Evgeny Zhdanov
Senior Software Engineer | Technical Lead
Professional Summary
10 years in software engineering, last 2 as team lead. Built payment integrations at a gateway serving 10,000+ merchants. Took an HR platform from zero to production, then hired and led the team around it.
Core stack: Ruby/Rails, Go, PostgreSQL, Kubernetes. At my best when owning technical decisions and shipping with a small team.
Engineering philosophy: I don't trust theory disconnected from production. I work across the stack and pick up whatever the problem requires — language, protocol, or tool. I hire quiet engineers who deliver over charismatic ones who write reports. I build processes (ticket → review → CI → deploy) because good pipelines prevent fires better than heroics.
Employment History
Software Consultant — Self-Employed
May 2025 — PresentProduct:
Contract development, technical consulting, and code review.
Key achievements:
- Part-time contract work on an online tablature editor (TypeScript, full-stack) — 6-month engagement, AI-assisted development
- Migrated legacy Ember.js app to React for a returning client — project originally built in 2016
- Led FB/IG widget system project — development, Helm/K8s deployment, GitLab CI/CD from scratch, mentored a junior developer
- Hardened CI/CD for Ruby projects (rubocop, brakeman, strong-migrations); upgraded Rails to 8.1
Team Lead — RocketWork
November 2023 — May 2025Product:
B2B HR automation platform for enterprise clients.
Key achievements:
- Took a stalled product to production as the only engineer, then built a team of 5
- Built engineering process from scratch — code review, CI/CD, weekly releases
- Hired 3 engineers — interviews, onboarding, day-to-day technical leadership
Senior Software Engineer — Emerchantpay
January 2021 — November 2023Product:
Payment gateway serving 10,000+ merchants.
Key achievements:
- Built Latin American bank integrations from scratch — transaction processing, payment forms
- Fixed security vulnerabilities found in production audits
- Mentored 3 junior developers through code reviews
Software Engineer — Noveo
June 2018 — January 2021Product:
Enterprise customer feedback platform for retail chains.
Key achievements:
- Cut dashboard load from 2 min to under 10 sec by migrating analytics engine
- Implemented enterprise SSO for corporate clients (SAML 2.0)
Junior Software Engineer — Magtuner SA (Lausanne, Switzerland)
March 2016 — May 2018Product:
Real-time educational engagement platform with live audience participation.
Key achievements:
- Built collaborative editing system in Elixir for concurrent user access
- Full-stack development — Ember.js frontend, Rails backend, document permission system