Profile

Semi-self-taught 7+ years backend/fullstack PHP developer with fluent English and a wide range of related (and not so) skills and experience, like team leadership, Linux administration, DevOps and some UI/UX knowledge.

I am self-driven, dedicated and disciplined.

I have experience running a development team in a web studio, starting and successfully running small businesses, quickly bodging together software for non-IT businesses and developing whole software projects from nothing to release.

I used to be a competitive programming geek in my high school and uni years, and Iā€™m especially fond of data structures.

Currently living in Copenhagen, Denmark together with my wife and a 4-year-old daughter.

Open for Backend/Full-stack Senior-to-Lead Engineer full-time remote-only positions.

Experience

  • Senior Software Engineer II

    Copenhagen, Denmark
    May 2022 - Present

    I am currently working as a Senior Software Engineer II for Monta - the leading European startup in EV charging industry developing the core server application. I'm involved in development of all Monta's user-facing products - mobile apps, B2B portal, website and public APIs, as well as backend services and internal tools.

    I'm also promoting and establishing modern development practices within the team, such as modern CI/CD, testing practices and code quality standards.

    Notable projects completed as a team lead in Core squad

    • Migration of the financial logic from PHP monolith into a number of Kotlin services
    • Migration of the charge point scheduling logic from PHP monolith into a Kotlin service
    • Refactoring of the VAT logic allowing to handle EU-wide VAT
    • Integrating Adyen and Stripe payment providers for B2C and B2B clients

    Notable projects completed as a single developer

    • Implementing a bulk import framework allowing quick onboarding for major B2B clients
    • Upgrading the PHP codebase from the original PHP 6 to PHP 8.2 and establishing modern PHP coding practices
    • Upgrading Laravel framework from the original v7 to v10.x
    • Creating and maintaining a unified Docker Compose local development environment comprising over 30 different services used now by the entire engineering team
    • Implementing end-to-end error handling framework allowing the mobile app to display relevant and localized feedback to the users
    • Migrating the PHP project from FPM to Octane+OpenSwoole for a major performance gain and high performing in-memory caching
    • Implementing and maintaining a CI/CD pipeline for the PHP project allowing quick and efficient release cycle and increasing deployment confidence
    • Implementing support for feature-rich payment terminals connected to charge points
    • Integrating localization pipeline managed by Lokalise into the PHP project as part of the CI/CD setup
    • Implementing white-label localization for B2B portal, emails, SMS, notifications and error messages
    • Refactoring webhook handling logic and migrating internal interaction to Kafka
    • Unifying timestamp/timezone handling logic across the API
    • Implementing backend for Live Notifications in mobile apps

    I've played a major role in increasing development velocity in the project by promoting CI/CD-based deployment cycle with multiple deployments per week and relying on automated tests for regression testing and feature flags for release management.

    Tools: PHP, Laravel, Livewire, Kotlin, Micronaut, Javascript, HTML, CSS, Docker, Kubernetes, ArgoCD.

  • Fullstack Developer and Solopreneur

    Jan 2021 - Present

    I am developing and running a niche tech SaaS service for deploying and managing Python/Django applications.

    Tools: TALL stack - PHP, Laravel, Livewire, Alpine, Tailwind and inevitable bits of JavaScript. As well as Docker, Bash, Nginx and, of course, Python.

  • Part-time Commercial Property Manager

    S.P. Ryzhev V.N.
    Yaroslavl, Russia
    Aug 2019 - Apr 2022

    I was managing a portfolio of commercial properties of over 3000 sq.m. for an investor in Yaroslavl as a part-time job.

    • Negotiating and signing rent contracts and conducting ongoing negotiations
    • Resolving technical and legal issues
    • Invoicing and monitoring payments

  • Fullstack/Backend Developer

    Freelance
    Mar 2018 - Feb 2022

    I was working as a freelance fullstack developer specialising in PHP/Laravel and the surrounding ecosystem doing mostly fixes, changes and updates to existing projects.

    Among other projects during that time I developed a cryptocurrency exchange platform from an empty repo to a release version using Laravel, Bulma and JS, and also I set up deployment, databases, backups, monitoring and failovers.

    Tools: PHP, Laravel, Bulma, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Tor, bitcoind.

  • Co-Founder and CEO

    Polisher Ltd. - ShoeCare Services
    Moscow, Russia
    Nov 2017 - Feb 2020

    Together with a co-founder created and ran a premium shoe care business. At the peak we had 11 employees across two premium locations in the center of Moscow and the shoe care shop itself, and also ran a 24/7 delivery service.

    Also, I used Laravel and Bootstrap to quickly develop an internal task-management system tailored for that business after being fed up with existing solutions.

    Tools: PHP, Laravel, Bootstrap, Sweat, Tears.

  • CTO and Backend Developer

    Academy of Capital - Web-development Studio and Marketing Consulting
    Yaroslavl, Russia
    Spt 2015 - Oct 2017

    Successfully managed a team of 3 developers in a web studio (plus occasional freelancers for marketing tasks), while also writing the backend code myself.

    We released a range of projects from static marketing sites to full Laravel applications.

    • Interviewing and hiring developers and designers
    • Interacting with the clients for project requirements and tech support
    • Conducting code reviews

    Tools: PHP, Laravel, Vue, Bootstrap, HTML, CSS.

  • Entrepreneur

    Pixel Coffee - Coffeeshop Chain
    Yaroslavl, Russia
    Jan 2015 - Feb 2018

    Created and successfully ran a coffeeshop chain in my hometown. I had three locations and eight employees at the peak.

    I developed a POS/CRM/IMS system with Laravel and Bootstrap for my business to use. (Even though version 1.0 was bodged together using Google App Script for the backend with Google Sheets as a database and a mess of Sheets and Forms for the "frontend".) We were using it to handle our customer loyalty reward program, gather sales and financial data and automatically manage inventory across three coffeeshop locations and a warehouse. I later sold that system to one of the clients when I was working as a CTO in Academy of Capital.

    Also:

    • Finding locations
    • Conducting negotiations and signing rent contracts
    • Designing coffee bars and picking equipment
    • Hiring, teaching and managing baristas
    • Hiring and managing freelancers for graphic design and online advertising
    • Designing and conducting marketing activities and on-location advertising
    • Managing inventory
    • ...and everything else needed to run a small business whenever it was needed

  • Junior PHP Developer

    Mail.ru
    Moscow, Russia
    Jan 2014 - Dec 2014

    Worked as a Junior PHP Developer on the "My World" (my.mail.ru) team, helped with developing the moderation UI backend and performed manual testing.

    Juniors normally weren't allowed to touch production code, but I volunteered to fix a number of long-standing bugs from the bottom of bug-tracker that nobody wanted to work with. That codebase sucked a piece of my soul out of me, but a number of annoying bugs from the account settings code were eventually erased from existence by my efforts.

    Tools: PHP, HTML, CSS.

Good Skills

  • PHP
  • Laravel
  • MySQL/MariaDB
  • Redis
  • Livewire
  • Alpine.JS
  • Tailwind
  • PHPUnit
  • HTML
  • CSS
  • Bulma
  • Linux
  • Docker
  • Docker Compose
  • Docker Swarm
  • Ansible
  • Git
  • Nginx
  • Kafka

Moderate Skills

  • UI/UX
  • Kotlin
  • JavaScript
  • Python
  • Django
  • Bootstrap
  • Vue
  • Kubernetes
  • Tor
  • bitcoind

Would Like to Learn

  • Go
  • Rust
  • Solidity

Unrelated Skills

  • Espresso
  • Cappuccino
  • Sarcasm