Automation has become necessary and challenging in today’s complex and fast-moving network environments. Few people understand the intricacies of building trustworthy network automation better than Damien Garros, and that’s precisely why he’s joining the speaker lineup at BalticNOG 2025.
With over 15 years of experience at the intersection of networking, DevOps, and systems architecture, Damien brings a rare blend of technical depth and strategic vision. At BalticNOG, he will share his hard-earned insights on building infrastructure automation systems that network engineers can trust—something easier said than done in today’s multi-vendor, multi-cloud environments.
From Network Engineer to Automation Architect
Like many in the field, Damien’s career began with hands-on network engineering. But his trajectory quickly evolved as he saw the growing pain points associated with managing infrastructure at scale. His time at companies like Juniper Networks, Apstra, Roblox, and Network to Code helped him develop a deep understanding of the gaps between infrastructure data and automation workflows.
Where many see automation as just writing scripts or plugging in orchestration tools, Damien sees it as an ecosystem problem: How do you ensure the data behind the automation is accurate? How do you maintain visibility, control, and confidence in what the system is doing?
These questions led him to co-found OpsMill, a company focused on solving one of the most overlooked problems in network automation—the source of truth.
Infrahub and the Future of Infrastructure Data Management
At OpsMill, Damien and his team developed Infrahub, a modern infrastructure data management platform that helps teams model, track, and understand their networks in a scalable and transparent way. Infrahub is built around the idea that trustworthy automation starts with reliable data.
Too often, automation projects fail because the underlying assumptions and models are incomplete, outdated, or poorly structured. Infrahub aims to solve that by offering a structured, version-controlled, API-friendly source of truth that supports collaboration between network, infrastructure, and DevOps teams.
Damien’s work on Infrahub reflects his broader philosophy: that network automation should be predictable, manageable, transparent, and reliable, not just fast or trendy.
Trustworthy Automation: From Principles to Practice
At BalticNOG, Damien will go beyond theory. His talk will discuss the practical steps to moving from ad hoc scripts to robust, production-ready automation systems. Drawing from real-world examples and failures, he’ll explain how teams can:
- Identify and model key infrastructure data
- Implement declarative and idempotent workflows
- Integrate automation with version control systems
- Avoid the most common traps that derail automation projects
- Balance speed with visibility, and automation with control
This session will be necessary if you’re involved in network operations, NetDevOps, or infrastructure engineering.
A Leader in the Automation Community
In addition to his startup leadership, Damien is an active voice in the open-source and network engineering communities. He regularly speaks at conferences like
CHINOG,
Autocon, and
NANOG, and has contributed to widely adopted tooling and automation principles.
His talks are known for their technical clarity, practical examples, and refreshing honesty, grounded in the day-to-day realities engineers face. He’s not interested in buzzwords or hype but in solving real problems with thoughtful design and clean implementation.
Why You Shouldn’t Miss Damien at BalticNOG
Damien Garros stands out as a calm, methodical voice advocating for engineering discipline in automation in an industry often pulled between complexity and urgency. His talk at BalticNOG won’t be just another session—it will be a deep dive into how we can build systems that earn our trust, not demand it mindlessly.
Whether you’re just starting your automation journey or trying to scale your current infrastructure to support millions of users, Damien’s session will offer insights, frameworks, and ideas you can take back to your team and use immediately.
Join us at BalticNOG 2025 and hear from one of the leading minds shaping the future of network automation. 
