Faisal Afzal is a CNCF and Platform Engineering Ambassador and Principal Technical Consultant Lead at AHEAD specializing in cloud and platform engineering. He organizes Cloud Native LA, co-organizes Cloud Native Days Los Angeles, and volunteers at SCaLE, helping socialize and make cloud-native technologies accessible to the broader community.

Presentations

23x

Workshop: Introduction to Kubernetes

This Kubernetes workshop provides a practical introduction to container orchestration fundamentals. Using Kind (Kubernetes in Docker) and Docker Desktop, participants will build their own local Kubernetes cluster and deploy their first applications. Through hands-on exercises, you will learn core concepts including pods, deployments, services, and basic networking. No prior Kubernetes experience required. By the end of this session, you will understand Kubernetes architecture, master essential kubectl commands, and have a working local development environment you can continue using after the workshop. Perfect for developers, DevOps engineers, and anyone curious about container orchestration.

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23x

Platform Engineering Strategy That Sticks: From Hype to Organizational Reality

Platform Engineering is one of Gartner's top emerging tech trends. However, standing up a portal and calling it done is one of the most common (and costly) mistakes teams make. This session is a candid, experience-driven guide to building platform strategies that actually last.

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