Igor Karpov

Infrastructure Architect · SRE · Security

40 years building and securing infrastructure at scale. From national security systems to global VPN networks. Now pioneering AI-assisted infrastructure development—architecting systems, writing specifications, shipping production code with LLMs.

At a Glance

~400 Servers managed
100+ Countries
40 Years experience
5 PB Largest storage

Infrastructure Architecture

Designing and operating globally distributed systems. Multi-cloud environments, VPN/proxy infrastructure, high-availability with zero-downtime deployments.

Ansible Terraform Salt GitLab CI

Security Background

Security Officer at Ukrainian Ministry of Justice—national-scale registries, information security policy. Network security architecture, access control, compliance.

nftables pfSense FortiGate Samba AD OpenLDAP Kerberos

DNS Mastery

Decades of authoritative DNS management. Currently designing enterprise DNS infrastructure with DoH/DoT/DNSSEC support targeting 10-20K QPS with multi-layer DDoS protection.

BIND PowerDNS Unbound dnsdist DNSSEC DoH/DoT

Mail Systems

20+ years managing email infrastructure—from UUCP era to modern systems. Deep protocol understanding, not just configuration copying.

Postfix Exim Dovecot SPF DKIM DMARC

Selected Projects

Global VPN/Proxy Infrastructure

Current

Architecting and managing distributed infrastructure serving tens of thousands of concurrent users. VPN (WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2/IPsec), HTTP/HTTPS proxy systems, DNS filtering with 512K+ domains. Behavior scoring for bot detection, request coalescing, dynamic peer management.

Scale
~400 servers, 100+ countries
Automation
29+ Ansible roles
Load
500K+ HAProxy connections

Enterprise DNS Infrastructure

Architecture

High-performance DNS with modern protocol support. Multi-protocol (UDP/TCP, DoT, DoH), DNSSEC validation and signing, rate limiting, DNS tunneling detection, multi-layer DDoS protection.

Target QPS
10-20K queries/sec
Protocols
DNS, DoT, DoH, DNSSEC
Stack
dnsdist + Unbound + PowerDNS

OpenStack Cloud (5PB)

CTO Role

Built OpenStack cloud infrastructure from ground up. Managed Swift storage cluster, complex network topology across 15 racks of physical and virtual servers. DDoS mitigation at scale.

Storage
5 Petabytes (Swift)
Infrastructure
15 racks
Platform
OpenStack (multiple releases)

Infrastructure Services (Architect Role)

Designed and specified production infrastructure services, implemented using AI-assisted development. Running on ~400 servers, serving real traffic.

Redox — High-Performance Anonymizing Proxy

17K LOC · Rust

HTTP/HTTPS proxy with flexible routing—multiple upstreams, outgoing IP selection per request. Behavior scoring system for intelligent bot detection with heuristics based on connection patterns, request velocity, and TLS fingerprinting. Built-in Prometheus exporter, pluggable authentication (BasicAuth, REST API, RADIUS, ephemeral tokens), request coalescing to prevent thundering herd.

Rust Tokio Hyper Tower Prometheus

Bifrost — VPN Management & DNS Filtering

10K LOC · Rust

Two-component system replacing legacy PHP. bifrost-cm: Connection manager for WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2/IPsec—authentication, session tracking, IP pool allocation, multi-IP SNAT for traffic balancing. bifrost-dns: DNS proxy with category-based filtering (512K+ domains, 12 categories) according to client profile/preferences, O(1) domain lookup, server-level policy overrides.

Rust Tokio Axum Hickory DNS Redis

ProxyCore — Proxy Fleet Management

Rust

Backend API for managing distributed proxy servers. Server self-registration with approval workflow, configuration distribution (40+ parameters per server with hot-reload), port rotation with grace periods, ephemeral authentication tokens with TTL, audit trail for all changes.

Rust Axum PostgreSQL sqlx

Plus custom Prometheus exporters for infrastructure monitoring.

Methodology: AI-Assisted Development

I believe AI-assisted development is the inevitable future of software engineering. Not "AI will replace programmers"—but architects and engineers who leverage AI will outperform those who don't.

My workflow: I design systems, make architecture decisions, write detailed specifications and task descriptions. Claude Code handles implementation. I review, iterate, and take responsibility for the result.

The results speak for themselves: 17,000+ lines of production Rust code running on ~400 servers, serving real users. Systems that replaced legacy PHP, handle 500K+ concurrent connections, filter 512K+ domains.

Architecture First
Deep understanding of the problem domain comes before any code. 40 years of infrastructure experience means I know what to build and why. The AI needs clear direction—that's where expertise matters.
Specification-Driven
Detailed specs and task descriptions, not vague prompts. The clearer the specification, the better the output. This is technical writing as a core skill.
Iterative & Hands-On
Not "generate and ship". Review every change, understand the code, debug issues, refine incrementally. The AI accelerates—it doesn't replace judgment.
Transparent
I'm open about this methodology. If a company doesn't accept AI-assisted development, we're not a good fit. I'm looking for teams that see this as the future, not a shortcut.

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