System engineering · Automation · Infrastructure

Tiago
Araujo Rodrigues

Tiago Araujo Rodrigues System Engineer Apprentice

I am training as a System Engineer in Switzerland, working across infrastructure, automation and scalable systems — from servers and networks to Infrastructure as Code.

Explore my work Get in touch
Location
Opfikon, Switzerland
Apprenticeship
Year 1 of 4 · Sunrise
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01 — About

Infrastructure is only impressive when nobody notices it.

Portrait of Tiago Araujo Rodrigues

I am a System Engineer Apprentice with a strong interest in technology and continuous learning. What drew me into IT was curiosity about how complex systems actually work together.

My focus is on system administration, network infrastructure and cloud technologies. I want to build systems that are robust, scalable and secure, and I take on new challenges to widen my technical foundation.

Outside of servers and networks I explore new technologies, look into open-source work and exchange knowledge with other people in the field. Collaboration and steady improvement matter to me.

tiago@sunrise — bash

Terminal output: whoami returns Tiago Araujo Rodrigues, System Engineer Apprentice at Sunrise. Focus areas: Linux and Windows servers, networking, Ansible automation, virtualisation. Status: apprenticeship in progress, always learning.

Role
System Engineer Apprentice
Location
Opfikon, Switzerland
Focus
Infrastructure & automation
Apprenticeship
Four years, Informatiker EFZ
Languages
German, Portuguese, English, French

02 — Expertise

Selected expertise

Six areas I work in day to day, at the level an apprentice reasonably reaches — practical, supervised and steadily growing.

  1. 01

    System & Server

    Administering Windows and Linux systems, keeping server operation stable and secure, monitoring performance and troubleshooting issues so IT services keep running.

  2. 02

    Networking

    Configuring and managing TCP/IP networks, including routing, switching and network security protocols, for reliable and secure connectivity.

  3. 03

    Automation

    Practical experience with Ansible and PowerShell for automation and system management, applying Infrastructure as Code principles beyond the basics.

  4. 04

    Cloud

    Basic knowledge of AWS, scalable infrastructure and containerisation, enough to work on cloud environments at an introductory level.

  5. 05

    Virtualization

    Provisioning and managing virtualised environments with Proxmox and Hyper-V, including virtual machine lifecycle and resource planning.

  6. 06

    Security

    A working understanding of network defence and system hardening, used to improve the security and reliability of the systems I look after.

03 — Projects

Featured projects

Screenshot of the enterprise mail server lab project and its testing tool

01 Messaging Infrastructure

Enterprise Mail Server

As part of my apprenticeship lab environment, I designed and deployed a production-grade mail server from scratch on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9, integrated into an existing enterprise setup with Red Hat Identity Management (IdM/FreeIPA) and OpenShift (OKD). The stack used Postfix, Dovecot and Nginx to serve sunrise-avengers.ch with secure IMAP/SMTP, LDAP-based mailbox provisioning, DKIM signing, SPF/DMARC validation, Thunderbird and Outlook autoconfiguration, authenticated outbound relay through Brevo and controlled internal relay access for OKD-hosted and dedicated applications.

Mailbox provisioning was handled pragmatically through IdM group membership, so new users received a mailbox automatically without manual setup, while a dedicated exclusion group covered service accounts. To overcome residential ISP PTR and reputation limitations, I configured Brevo as an authenticated smarthost and completed the required DNS validation through Cloudflare. Network access and relay permissions were segmented through pfSense across multiple VLANs to ensure only authorized internal systems could send mail.

  • RHEL 9
  • Postfix
  • Dovecot
  • Nginx
  • OpenDKIM
  • FreeIPA/IdM
  • SSSD
  • Cloudflare DNS
  • Brevo SMTP Relay
  • pfSense
  • Let's Encrypt
  • OpenShift (OKD)
Context
Apprenticeship lab project
Scope
Architecture, deployment, security and mail flow operations
Visit project
Diagram of the Ansible automation project: playbooks provisioning Proxmox virtual machines running MariaDB, a web server and Nextcloud

02 Infrastructure as Code

Ansible Automation

In this project I learned the fundamentals of IT automation with Ansible. I created and managed virtual machines on Proxmox through automated playbooks, applied system configurations and deployed core services such as MariaDB, a web server and Nextcloud. The result was a fully functional private cloud for file collaboration, provisioned entirely through automation.

  • Ansible
  • Proxmox
  • Linux
  • MariaDB
  • Nextcloud
  • IaC
Context
Final project, ICT Berufsbildungcenter AG
Scope
Planning through implementation
View on GitHub

04 — Journey

Education & career

  1. August 2024Present

    Sunrise GmbH

    System Engineer apprenticeship

    A four-year apprenticeship leading to the Federal Diploma of Vocational Education and Training (EFZ), confirming that I am ready to work fully as a System Engineer. After the first year at the ICT training centre, I rotate through several departments at Sunrise to deepen the subjects I covered during that year.

  2. February 2026Present

    Sunrise GmbH

    IP Transport Operations (IP-TO)

    In the IP Transport Operations (IP-TO) department, the team acts as the backbone of seamless connectivity, directly safeguarding and optimizing the core network (IP Backbone) for one of Switzerland's largest private telecommunications providers. The work spans a multi-vendor landscape across Cisco IOS-XR/XE, JunOS, Huawei and Nokia, with operational focus on BGP, IS-IS, traffic engineering, real-time troubleshooting, incident response and proactive maintenance to keep the national backbone stable, secure and resilient.

  3. September 2025February 2026

    Sunrise GmbH

    Service Desk

    In the Service Desk department, the team serves as the primary gateway and tech-enabler for employees navigating daily IT challenges. The scope covered end-user support across hardware, Windows environments, access rights and Microsoft 365, alongside meeting-room systems, desk-side connectivity and structured ticket management to deliver fast, reliable resolution with minimal disruption.

  4. August 2024July 2025

    ICT Berufsbildungcenter AG

    Basic student development course

    In the first apprenticeship year we attended the ICT Berufsbildungcenter AG for the basic student development course, where we learned the foundations of our work. It covered seven inter-company courses (ÜK) and several further modules, including commissioning and maintaining Windows and Linux servers, setting up and managing databases, the basics of IT security and operating infrastructure in the cloud. The year closed with a project of our own choosing, carried through from planning to implementation.

05 — Contact

Let’s build something reliable.

Open to conversations about infrastructure, automation and system engineering.

Location
Thurgauerstrasse 101b
8152 Opfikon, Switzerland

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