I operate what I design
Advice from someone who has never been paged at 3am is theory. Both of my products run on infrastructure I maintain myself, which is why I am careful about what I recommend.
About
I am Alexandru Budurovici, a senior technical lead and cloud architect based in Zurich. Fifteen-plus years building software, founding companies, and shipping products. I still write code and operate what I build.
I started in Madrid. I launched Videouri, a video search product built from scratch, and internal tooling that cut a logistics company's budget prep from half a day to minutes. I also helped run hackathons and coworking communities there.
In the UK I co-founded a startup doing public-sector cloud work. We were among the first teams putting AWS into production in that context.
Then seven years at Cloudreach, architecting and delivering enterprise cloud programmes for UBS, BP, Unilever, and Schneider Electric.
Since the end of 2024 I have been building and operating my own products.
How I work
Positions, not preferences
What I hold to, and what I will not do.
Architecture decisions before code
I would rather spend a week on the tenancy model than retrofit it in year two. The most expensive mistakes I have watched teams make were all committed before the first line of application code.
Boring infrastructure wins
I optimise for systems that can be left alone for a week. Anything needing routine manual intervention gets automated or removed. Quiet on-call is a design outcome, not luck.
End to end, or not at all
Schema, billing, infrastructure, frontend, deployment. I have run the whole chain alone on my own products and at portfolio scale for UBS, BP, Unilever, and Schneider Electric. Architecture that stops at the diagram is not architecture.
What I turn down
Greenfield rewrites of systems that currently work. Kubernetes for three services. Multi-cloud adopted because it sounds resilient rather than because a specific requirement demands it.
Engagement
What I am open to
One senior technical role, inside one team, with clear ownership of a core system.
Switzerland-based, hybrid or remote, with purposeful on-site time. I am interested in problems where the architecture decisions still matter, and in teams that expect a senior engineer to have opinions about them.
Building out Heftli's billing and reconciliation layer, and writing a series on multi-cloud network topology decisions.
Areas of focus
Cloud platforms and infrastructure
Certified across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, with hands-on delivery and production automation using Terraform, Kubernetes, Packer, and Ansible.
Full-stack development
Platforms and products using TypeScript, Next.js, React/Remix, Node.js, Python, and PHP. Modern edge infrastructure including Supabase and Cloudflare Workers.
Leadership and delivery
Technical direction, architecture reviews, and hands-on delivery for founders and engineering teams scaling their operations.
Certifications
Solutions Architect Professional. DevOps Engineer Professional.
Professional Cloud Architect
Administrator Associate (AZ-104)
Practical
Based
Zurich, Switzerland. On-site across Switzerland, hybrid, or remote.
Languages
English, German, Spanish, Romanian.
Outside the screen
Where the delivery habits came from
I lead Rhine Valley Expats, a Swiss association with more than a thousand members, and I have organised and run outdoor programmes for hundreds of people. Both are the same skill as delivery: logistics, people, and things going wrong on a schedule.
I volunteer with ISHA and Wägmacher.
Otherwise: mountains, motorbikes, and rebuilding things in a garage.
Get in touch
If that is the shape of what you need
Tell me what you are working on.
Start a conversation