastructure. - Designed a Shadow Traffic Comparator to ensure business equivalence between the legacy and the new application (continuous tool during final QA E2E). - Prepared Rakuten Super Sale events: traffic estimation, readiness checklist, multi-party coordination. 7. Security & audits - Collaborated with Security/Cyber teams during audits (controls review, requirements, remediations). 8. Support & governance (SRE / teams) - Defined the production incident management process: roles & responsibilities, troubleshooting, bug analysis, countermeasures. - Supported technical teams and provided cross-functional support for Cloud adoption/migration. Skills: Cost optimization, SLA/SLO/MTTR, Concurrent programming, Systems design, Software observability, Microservices, Kubernetes, Docker, Jenkins, Prometheus, Incident management, Team facilitation, Circuit breaker, Large-scale projects, Agile methods, Teamwork, Complex systems, Collaborative problem solving, Management, Datadog, Spring Framework, Performance optimization, Reactive programming, Data structures, Web services, Interpersonal communication, Team mentoring, Resilience engineering, Software development, Team management, Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, Redis, Spring Cloud, JUnit, Java 21, Critical thinking, Istio Gateway, Artificial intelligence, Risk management, Technical leadership.

I was promoted from Senior Engineer to Team Lead, with a Tech Lead role. I was responsible for a team of: - 4 on-site developers - 4 offshore developers As a Tech Lead, my responsibilities included: - Gathering and analyzing requirements with product owners. - Writing and maintaining architecture patterns and principles. - Validating and recording architecture decisions (ADR). - Ensuring deliverable compliance with the designed architecture. - Assessing the technical feasibility of business requirements with product owners. - Managing technical and business projects across the full project lifecycle. - Optimizing server costs. - Communicating with all stakeholders (10 clients, 40 backends, infrastructure teams). - Ensuring the smooth execution of Rakuten Super Sales. - Production monitoring and supervision, including Grafana, ELK, and Alertmanager. I contributed to the following impacts: - Migration from a monolith to a cloud-native middleware, enabling 8x higher throughput thanks to reactive programming. - Major reduction in server costs, saving tens of millions of yen per month. - Launch of the “Zero Bug” initiative, reducing defects found by the QA team to near zero. - Improvement of the traffic estimation process for Rakuten Super Sales, providing full client-to-backend traceability. Here is the link of the e-commerce Rakuten Japan : https://www.rakuten.co.jp Domain: E-commerce Context: Incident Management, Large-scale Projects, Complex Systems, Management, Concurrent Programming, Data Structures, Interpersonal Communication, Kubernetes, Team Management, Java, Critical Thinking, Software Engineering, Zero-Bug, Systems Design, Problem Solving, Technical Leadership, Communication, Java 11, SonarQube, IntelliJ IDEA, Risk Management, Spring WebFlux, Netty, Agile, Scrum.

I joined the e-commerce middleware development team to strengthen system resilience. Within a 5-person team: - 1 team lead - 4 developers As a Senior Java Software Engineer, my responsibilities included: - Gathering and analyzing requirements with product owners. - Assessing the technical feasibility of business needs in collaboration with product owners. - Developing business features end-to-end, from analysis to production deployment. - Monitoring circuit breaker states in production (Hystrix, Turbine). - Implementing fault-tolerant designs and fail-fast strategies, while maximizing the use of available system resources. I contributed to the following impacts: - Implementation of a circuit breaker to prevent cascading failures. - Isolation of backend failures to allow partial successes. - Improved client-to-backend traceability on the monolith. Domain: e-commerce Context: Circuit Breaker, Complex Systems, Concurrent Programming, Reactive Programming, Data Structures, Interpersonal Communication, Kubernetes, Critical Thinking, Spring WebFlux, Netty, Software Engineering, Software Observability, Performance Testing, Jenkins, Problem Solving, Communication, Java 11, SonarQube, IntelliJ IDEA, Agile, Scrum.

Through Groupe SII (permanent contract), I worked on the STATOS project for DGAC/DSNA from SII offices. The Direction générale de l’aviation civile (DGAC) is responsible for the safety and security of French air transport. DGAC managed approximately 3.4 million flights in 2023. Founded in 1946, it employs around 10,000 staff across its various departments. Within a 4-person team: - 1 tech lead - 1 architect - 2 developers As a Java EE Software Engineer, my responsibilities included: - Swing and JSF development. - Web Services and EJB3 development. - ORM implementation using Hibernate. I contributed to the following impacts: - Development of an application ingesting detected flights by geographic area. Domain: Aeronautics Context: Databases, Hibernate, ORM, Complex Systems, Concurrent Programming, Data Structures, Interpersonal Communication, Java, Critical Thinking, Java Enterprise Edition, Software Engineering, Problem Solving, Communication, JSF, Swing, WS, Web Services, EJB, EJB3.

Through SII (permanent contract), I worked on the INCA project for DGAC/DSNA/DTI from SII offices. Within a 3-person team: - 1 tech lead - 1 analyst/developer - 1 developer As a Java EE Analyst & Software Engineer, my responsibilities included: - Requirements analysis and effort estimation. - Development and non-regression testing. - Client communication. I contributed to the following impacts: - Development of a system for recording and managing safety reports. Domain: Aeronautics Context: Databases, Hibernate, ORM, Tomcat, Complex Systems, Concurrent Programming, Data Structures, Interpersonal Communication, Java, Critical Thinking, Java Enterprise Edition, Java EE, Software Engineering, Problem Solving, Communication, JSF, Swing, WS, Web Services, Spring, Java Spring, Tomcat.