Graziano Casto

I drive the technical advocacy and community engagement for Akamas, focusing on AI-powered autonomous performance optimization for Kubernetes and cloud-native applications. I represent the company at top-tier international conferences, create high-quality technical content, and build bridges between the product team and the global DevOps community to enhance the developer experience and product adoption.

I engaged the global cloud-native community for Mia-Platform by speaking at 10+ international conferences annually and publishing articles on platforms like CNCF and TheNewStack. I built and managed a training program certifying 150+ professionals yearly and cultivated a community of 50+ external experts. Internally, I empowered the pre-sales team by creating technical demos, PoCs, and maintaining all public-facing product documentation.

As Product Manager reporting directly to the C-suite, I owned the strategy and roadmap for HUKO's entire product portfolio. I managed the end-to-end customer lifecycle, from gathering requirements to driving adoption and upselling opportunities. I also spearheaded the company's successful transition to SCRUM, establishing an agile framework that fundamentally improved our product development process.

As a software engineer at HUKO, I engineered the migration of our flagship product to a cloud-native architecture using Java Spring Boot microservices on AWS. I also designed and implemented the company's end-to-end testing strategy, creating the core procedures and automated test suites. To improve team productivity, I evaluated new development tools via PoCs and built supporting SDKs, which significantly enhanced our developer experience.

Co-organizer of Cloud Native Days Italy, the Italian community event for cloud-native practitioners. Responsible for programme curation, speaker selection, and community engagement.

As the Technical Lead for the CNCF's Developer Experience TAG, I provide decisive technical leadership and set the strategic direction for projects impacting the cloud-native developer community. I architect solutions to complex, cross-project technical challenges and define project roadmaps to ensure alignment with our core mission. By mentoring project leads and driving key technical decisions, I steer the community's efforts and ensure the successful delivery of high-quality, impactful open-source initiatives.

Joined the Kubernetes Release Team serving different roles in different release cycles: Release Comms Member (v1.34), Release Comms Team Lead (v1.35), Release Signal Member (v1.36)

As a SIG Docs Approver and Blog Owner for the Kubernetes project, I hold a position of trust within the community, responsible for upholding the quality and integrity of one of the world's most visited open-source documentation sites. My role involves rigorously reviewing and approving pull requests for both core documentation and the official Kubernetes Blog. I am accountable for merging content, ensuring technical accuracy, and adherence to community style guides. Additionally, I mentor new contributors and help manage the blog's publication process from submission to final release.

Recognised by the Green Software Foundation for contributions to sustainable software practices and green cloud-native advocacy.

Recognised by the Kubernetes SIG Docs community for helpful contributions to the Kubernetes Blog, leading to becoming a blog co-maintainer.

Attended the first two years of the Computer Science Bachelor's programme.