Kostandin – React, Node.js, AWS

An AI-powered platform that streamlines video presentations for product marketers by automating tasks like brainstorming, copywriting, and styling while generating realistic avatars, voices, and visuals based on the content.

• Co-founded a bootstrapped company that began as a microlearning app with interactive videos;
• After struggling to find product-market fit, pivoted to AI-generated videos for product presentations, achieving 20,000 users through product-led growth and 30% month-over-month user growth;
• Architected the multimedia LLM pipeline, incorporating speech and video models, developed a feature-rich video editor using React.js and Node.js and built a video processing service with FFmpeg and Pupeteer to deliver the final presentations;
• Led customer interviews to quickly iterate on product features while handling customer support, direct sales, and partnerships.

A SaaS platform that empowers product owners to prototype niche ideas on a parametrized RAG framework rapidly.

• Led a team of three full-stack developers to deliver two key components: the RAG Engine (a customizable AI pipeline with abstract services driven by configurations) and a GrantGrid Platform (specialized implementation on top of the engine designed for grant writing);
• Designed the backend architecture and maintained the core library;
• Improved the LLM pipeline, resulting in a 40% performance boost and improved observability, which led to a 25% reduction in debugging time and more consistent outcomes;
• Worked closely with the CEO and GTM leader to test various product hypotheses while sustaining development velocity.

The candidate was leading the development of multiple projects: a UWP bot for Microsoft's store product recommendations; a fintech investment platform related to secondary markets; a fintech platform for investment providers aggregation; a video conferencing web app with interactive presentations.

• Led a team of four senior full-stack engineers in delivering multiple products using Node.js, React.js, Redux, AWS, Docker, and Terraform;
• Architected a modular and testable backend with 90% test coverage;
• Designed the front end with Redux sagas for improved separation of concerns, ensuring scalability and enhanced testing as the app grew to support more services;
• Architected the WebRTC and frontend of CloudMeet, an internal video conferencing tool designed to support up to 500 participants, featuring interactive elements like real-time presentation interactions and chat;
• Collaborated with managers and senior engineers on the Core team to standardize processes, providing guidance, documentation, and boilerplates to enhance team efficiency in the JavaScript department;
• Interviewed and hired over 10 senior engineers during the company’s rapid growth;
• Assessed potential technical debt in incoming projects, reducing future maintenance costs.

A JavaScript-focused engineering agency that collaborates with German clients to develop mid-to-large scale SaaS platforms. Projects the candidate contributed to included an HR SaaS tailored for the German market and a digital real estate management SaaS serving the local market as well.

• Led a team of five full-stack engineers in delivering both projects, providing technical guidance, conducting code reviews, and overseeing software architecture;
• Refactored the HR SaaS from a legacy codebase to a Node.js API with GraphQL to accelerate development and enable graph querying;
• Implemented an advanced role-based access control service in Redis, allowing for highly granular client configurations;
• Collaborated with the founders on establishing company standards, including process documentation, codebase quality definitions, project reviews, CI/CD pipelines, and a standardized stack centered on Node.js, React, Postgres, and AWS.

An AdTech Marketplace providing OEMs like ZTE and USCellular with customizable web monetization features through numerous integrations.

• Improved the platform performance by 30% to support millions of clients' users by caching with Redis, improved MongoDB aggregations, and offloaded to queues.
• Initiated the decoupling of monolithic code to the React front end to improve the feature development without too much technical debt.

A software agency that builds desktop, web and mobile applications for local and European clients

• Built the team from scratch, recruiting peers from university and mentoring their way to full-stack engineering with Java Spring, AngularJS, Postgres, and Hibernate;
• Supervised the development cycle of 5 medium B2B products for local and regional markets, including workout platform, car rental SaaS, and e-commerce;
• Worked closely with the founder and lead designer to build product specifications from direct discussions with the clients.