About

  • About
  • Full name

    Ilia Rostovtsev, also known as Ilia Ross

  • Launch year

    The dawn of the millennial era. Analog-born, digital-shaped

  • Location

    Southeast Europe

  • Profiles

Work experience

  • Work experience
  • Current

    Product Platform Engineer at Cloudmin, LLC

    Since creating Authentic Theme in 2015, responsible for core development and maintenance across Webmin, Virtualmin, and the wider project ecosystem, including user interface and feature development, integrations, security hardening, automation, release engineering, official websites, storefront and forum integrations, plugins, internal tooling, CI/CD, and supporting Linux infrastructure.

  • 2026 – present

    Author

    Virtualmin Podman - Virtualmin plugin for deploying and managing Podman containers and pods per virtual server, with integrated networking, proxying, and browser terminal access.
    Built using Perl, JavaScript, HTML and CSS

  • 2025 – present

    Author

    Virtualmin WP Workbench - Virtualmin plugin designed to simplify WordPress management by providing centralized access to core settings, bulk plugin and theme updates, scheduled backups, site cloning, and database operations—all from a single interface.
    Built using Perl, PHP, JavaScript, HTML and CSS

  • 2025 – present

    Author

    Webmin CI/CD - CI/CD pipelines for automated building, signing, and distribution of Webmin modules and Virtualmin plugins. Platform-agnostic design, producing stable, pre-release and unstable builds across all major architectures with GPG-signed repositories.
    Built using Bash and GitHub Actions

  • 2025 – present

    Author

    Script Stash - Personal toolbox of scripts for sysadmin tasks, automation, diagnostics, log analysis, package comparison, and other everyday problem-solving.
    Built using Bash and Perl

  • 2023 – present

    Author

    Virtualmin Website - Official Virtualmin project website — designed, built, and actively maintained.
    Built using Hugo

    Virtualmin Shop - Integrated Hugo with WordPress and WooCommerce through a custom theme to give the shop the same Virtualmin design and feel, with a shared storefront layout.
    Built using Hugo, WordPress, WooCommerce, PHP, JavaScript, HTML and CSS

    Virtualmin Forum - Integrated a custom Discourse theme to give the forum the same Virtualmin design and feel, with shared branding, navigation, header, and footer.
    Built using Discourse, SCSS, JavaScript, HTML and CSS

  • 2022 – present

    Author

    Webmin Website - Official Webmin project website — designed, built, and actively maintained.
    Built using Hugo

  • September 2014 – present

    Author

    Authentic Theme - Official theme for Webmin and Usermin web-based server management control panel.
    Built using Perl, JavaScript, HTML and CSS

  • June 2013 – present

    Author

    Karateka - Data management and video-sharing system dedicated exclusively to karate.
    Built using PHP, SQL, JavaScript, HTML and CSS

  • June 2008 – June 2013

    Independent Developer

    PHP, SQL, JavaScript, HTML, CSS. Linux System Administration.

    Designed, built, and maintained custom websites, web applications, and database-driven systems. Managed Linux environments and handled deployment, testing, debugging, maintenance, and ongoing support.

  • 1996 – 1998

    Computer Assembly Technician

    Assembled desktop computer systems from individual components, verified hardware installation, prepared systems for testing and delivery, and installed MS-DOS and early versions of Windows.

  • 1996 – 2022

    Karate Instructor

    For over 25 years, I taught karate part-time to students and families from around the world and helped dedicated students compete in regional, European, and world karate competitions.

Education

  • Education
  • October 1994 – present

    Self-Study

    Computer Science

    Extensive hands-on experience in software development, platform engineering, infrastructure automation, packaging, and system reliability.
    Designed, built, maintained, and supported software platforms and internet-based services.
    Skilled in deployment, troubleshooting, maintenance, performance improvement, release engineering, and technical support for web, mail, and server systems.
    Proficient with Linux environments and toolchains, including shell scripting, Git, CI/CD, packaging, and related development and operations tools.

  • September 2003 – June 2006

    Ph.D. Studies (ABD)

    Russian State University for Humanities

    Vygotsky Institute of Psychology, Department of Personality. Completed three years of Ph.D. coursework and conducted dissertation research on personality traits associated with psychological maturity in adulthood.

  • September 1998 – June 2003

    Master's Degree

    Russian State University of Physical Education and Sport.

    Psychology of physical education, with thesis research in sports psychology.

Principles

  • Principles
  • Paradigm Shift

    The mind we call our own was never truly ours. Real change begins when we stop identifying with it and let silence open the way.

  • Continuous Improvement

    The only constant is change. Learn, adapt, move forward.

  • Sustainable Living

    I value a plant-based diet, balance, and the mindful use of natural and personal resources.

Interests

  • Interests
  • Karate

    Silver medalist at the All-Russian Karate Championship in 2003. Holder of the JSKA international 3rd dan rank.

  • Music

    Music enthusiast focused on guitar and piano.

  • Foreign Languages

    Russian (C2), English (C1), with beginner Greek and Serbian (A1).

Contact

  • Contact
  • Drop files here or click to browse