Bio

current position: senior engineering manager @ fintech

age: 39

Backstory

A long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away, my story began. I was born with a passion for technology, I was hooked on building things. I spent hours playing Legos and other construction toys, attempting to create something out of nothing. When I had my first glimpse of a PC at the age of 7, it was a game changer.

After graduating from university, I started my professional career, first as a QA engineer, then as a junior software developer. I spent the next 8 years working as a software developer on various projects, rising from novice to principal engineer.

Along the way, I’ve worked mostly with technologies like Ruby, later adopting the more appropriate Go tech stack for better efficiency in distributed environments. This allowed me to gain experience in various principles, conventions and patterns. I learnt how to design and build efficient facilities, both in terms of engineering and product. The constant struggle between engineering perfection and the business needs became the new norm and was transformed into a perpetual balance between business expectations and engineering craftsmanship.

After a certain period of time, I moved from just writing the code to more fundamental activities. Instead of creating features, i started building up the foundation for entire applications. From being responsible only for the small part, i transitioned to being the owner of delivering the business value. My focus changed from pure engineering tasks to managing the very purpose of engineering: delivering impact.

This wasn’t something that could have been done by a single person. Every great product requires a team of exceptional individuals to follow that journey. It has become an integral part of my professional life to learn techniques for building such teams, creating an prolific environment for all team members and shaping processes to help people achieve our goals. This journey has helped me to understand the value and strength of a properly structured and motivated team, and what it is capable of achieving with the right kind of leadership.

The excitement of technology, the potential to contribute to something greater, the desire to create an impact that affects people’s lives has helped me in my career. It is a source of joy, excitement and passion, not just a 9 to 5 job.

🗣️ Languages

• Russian - Native
• English - Advanced

Knowledge

Hard

• Programming languages: Go, Ruby, Elixir, Java.
• Data: PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, ElasticSearch, MongoDB
• Data analysis/processing: Apache Spark, Apache Hadoop, Apache Druid
• Data distribution: RabbitMQ, Apache Kafka, Amazon SQS
• Experience with cloud computing platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) using technologies such as Docker, K8s, and IaC.
• Able to analyze and troubleshoot technical issues, using techniques such as root cause analysis (RCA), fault tolerance, and chaos engineering.
• Able to use techniques such as technology radar, proof of concept (POC) and experimentation to evaluate and recommend emerging technologies.

Soft

• Leadership: Build shared purpose and motivate teams to achieve goals while enjoying their work.
• Problem-solving: Analyze complex situations and implement effective solutions with a long-term perspective.
• Collaboration: Foster relationships across diverse teams, using various methods to enhance efficiency.
• Talent development: Committed to creating a culture of growth and continuous learning for team members.
• Emotional intelligence: Use self-awareness and empathy to build strong relationships and an inclusive atmosphere.
• Innovation: Encourage creative thinking and continuous improvement within the team.
• Communication: Convey complex ideas clearly, listen actively, and adapt communication style to different audiences.
• Results-focused: Set ambitious but realistic goals, motivating teams to exceed expectations while maintaining quality.

💼 Background

2022 - now

company: Fairmoney (fairmoney.io)

position: Senior Engineering manager

Summary

FairMoney is a prominent mobile banking platform focused on providing financial services. With millions of users and more than 1000 employees, FairMoney has rapidly expanded its operations in western and eastern Africa.

Experience

• Drove significant team expansion and restructuring, growing from a single team of 5 engineers to two high-performing teams totalling 13 members.
• Led the development of advanced collection systems, resulting in a remarkable 100% improvement in business collection metrics. This achievement directly impacted the company’s revenue streams and demonstrated the power of technology in driving business outcomes.
• Over a challenging eight month period, designed and led the development of a new loan funnel platform.
• Architected and managed the refactoring of the legacy collection system, resulting in a 200% increase in revenue.
• Cultivated high-performing teams by promoting a culture of knowledge sharing and continuous improvement. Implemented mentoring programs and technical workshops, resulting in enhanced team skills and increased employee satisfaction.
• Facilitated workshops and brainstorming sessions that brought together engineering, product, technical and business department teams to foster innovation and problem-solving. Acted as a bridge between business stakeholders and technical teams, translating business requirements into technical specifications and vice versa. In total communicated with more than 20 various stakeholders (product, risk, fraud, intra-engineering, collections, ops, customer support, etc)
• Established a culture of open communication within the engineering department, encouraging knowledge sharing and collaborative problem-solving across different teams.
• Developed a structured approach to addressing interdepartmental conflicts, focusing on finding mutually beneficial solutions and maintaining positive working relationships.

2021 - 2022

company: Geekbrains (www.geekbrains.ru)

position: Department Technical Lead

Summary

GeekBrains is a leading Russian educational platform, established in 2010, that specializes in online education across IT, analytics, marketing, management, and design. The company has grown significantly, now employing over 600 staff members and serving hundreds of thousands of users. As part of Skillbox Holding, GeekBrains has enhanced its educational offerings, providing comprehensive learning paths, internships, and career support, making it one of Russia’s top educational projects.

