Solution Architect / Technical Lead / Senior Full-Stack Developer

Currently, I hold a dynamic role at a small bespoke software development company, managing a team of up to 20 people, where I actively engage in every aspect of the business, from hiring new colleagues to making technical decisions alongside the team.

On the company management side activities include strategic decision-making, introducing and adapting company-wide and software engineering processes, defining hiring strategies, conducting interviews (more than 150+ done), decision making on hires, client and contract negotiations, team leadership and setup, project staffing, management of external contractors,  employer branding, content marketing, SEO and social media and participation in local and international business development activities.

On the people management side activities include performance evaluation, developing the skills of the personal from different units (Engineering, Quality Assurance and DevOps), conducting feedback sessions and follow-ups, technical excellence activities, supporting team members’ ideas and needs, both technology-wise and personal, and defining retention strategy.

On the technical leadership side actively participating in the architecture, technology selection, design and development of different softwares. Leading the implementation of mission-critical product features to successful delivery on time and on budget, while supporting and mentoring other team members. Involved in project and change management, risk assessments, budgeting, load and penetration testing as well as SLA adherence.

• Expanded the company to over 20 employees, both in-house and contractors.
• Managed cross-functional distributed teams of 25+ people from the United States, Bulgaria, and India to modernise a learning digital platform with over 20 million learners and approximately 30,000 educators worldwide.
• Prepared comprehensive technical assessment tasks and conducted over 150 technical interviews, including as a service for our clients and partners. Developed comprehensive 6-month onboarding programs to ensure smooth integration for new team members.
• Successfully led a cross-company L&D program to upskill people in Agile Methodologies for Bulcode and our partners, resulting in over 15 PSM/PSO/PSD certificates and a 100% exam pass rate.
• Bulcode obtained ISO 9001:2015 certification after I personally developed all necessary documentation and processes to ensure QMS compliance.
• Worked as a consultant on a digital transformation project for the European Investment Bank for around 2 years.
• Participated in all stages of the project development lifecycle, from planning to execution, monitoring, controlling, and closure, for developing the MVP for erad.co in just three months, resulting in them joining Y Combinator and securing $2.4 million.
• Ensured that Fraport's infrastructure and website met national security audit requirements.
• Developed and executed load tests for Brayn.app using Blazemeter and JMeter, as well as a document outlining key findings, recommendations, and test results.
• Configured a production environment with CDN-based storage for static web pages and public resources generated by custom deployment policies, resulting in optimised resource utilisation for maintenance, cost savings, and a significantly improved user experience and security.
• Monitoring and reporting on digital communication KPIs, conducting broken link analysis and SEO optimisation strategies.

Clients and projects I have worked on: Brayn.app, erad.co, Fraport Bulgaria, Luxair & Luxair Tours, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Cisco Netacad, fi-compass (EIB), German radio stations - rpr1, regenbogen, bigfm, Yachtico, Bulcargo, WHO - Reproductive Health Library, WHO - Vaccine Safety Net, Certification Audit of European Agriculture Funds Executive Agency, Nysteia, Zaharò, V&V Isomatic, Remington, My Stipendium and others.

As a member of the Open Source community, I strive to be an active and dedicated member of the movement. I spend some of my free time working on various bugs, tasks, and features that will help the Drupal project grow. I created several Drupal contributed modules. I try to stick to my principles because, as I like to say, "Every commit is a small step towards innovation". My Drupal username is ShaxA, and you can find me at https://www.drupal.org/u/shaxa.

Responsible for developing and leading new projects and features, maintaining existing Drupal-based websites and web applications, Drupal training, and mentoring. 

Managed a team of up to 30 people working exclusively with Agile methodologies. The team includes Web Developers, Product Developers, Scrum Master, Technical Architects, and Quality Assurance experts situated in different countries – England, Bulgaria, Poland, India, and Egypt.

Often involved in projects as Technical Project Manager and development lead because of the technical background and management skills. Involved in many projects as Solution Architect.

During my time in the company, I was involved in the following

• Setting up environments - dev, demo, live
• Manual and automated deploys to relevant environments
• Setting up deploy steps using Git, Travis, Jenkins and etc
• Setting up monitoring and web analytics
• Doing security, penetration, and performance tests
• Setting up editorial workflows
• Doing Drupal performance optimizations
• Integration of social media platforms in Drupal
• Maintenance of Drupal websites and security updates
• Creating Unit Tests
• Big data optimizations
• Complex integrations of 3rd party libraries
• Integration with Salesforce
• Cloud solutions

Clients and projects I have worked on: Syngenta, Vodafone CMS, Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics, Goodtimes DK, Austria Center Vienna, Sonderborg, Meny DK