Using Passion for Community and Kubernetes to Unlock Emerging Markets
Angel Ramirez has built a successful career and a transformational business driven by his passionate personality and multifaceted skills. An entrepreneur and CEO, DevOps expert, M&A advisor, prolific speaker, and educator, Angel attributes much of his professional achievement to the open source community. His belief in community and his Kubernetes expertise are at the core of his personal mission to bring the cloud to developing markets.
Programming Guinea Pig
Growing up in Cuba, Angel’s family were either musicians or technical. Angel, not being musically inclined was taught programming by his uncle, who had a PhD in electronics, when he was 11. “I teased him that he used me as a guinea pig teaching me software—things a kid shouldn’t be interested in,” Angel said. “What I really learned is that it’s not about the proficiency in programming—it’s how you tackle a problem with the tools you have.”
His early start in tech gave Angel such an advantage that when he got to university, he was hired as a professor teaching programming and logical thinking while also enrolled as a computer science student. From his perspective, however, he was just an entrepreneur and CEO who happened to have strong technical skills. When the time came to graduate, he made the decision to sacrifice the degree in order to move to the U.S., where his father was living.
Finding Community
Angel arrived in the U.S. on July 4, 2009, and within two weeks he registered the Cuemby.com domain, even though he wasn’t entirely sure what he would use it for. The name came from a childhood memory of a rabbit mascot that felt like a personal talisman. “I didn’t have a clear vision for Cuemby,” he recalled, “but I told myself that if I came here, I wanted to do something that combined business and tech.”
It was during this transition from Cuba to the U.S. that community became front and center to Angel’s approach. “Regardless of the focus, it’s the community that matters,” Angel said. “To get together, share information and drive toward a common goal. That’s why I am passionate about my roles as a CNCF and TODO OSPO Ambassador – to share what I know and learn from others.”
Despite his strong technical skills, teaching experience and entrepreneurial zeal, Angel’s career didn’t initially take off, but after almost two years he landed his first tech job as a web developer. With his foot in the door, he quickly rose from developer to being the right-hand of a CTO of a financial services company on a successful data engineering career track.
Passion for Kubernetes
At about this time, Kubernetes and related container technologies were introduced. “I was drawn in immediately and was among the early users, eager to learn everything I could,” he said. “I believed then, and still do, that Kubernetes would set new standards for the cloud. I introduced it at my workplace even though few people cared about it at the time. People thought I was crazy.”
After five years in the U.S. and working in a role building software and projects that were someone else’s idea, Angel was ready to officially launch Cuemby. He and his wife, who is also a developer, found success consulting to U.S. clients looking to build offshore operations.
He kept learning and practicing Kubernetes and earned his first certification, the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) shortly after it was introduced in late 2017. As one of the early exam takers, Angel had to devise his own study program. “At the time, barely a couple of tutorial courses existed. I passed my first certification exam based on my own experience.” In response, Angel began to build his own community focused on Latin America by creating and posting Spanish-language videos to share his Kubernetes experience.
Using the videos and coaching, Angel helped his first five Cuemby employees in Latin America earn their certifications. “I told them if you get certified, you have to train five more people,” he said. “Thanks in large part to his focus on building community and commitments from his team, what started out as a few training videos by Angel, grew into an extensive video libary.”
Credibility from Certifications
Angel is a firm believer in the value of certifications. As an early adopter of Kubernetes, he saw that the Linux Foundation certifications were validating for customers. “I was already in business using Kubernetes and the certifications gave me credibility,” he said. “My certifications also helped me attract talent because employees could see I’m not just a business leader, but also a technologically skilled CEO.”
Angel was excited to become a Kubestronaut and started working on his additional certifications shortly after the program was announced in 2024. As a rule he focuses his professional certification efforts on vendor-neutral Kubernetes and cloud native related certifications. “When I’m passionate about something, I go all in,” he said. “Otherwise I don’t follow trends. Kubernetes is my passion.”
He also relies on the validation certifications convey in his staffing decisions. “If I’m hiring a Kubestronaut, I know that person is a master of Kubernetes, or at least has enough experience to fulfill the requirements of their role,” Angel said.
He encourages his employees to earn certifications and Cuemby covers 100% of the costs of the training and exam. He hopes Cuemby’s approach to certification instills the sense of commitment, passion and community he has found. “I don’t want employees to rush certifications just to check a box. I want them to go at their own pace because they really want to earn the distinction for themselves.”
Teaching the Market
Today Angel is focused on his long-term goal of making new and established technologies more accessible to emerging markets, and, in the process, making the cloud integral to their growth strategy. “We’re very fortunate in the U.S., but when you look at Latin America and EMEA—all these emerging communities—they don’t have the technical and infrastructure foundation. That’s why the cloud is my thing. I’m 100% sure that if we can provide the foundational infrastructure, these economies can grow to become competitive in the global market.”
He is currently collaborating with data centers in Latin America. “They have the space, we have the technology, we know how to do it, so I said let’s build a cloud together,” Angel said. In February 2025, they launched clouds In Chile, Colombia and Ecuador, and are working with significant brands there, helping them move to the cloud, in a way that removes their reliance on tech from third-parties outside the region. He is working to help several more countries that are already big cloud consumers open their own data centers.
When it comes to bringing the cloud to emerging economies, Angel is as much an evangelist as he is a technologist and businessman. “I really want to bring more collaboration,” he said. “We need to balance business, community, the technology, and academia. We need to shift from competition to support because empowering others doesn’t diminish your value, it multiplies it.”
Angel Ramirez,
Kubestronaut, CNFC & OSPO Ambassador
