10 KiB
Pietro Quintavalle
About Me
Hi — friends call me Quinta. I'm an Economics student at USI Lugano and a self-taught systems engineer who's been running homelab infrastructure since 2020.
My setup spans bare-metal Proxmox clusters, DNS and domain management via Cloudflare (AAAA + Tunnels), Pangolin/Traefik reverse proxying with auto-TLS, and a full media & music automation pipeline.
On the academic side I'm deepening my understanding of microeconomics, macroeconomics, game theory, and quantitative finance — finding more overlap with systems thinking than you'd expect.
- BSc in Economics @ USI (in progress) · 2 yrs BSc Informatics completed
- 5+ years SysAdmin & IT consulting · 6–10 production servers · 90%+ uptime
- Daily driver: Ryzen 7 9800X3D · RTX 5080 · hand-built custom keyboard
- Italian (Native) · English (Fluent) · German (Conversational) · Spanish & Norwegian (Basic)
- Lugano / Bellinzona, Switzerland
🛠️ Tech Stack
Homelab
Two-node setup built to enterprise patterns at personal scale. Zero open ports — all external access via Cloudflare Tunnels and Tailscale. Every service containerised, every entry-point proxied, every failure logged. The UNRAID box, Nargothrond, is fully documented in its own repo — hardware, Docker stack, network segmentation, and traffic-flow diagrams.
| Component | UNRAID Server (Nargothrond) | Proxmox Node |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core Ultra 5 225 | Intel Core i7-8700 |
| RAM | 48GB DDR5 5600MHz | 32GB DDR4 |
| Storage | WD Gold 14TB + 2× WD 12TB parity array + 2TB NVMe pool | SSD (OS) + SATA pool |
| OS | UNRAID 7.3.1 | Proxmox VE 8 |
| Access | Pangolin + Traefik | Tailscale + SSH |
| Focus | NAS · Docker · Media stack | Virtualisation · LXC · IaC |
Key services: Jellyfin · Navidrome · Sonarr/Radarr/Bazarr · Lidarr · AdGuard Home · Authelia · Grafana/Prometheus · Uptime Kuma · slskd (via VPN)
Projects
| Project | Status | Stack | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| valgo | ● Live | TypeScript · React · Next.js | Step-by-step algorithm visualiser — sorting, graph & search with live code annotations |
| Ainulindale | ● Live | Docker · Navidrome · slskd · Gluetun | Fully self-hosted music discovery & streaming — auto-downloads via Soulseek P2P through VPN |
| re-soulcommand | ↗ Open Source | Python · Docker · ListenBrainz · Last.fm | Music recommendation downloader — ListenBrainz/Last.fm playlists into Navidrome via slskd |
| ObsidianSetup | ↗ Open Source · 26★ | PowerShell | Cross-platform provisioning utility for Obsidian and plugins — adopted by other users |
| Boston Housing Price Prediction | ● Live | Python · scikit-learn · Jupyter · Seaborn | Linear-regression model with EDA to identify socioeconomic price drivers |
| Nargothrond | ● Live | UNRAID · Docker · Traefik · Mermaid docs | Fully documented UNRAID home server — hardware build, Docker stack, network segmentation, and traffic-flow diagrams |
Experience
Systems Engineering Consultant · Freelance · Ticino, Switzerland · Jan 2020 – Present
- Delivered and maintained 6–10 production servers at 90%+ uptime for private and business clients
- Eliminated public server exposure across all clients via Cloudflare Tunnels + Pangolin/Traefik — zero open ports, DNSSEC enforced, split-DNS via AdGuard Home
- Implemented Authelia SSO + 2FA, Fail2Ban + Crowdsec intrusion detection, and UFW/iptables across all nodes
- Reduced storage recovery time to under 30 minutes with ZFS RAID-Z snapshots and automated rsync offsite backups
- Enterprise Proxmox Cluster: VLAN segmentation, Pangolin/Traefik reverse proxy, Cloudflare Tunnels, Grafana/Prometheus monitoring
- 9-User TrueNAS NAS: RAID 10, per-user ACLs, ZFS snapshots, automated offsite backups
- Windows Server: Active Directory, DNS, DHCP, Group Policy, Disaster Recovery planning
Education
BSc in Economics · USI Università della Svizzera italiana · Lugano · Sep 2024 – Present Microeconomics · Macroeconomics · Game Theory · Quantitative Finance · Statistics · Financial Modelling
BSc in Informatics (2 years completed) · USI · Sep 2022 – Jun 2024 Algorithms & Data Structures · OOP (Java/C++) · Software Engineering · Web Development
Maturità Cantonale & AFC Economics · Scuola cantonale di commercio · Bellinzona · 2018 – 2022 Maturità: 4.5/6 · AFC Economics: 5/6 — Above average in both tracks
Certifications
- Google Data Analytics Professional Certificate
- Google IT Support Professional Certificate
- Microsoft — Foundations of IT Systems, Networking & Data Protection (Specialisation)