About

I'm Martino Fornasa. I work with startups when infrastructure has become too important to be handled ad-hoc, but hiring a full-time Head of Infrastructure is still too early.

I combine senior platform judgment, hands-on implementation, and AI-assisted infrastructure workflows to build systems your team can understand, change, and operate.

Before working independently, I was a founder and later an engineering manager, building and leading work across cloud, Kubernetes, data platforms, observability, and automation.

What I've done recently

Hybrid ingestion platform for post-seed IoT startup. Built cloud + bare-metal infrastructure that automated onboarding for 10+ enterprise sensor providers, controlled operating cost, and was handed off to the internal team.
Multi-cloud / edge architecture for deep-tech startup. Designed AWS + GCP + Proxmox edge infrastructure for ingestion and inference workloads, balancing GPU access, cost, and integration with existing systems.
OpenTelemetry observability platform for enterprise. Replaced a licensed vendor setup with an open-source observability platform across datacenters and cloud providers, reducing license cost to zero and standardizing logs and metrics.

How I work

I move across roles depending on context: strategic advisor, fractional infrastructure lead, team mentor. The thread is the same: understand the business and technical context first, define a realistic roadmap, implement the most important foundations, support the team through the transition, and make myself redundant within a reasonable timeframe.

Three engagement shapes

Single session. A conversation pointed at a decision: audit, second opinion, architectural choice, plan review. When you need an outside view on a specific point.
Project. A scoped engagement with a clear start and end: a migration, a stabilization, the first version of a platform.
Fractional engagement. Continuous work alongside a team building its own infrastructure. The right shape when infra is critical but a full-time Head of Infra is premature.

Public speaking

I regularly speak at technical conferences and events. Some recent talks: Logs in OpenTelemetry, Kubernetes FinOps: OpenCost.

Beyond the day job

I'm behind eventitech, a service to discover tech events in Italy.

Contact

To talk about a possible engagement, write me or contact me on LinkedIn.