Valentin Nikolaev

Software Developer

Concurrent part-time PHP consulting alongside Simple.life. Owned production DataLake and event analytics: over 10x throughput, new streams configured in under four hours instead of days, and event delivery above 99.9%. Built versioned events, routing with retries and backpressure, and the Crutrade integration using PHP and AWS EventBridge.

PHPEventBridgeDistributed SystemsLaravelSoftware DesignSoftware Development

Technical Lead

airSlate

Led backend delivery from planning through production, working with Product and engineering on roadmaps and releases. Coordinated implementation priorities, mentoring and technical decisions. Defined team metrics; the team increased its feature delivery rate by approximately 20%. Conducted more than 20 technical interviews.

PHPProject CoordinationTechnical Project LeadershipTechnical LeadershipAgileEducational LeadershipSoftware DesignSoftware DevelopmentCoaching and MentoringConflict ManagementRequirements GatheringProblem Solving

Senior Software Developer

airSlate

Led backend performance work, reducing average API response times by about 30%, tracked in Prometheus. Removed bottlenecks and redistributed workload, bringing peak load on the main database down to 65%. Built a shared Laravel/Symfony logging package, improved CI/CD and resolved production issues.

PHPAmazon RedshiftCI CD PipelinesMicroservicesTechnical LeadershipREST APIsElasticsearchRabbitMQDevOpsKubernetesLaravelSoftware DesignSoftware DevelopmentMySQLSite Reliability EngineeringSymfony

Technical Lead

Technical lead on a Web3 social and NFT platform that progressed from prototype to closed beta in under six months. Worked with business stakeholders and the CTO on product priorities, OKRs and technology choices. Coordinated backend delivery, microservices and CI/CD. Stack included PHP, Phalcon, PostgreSQL and Prometheus/Jaeger.

PHPProject CoordinationTechnical Project LeadershipCI CDMicroservicesTechnical LeadershipREST APIsElasticsearchEducational LeadershipRabbitMQDevOpsKubernetesLaravelSoftware DesignSoftware DevelopmentMySQLConflict ManagementRequirements GatheringProblem Solving

Senior Software Developer

Sixt

Developed backend microservices for GDPR requirements and worked on code subject to PCI DSS requirements. Assessed technical solutions against functional, performance and operational needs, and participated in system audits and security assessments. Stack: PHP, REST APIs, Zend Framework and MySQL.

PHPREST APIsPayment GatewaysZend FrameworkSoftware DesignSoftware DevelopmentMySQLCoaching and MentoringGDPR

Software Engineer

Founding member of the in-product backend team responsible for high-volume transactional and lifecycle email systems.

Technical Lead

Led five backend engineers building a transactional-email service and owned technical decisions. Supported around three million emails in an ordinary month, with up to 10x volume during Black Friday/Cyber Monday. Worked on DNS, DKIM, SPF, DMARC and feedback loops, and led capacity and reliability work for seasonal peaks.

PHPProject CoordinationMicroservicesTechnical LeadershipREST APIsElasticsearchEducational LeadershipRabbitMQDevOpsLaravelSoftware DesignSoftware DevelopmentMySQLSite Reliability EngineeringCoaching and MentoringConflict ManagementBackend DevelopmentProblem Solving

Software Developer

Earlier PHP backend work across CoinsBank/bit-x, Aurum Software and freelance projects. Built exchange features, payment integrations and event-based notifications. Improved database schemas and queries; developed reporting, planning algorithms and integration scripts. Work included code reviews and automated tests.

PHPREST APIsPayment GatewaysBackend DevelopmentSoftware Design