Mladen Uzunov / Mechatronics & network engineer
Production networks and Linux infrastructure by day. Embedded control and machines that move, the rest of the time.
SCARA diploma project / 2026
Fusion 360 and a printed structure, four stepper drives, inverse kinematics running on an ESP32, and a Modbus contract with a Siemens PLC.
Defence result / July 2026
Built and defended end to end: the mechanics, the firmware, and the industrial control layer between them.
Open the case study ↗SCARA diploma project
A three-axis SCARA with a motorised gripper, running the same control pattern as an industrial cell at a scale that fits on a desk and a budget a student can actually justify.
* Preliminary caliper-based endpoint-return test over 25 cycles with an approximately 100 g payload; not a metrology-grade certification.
Verified
Autonomous pick-and-place under ESP32 control, bidirectional Modbus TCP register exchange, firmware homing and post-fix 25-cycle endpoint-return test.
Designed
Siemens S7-1200 supervisory sequence, 500 g design payload, serviceable printed structure and separated power/control architecture.
Source release The CAD, the ESP32 firmware and the S7-1200 program are being cleaned up for a public repository. Everything on this page will be reproducible from it. Email me if you want it before then.
Current work
Two things have been running in parallel: one in a production rack, one that finished on a defence bench in July.
Current role
Network Engineer at Digitas, on a multi-vendor data-centre estate going through a large switching refresh. I carry the topology diagrams, connection documentation, configuration migration and cut-over, and own RADIUS and SNMP across every device. The part I care about most is NetBox: the estate is documented there end to end, and interfaces, VPNs and tunnels now sync into it on their own.
Degree
Bachelor of Engineering from the Technical University of Sofia, Plovdiv Branch. The SCARA was the diploma project; it defended at Excellent 6.00/6.00.
Professional history
Linux operations, DevOps automation, enterprise networking. Infrastructure is only visible when it goes wrong, so most of the craft is in making sure it doesn't, and in leaving it documented enough that the next person can see why it works.
Digitas
Multi-vendor data-centre networking: switching, edge firewalls, load balancing and CDN/DDoS protection. Supporting a large switching refresh through documentation, configuration migration and cut-over, owning RADIUS and SNMP estate-wide, and running NetBox as the source of truth with automatic interface, VPN and tunnel sync.
Digitas
Built automated patching and deployment workflows for hundreds of virtual machines, hardened delivery through Artifactory and Xray, and wrote tools adopted across teams.
SiteGround
Operated and troubleshot Linux hosting infrastructure at scale, supported large migrations and turned repetitive diagnostic work into Bash automation.
Technical scope
Five layers, top to bottom. The right-hand column is the honest part: where each one lives, and where the rack stops and the bench begins.
Linux · RHEL · VMware · Containers · Observability
Production
Arista · Juniper · FortiGate · A10 · CDN & DDoS · NetBox
Production
Python · Bash · Ansible · Puppet · CI/CD · APIs · MCP
Both
ESP32 · Pico · STM32 · Arduino · C/C++ · I²C · SPI · UART
Bench
Fusion 360 · SolidWorks FEA · 3D printing · Motion · Sensors
Bench
Selected projects
Two tools on PyPI, a handful of university builds, and the UMX prototype that taught me what not to do on the diploma robot.
Origin prototype
The first proof that an affordable, 3D-printed educational robot could connect mechanics, firmware and kinematics. Everything it got wrong became the design brief for the diploma machine.
Open source
A security-focused MCP server for controlled command-line operations. Command whitelisting, path-traversal protection, asynchronous timeouts. Published to PyPI.
View source ↗
Open source
A multi-provider command-line AI client with streaming, output transformation and MCP support across commercial and local models.
View source ↗Smaller experiments
Industrial IoT · ESP32 · C++
72-hour build · Pico · C++
Motion control · Pico · CAD
State machine · Sensors · MicroPython
Recognition / 2026
A separate machine from the diploma robot, and a deliberately cheaper one. Built with Ayliak Robotics, the robotics club at the Technical University of Sofia's Plovdiv branch: printed structure, off-the-shelf electronics, and a bill of materials kept low enough that a school could buy several. It programs from Scratch, so it works for children and for people who have never written a line of code.
Background
I started in Linux infrastructure and moved into automation and networking. Then I went back for a Mechatronics degree, because I wanted to work on the machines themselves rather than only the racks they sit in.
I'm based in Bulgaria. Most weeks are network configuration, automation and a terminal, and I'm good at that work. But electronics and physical automation are where I actually come alive: a board that boots, an axis that homes, a machine that does something when you press go. Outside of both, I hike, train, and design functional prints for whatever around the house needs fixing.
Contact
Infrastructure, networking, automation or robotics. Email is the fastest way to reach me.
