09/03/2026 updated
100 % available
Hands-on Principal Software Architect | SDK/API | C++/.NET
Moscow, Russian Federation
Only remote
About me
I take ownership of difficult product changes: reconstructing how complex existing systems really work, defining a practical architecture, implementing the critical parts, and guiding the rest through to a working result.
.NET FrameworkApplication Programming Interfaces (APIs)C Sharp (Programming Language)C++ (Programming Language)C++/CLICode ReviewDebuggingInteroperabilityWindows Presentation FoundationWindows APISoftware ArchitectureReverse EngineeringSoftware EngineeringApi Design
Hands-on Principal Software Architect / Principal Engineer with 18+ years of experience in complex specialised software products.
Core expertise: software and product architecture, C++, C#, .NET, C++/CLI, SDK and API design, product extensibility, plugin and extension architectures, developer tooling, native/managed interoperability, system integration, and Windows desktop software.
Strong experience with mature-product evolution and modernisation: reverse engineering large existing codebases, reconstructing undocumented technical and domain context, architecture recovery, compatibility, incremental migration, coexistence of old and new mechanisms, complex debugging, and hands-on implementation of critical changes.
Experienced in defining technical direction, decomposing complex work, implementing the hardest parts personally, reviewing solutions, mentoring developers, and integrating the result into a working product.
Deepest industry experience: CAD, product configuration, design automation, configurable manufacturing, furniture software, design-to-production workflows, domain rules and DSLs, product data, customer-specific integrations, and manufacturing-related software.
Experience
Professional experience10+ years
Freelancer since2008
Languages
EnglishFluentRussianNative speaker
Project history
Designing a greenfield AI-based kitchen design system that generates multiple viable kitchen concepts from room geometry, project requirements and product constraints — rather than producing a single opaque answer.
The architecture separates three reusable capabilities: generation, validation and ranking. The generator develops candidates from spatial planning through functional layout to modular composition; the validator checks feasibility and explicit design constraints; the ranker compares valid alternatives and identifies the strongest solutions. The validator and ranker are designed to work independently and can also assess designs created outside the generator.
AI is equally important to the engineering process. I use reasoning models and coding agents for domain research, architecture exploration, consistency checking across a large evolving specification, implementation and refactoring.
The key principle is to use AI for speed and breadth without hiding the product logic inside it: the domain model, constraints, validation criteria and architectural decisions remain explicit, inspectable and human-controlled.
Held broad technical responsibility for the evolution of a mature international C++ / C# CAD product.
Combined hands-on C++ / C# product engineering with architecture, development coordination, customer-facing technical work, integrations, and build/release/deployment continuity. Reconstructed undocumented technical and product context where needed, assessed risks and dependencies, and personally handled difficult cross-cutting problems with no obvious owner.
Defined and decomposed technical work, personally handled the most difficult and cross-cutting parts, and delegated well-bounded implementation tasks to other developers. Provided technical direction, reviewed their solutions, helped resolve difficult issues, and integrated the resulting work across the product, customer implementations and surrounding systems.
Used modern AI-assisted development extensively to accelerate codebase exploration, implementation, refactoring, debugging and technical support. Selectively incorporated agentic workflows with coding agents, while retaining responsibility for architecture, validation, review and final technical decisions.
The work supported the continued evolution of a mature product used by tens of thousands of people and released in 33 languages.
Advised an early-stage startup developing AI-assisted tools for interior design and configurable furnishing.
The product vision covered automatic recognition of room and floor-plan configurations, AI-assisted layout design, and generation of a complete design proposal including visualisations, drawings and cost estimates.
Reviewed the proposed architecture and product concept, identified missing assumptions and conceptual gaps, and mapped the technical dependencies between the major parts of the system. Defined a practical sequence of proof-of-concepts so that the highest-risk ideas could be validated before committing to larger implementation work.
Provided an architectural path forward, assessed the development team and highlighted where additional capabilities or changes in approach would be required.
Several ideas explored during this work later evolved into standalone product directions. In retrospect, most of the technical risks and dependencies identified during the assessment became relevant as the product developed.