Mihai Cziraki

Senior Network Engineer | Cisco DevNet Specialist | F5 DevCentral MVP

Cluj-Napoca, Romania

I have more than 15 years of experience in the networking field, working with devices from different vendors in corporate and data center environments. I've worked in network integration (Sistec), ISP (Telekom), application service provider (Yardi Systems), online gambling (Betfair), private cloud (Otava), and VOIS (Vodafone Intelligent Solutions). I am currently a Principal Network Engineer at AspenTech. I love working with load-balancing (F5/Netscaler), Network Security, and Network Automation.

Key Skills

Networking & Security: Palo Alto Networks, Cisco ASA/Nexus/ASR/Catalyst, Arista, Juniper SRX/Netscreen, Fortinet, Clavister firewalls; OSPF, BGP, STP, vPC, ACLs, VPNs (site-to-site, remote access), Cisco Meraki WiFi

Load Balancing & ADC: F5 LTM/BigIP, Citrix Netscaler (MPX/SDX/VPX), content switching, iRules conversion to responder policies

SD-WAN & Cloud: SilverPeak/Aruba SD-WAN, Google Cloud

Monitoring & Tools: SolarWinds (NPM/NCM/UDT), Smokeping, Observium

Scripting & Other: Ansible automation, AWX, Python

Certifications & Awards

  • Cisco Certified DevNet Associate
  • Cisco Certified DevNet Specialist - Core
  • F5 Certified! Administrator, BIG-IP (F5-CA, BIG-IP)
  • Palo Alto Networks Certified Network Security Administrator
  • F5 DevCentral MVP Awards (2023, 2024, 2025)
  • Cisco Certified Network Professional
  • Google Professional Cloud Network Engineer
  • CompTIA Security+ ce

Work Experience

Principal Network Engineer
Aspen Technology · Full-time · Nov 2024 – Present · Cluj-Napoca · Hybrid

Designing, deploying, and managing secure and high-performance network infrastructures. Hands-on with Palo Alto firewalls (and Panorama), Aruba/SilverPeak SD-WAN, Cisco Meraki WiFi, Cisco Catalyst 9300/9200, and PowerShell automation.

DC Network Senior Design Engineer
_VOIS · Contract · Nov 2021 – Oct 2024 · 3 yrs · Cluj-Napoca · Remote

Network Design team: network analysis, risk assessments, Life Cycle Management, load-balancing consultancy (F5 LTM). End-to-end design for SD-WAN and Public Cloud solutions. Redesigning legacy networks to new firewalls (Juniper).

Network Engineer
Otava · Full-time · Jan 2020 – Nov 2021 · Cluj-Napoca

Engineering Team for Cloud Infrastructure: Cisco ASR, Fortinet and Clavister firewalls, Arista and Cumulus switches, Ansible, AWX. Monitoring with Smokeping and Observium.

Senior Network Engineer
Paddy Power Betfair · Jan 2018 – Dec 2019 · 2 yrs · Cluj

Migration from F5 LTM to Citrix Netscaler; conversion of iRules/profiles to Netscaler policies. Network security and ADC projects. New Citrix MPX/SDX deployment. SolarWinds monitoring with multiple polling engines.

Network Engineer
Paddy Power Betfair · Apr 2015 – Dec 2017 · 2 yrs 9 mo

Corp and datacenter network: ADC (F5 LTM, Citrix Netscaler MPX/SDX/VPX), firewalls (Cisco ASA, Palo Alto, Juniper), switches (Cisco 4500/6500, Nexus, Arista), routers (Cisco 7200, ASR). OSPF, BGP, STP, vPC, load balancing, VPNs, Solarwinds Orion NPM/NCM/UDT.

Network Administrator
Yardi Systems / Property Shark · Nov 2011 – Apr 2015 · 3 yrs 6 mo · Cluj-Napoca

Corp and ASP: network devices, technical support, planning, testing, performance tuning, troubleshooting. Cisco ASA (5510/5520/5540), routers (2851, 2951, 3845, 3945), Catalyst 2900/3750. F5 BigIP LTM, Riverbed, Radware IDS/IPS, Solarwinds Orion, virtualization, Nessus, Websense, Meraki.

Technical Support Engineer
Romtelecom (Telekom Romania) · Sep 2007 – Nov 2011 · 4 yrs 3 mo · Cluj-Napoca

Install and configure routers, switches, APs, modems for INTERNET, VPN, VoIP. Cisco 800/1800/2800/2900/3800, Allied-Telesis, Catalyst 2900, Cisco IP phones and APs.

Education

  • Bachelor of Science in Electronics and Telecommunications, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca (2002–2007)
  • High School in Informatics, National College Inochentie Micu Clain, Blaj (1998–2002)