Experience

• Led the overhaul of an 8-year-old legacy application, transitioning it to a scalable, agile system using SOA methodology.
• Recruited and managed a team of backend engineers, fostering a collaborative and high-performance environment.
• Oversaw feature planning and implementation, ensuring alignment with business objectives and maintaining low time-to-market (TTM).
• Provided strategic guidance and consultation to adjacent team clusters, enhancing overall project coherence and efficiency.
• Ensured engineering practices aligned with business goals, enhancing operational performance and innovation.

2020 - 2021

company: Joost (www.joost.chat)

position: Co-Founder, CTO

Summary

Joost is a communicational platform primarily oriented on e-commerce businesses, helping to achieve personal interaction with their customers in harsh times of pandemic when actual person-to-person engagement is hardly possible. In times when more and more people moving their shopping and purchases online - we bring customers and merchants together in a more conventional manner.

Experience

Joost was started with a small team of professionals having just 3 developers at hand at the start. My role was to build up all backend systems and infrastructure beneath them. A multitude of technologies was being used:

• K8S for orchestrating and delivering applications
• Clickhouse for analytics and reporting
• Custom made WebRTC backbone
• Media storage backbone utilizing S3-compatible system underneath.
• Distributed notification system allowing us to connect new notification protocols (such as APN/FCM push notifications, emails, messengers) without a hassle

2017 - 2021

company: Rocketbank (www.rocketbank.ru)

position: Head of Development

Summary

A pioneering Russian fintech startup based in Moscow, offering mobile-first digital banking services. Known for its innovative approach, user-friendly app, and unique customer service, Rocketbank acquired over 400,000 active users and managed approximately 20 billion rubles in deposits. The company employed around 200 people at its peak and achieved a high Net Promoter Score of 77 in 2018. Acquired by Qiwi in 2018 for 700 million rubles, Rocketbank was recognized for integrating lifestyle services within its banking app and its distinctive branding in the competitive fintech landscape.

Experience

• Joined Rocketbank as a regular developer, initially working solo on the backend development of a new customer support back office system.
• Successfully managed the launch of the customer support system within six months, focusing on architecture and overall backend design.
• Transitioned to a leadership role, managing and growing the development team to improve project delivery and support, and fostering a climate of progression.
• Took on additional responsibilities, overseeing areas related to customer support and customer experience, and building high performance business solutions.
• Fostered a culture of accountability and discipline while encouraging creativity and innovation within the team.
• Enabled the creation of an ecosystem that enabled stakeholders to continuously improve customer experience metrics.
• Played a key role in building the backbone of a new mobile application, directly contributing to its pilot launch in record time, demonstrating the ability to solve complex problems and find non-trivial solutions.
• Managed and developed talented team members, providing opportunities for their growth and professional development.
• Provided strategic guidance and mentoring, ensuring high standards of project execution and delivery and cultivating a high performance culture.

2016 - 2017

company: Sourcelab Technology

position: Software developer

Summary

SourceLab was an outsourcing company working on a per-project basis. For the time being(about 6-7 months before the company going defunct) I was working on refactoring and maintaining of few legacy projects and the development of new projects from the ground up.

We were using SCRUM methodology there with usual pre-day quick meetings, sprint retros, velocity tracking.

Experience

Most of the new projects were based on rails4 stack using MySQL as data engine, with a couple of legacy rails2/rails3 projects that needed upgrading and refactoring.

2015 - 2016

company: Social Quantum

position: Software developer

Summary

The main project in Social Quantum was the development of an internal ERP system for in-house use. The system consisted of multiple parts and modules covering all the aspects of the company lifecycle, including accounting, human resources, CRM integrations, financial planning, and reporting. My presence in the company concurred with the global redesign of those systems so I took part in both backend and frontend development. Blocks that are worth mentioning comprise working on analytics and reporting tools (mostly big aggregations on data engine part), software design of accounting, and financial submodules.

Experience

System stack consisted of well-written and maintained rails4 applications with a huge focus on specs and tests (both unit and integrational), rationalized and mature feature designs, frequent code reviews, and pair development PostgreSQL/Redis/Memcache was used as data storage. Bootstrap/Jquery/Native js/SCSS/template engines on the front part.

2014 - 2015

company: Scade

position: Software developer

Summary

Scade was a tinder-alike dating application that was born in the early 2010-s and lived through at least 2 rewrites before I was among the new team which took development. My task was to provide a new backend for rewritten front application(that was developed on Closure), aside from this I was responsible for creating a new communication service(written on go) liable for WebSocket connections with clients, which should’ve replaced the old NodeJS application that was experiencing load difficulties. The application was developed on top of the existing rails4 application with the grape as interface framework.

2010 - 2014

company: Mediapress

position: IT Consulter

Summary

I was the part of IT team which was responsible for internal tools and instruments. One of my main goals there was creating a ticket system for inventorial requests/tasks. That application was developed on top of Redmine, heavily customized, and extended. Apart from that, many minor projects and applications helped to ease the company’s lifecycle. The application was mostly written in python and ruby, using rails and Django.