Ivan Prlić

Solutions Architect · AI & DevOps Consultant · Fractional CTO

I help engineering teams design, build, and modernize cloud systems — and integrate AI that ships to production.

See My Work
Ivan Prlić
Available for new projects AWS Authorized Instructor Toptal Expert Network ↗ Fractional CTO 14 Professional Certifications

One expert. Deep experience.

I’m Ivan Prlić, founder of Prlić Consulting. I work with engineering teams and technical leaders to design cloud platforms, integrate AI into products and workflows, and sort out infrastructure that has outgrown its current setup.

Past and current clients include the European Commission, Volvo USA, TUI Group, Talkdesk, and Ricoh. Based in Zagreb, Croatia.

AWS · GCP · Azure · Kubernetes · Terraform · Amazon Bedrock · SageMaker · Vertex AI · Kafka · Datadog

English (C2, Cambridge Certified) · Croatian (Native)

See What I Do

How I Can Help

Generative AI & ML Engineering

I build AI systems that go into production: RAG-based knowledge bases on Amazon Bedrock, computer vision pipelines on SageMaker, and ML workflows on Vertex AI. Recent projects include an LLM-powered legal document search system and a computer vision platform migration to AWS. AWS Certified Machine Learning Specialty, GCP Professional ML Engineer and Data Engineer certified.

Cloud Architecture

Architecture design across AWS, GCP, and Azure — serverless, microservices, Kubernetes (EKS, GKE), event-driven systems with Kafka and SQS/SNS, and API management with Apigee and WSO2. I apply Domain-Driven Design to decompose legacy monoliths into maintainable, independently deployable services. Delivered for enterprises in automotive, travel, retail, and public sector.

Cloud Migration

Full-cycle migrations from on-prem to AWS and GCP. Past work includes a Magento 2 platform to Kubernetes on EKS, healthcare systems, and computer vision workloads. I handle architecture, risk planning, FinOps (rightsizing, reserved instances, cost dashboards), and delivery.

DevOps as a Service

Infrastructure as code with Terraform and Ansible, containers with Docker and Kubernetes, monitoring with Datadog and Prometheus. Security covered: AWS WAF, Shield, IAM, and Secrets Manager. CI/CD pipelines across GitLab, GitHub Actions, BitBucket, and Azure DevOps — from simple build pipelines to multi-environment GitOps workflows with ArgoCD. Good for teams that need DevOps capacity without the cost of a full-time hire.

Serverless Architecture

Serverless system design and implementation using AWS Lambda, API Gateway, Step Functions, and the Serverless Framework. I have built serverless backends for a healthcare startup (acquired by Carbon Health), a loyalty card platform, and a litigation support system. AWS SAM and serverless.com experience included.

Cloud & AI Training

As an AWS Authorized Instructor I deliver official AWS courses, including Machine Learning Specialty content. I also run cloud architecture workshops and technical upskilling sessions for enterprise engineering teams, adapted to the team’s current skill level and the tech stack they work with.

Technical Advisory

Architecture reviews, technology selection, team structure, or strategic technical direction. I’ve advised startups, FinTech platforms, a VR education platform for INSEAD Business School, and enterprise engineering teams. Available for ongoing advisory or one-off architecture reviews.

Fractional CTO

Technical leadership for companies that need a senior engineering voice without a full-time hire. I work with founders and leadership teams to set technical direction, make architecture decisions, evaluate build vs. buy trade-offs, and structure engineering teams for growth. Available for ongoing retainers and critical project phases.

Selected Work

Healthcare · AWS · Serverless

Serverless Platform for a Healthcare Startup

A healthcare startup needed a cloud backend that could scale with unpredictable load and meet clinical reliability requirements without the overhead of managing servers. Designed a fully serverless architecture on AWS using API Gateway, Lambda, the Serverless Framework, and Kafka for event streaming. The startup was subsequently acquired by Carbon Health.

Pay-per-request model eliminated idle infrastructure costs Shipped to production in weeks, not months Auto-scaling handled unpredictable clinical load without intervention
Legal Tech · AWS · Generative AI

LLM-Powered Legal Document Search

A legal technology client needed to make large volumes of sensitive documents searchable and summarizable — without sending data to external services. Built a RAG-based knowledge base on Amazon Bedrock. Lawyers query the system in plain language and receive referenced, sourced answers rather than raw search results, all within a private AWS environment.

Search time reduced from hours to seconds All data stays within the client's private AWS environment Answers are sourced and referenced, not hallucinated
Travel · AWS · DevOps

Cloud Native Platform for a Global Travel Group

One of the world's largest travel companies needed a complete cloud native infrastructure foundation built from scratch, production-ready and observable from day one. Delivered the full stack on AWS — ECS, DynamoDB, Lambda, SNS/SQS, ALB, and CloudFront — with Terraform for IaC, GitLab CI/CD, Apigee for API management, and Datadog for monitoring.

Full observability and alerting live from day one Infrastructure fully reproducible via Terraform — no manual state Multi-environment CI/CD pipelines replaced manual deployments
Retail · AWS · Kubernetes

E-Commerce Platform Migration to Kubernetes

A retail client running a Magento 2 platform on ageing infrastructure needed a setup that could scale and was cheaper to run. Migrated to Kubernetes on AWS EKS using Helm for deployments, RDS for the database layer, and S3 for storage. The team went from manual, error-prone deployments to a fully repeatable, environment-consistent process.

Removed dependency on fixed-capacity servers, scaling is now automatic Deployments became fully repeatable across all environments Eliminated class of production incidents caused by manual release steps

Certifications

Amazon Web Services
AWS Authorized Instructor↗ Certified Machine Learning – Specialty↗ Solutions Architect – Professional↗ DevOps Engineer – Professional↗
Google Cloud
Professional Cloud Architect↗ Professional Cloud DevOps Engineer↗ Professional Machine Learning Engineer↗ Professional Data Engineer↗ Champion Innovator – Databases
Microsoft Azure
Azure Solutions Architect Expert↗ DevOps Engineer Expert↗ Azure AI Engineer Associate↗
Engineering & Leadership
PMP – Project Management Professional↗ Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)↗ Certified Scrum Master (CSM)

Get In Touch

Currently available for new projects. Send me an email and I will get back to you. I work remotely across EU and US timezones, on both fixed-scope projects and ongoing retainers.

Book a Call ivan@prlic.io LinkedIn GitHub