I’m a Principal Technical Lead / Staff Engineer with 12 years of experience designing event-driven distributed systems and owning architecture across multiple teams. I’ve led major platform redesigns in regulated environments, combining Kafka/gRPC/REST microservices with strong engineering standards, CI/CD improvements, and measurable performance and reliability gains. I’m passionate about turning complex technical challenges into repeatable systems: defining service boundaries and event contracts, improving observability with Prometheus/Grafana, and mentoring engineers to grow technical ownership. I also ship open-source infrastructure tooling and enjoy bridging practical delivery with long-term technical excellence.…

Maksim Smirnov

I’m a Principal Technical Lead / Staff Engineer with 12 years of experience designing event-driven distributed systems and owning architecture across multiple teams. I’ve led major platform redesigns in regulated environments, combining Kafka/gRPC/REST microservices with strong engineering standards, CI/CD improvements, and measurable performance and reliability gains. I’m passionate about turning complex technical challenges into repeatable systems: defining service boundaries and event contracts, improving observability with Prometheus/Grafana, and mentoring engineers to grow technical ownership. I also ship open-source infrastructure tooling and enjoy bridging practical delivery with long-term technical excellence.…

Available to hire
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Skills

Experience Level

Python
Expert
Leadership
Expert
API
Expert
Docker
Expert
Kubernetes
Expert
Redis
Expert
AWS
Expert
Go
Expert
PostgreSQL
Expert
MongoDB
Intermediate
PyTorch
Intermediate
GraphQL
Intermediate
ETL
Intermediate
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Language

English
Fluent
Russian
Fluent
German
Beginner

Work Experience

Principal Technical Lead / Staff Engineer at Raiffeisenbank
January 1, 2024 - Present
Owned the architecture of an enterprise credit automation platform built on event-driven microservices. Drove a migration that reduced Kubernetes infrastructure costs by 30% and improved observability using Prometheus and Grafana. Led a redesign of the credit approval pipeline and CI/CD, cutting approval time from 3 days to under 24 hours. Established platform-wide engineering standards (service boundaries, event contracts, interview rubric) across six teams in the risk and compliance domain and mentored senior engineers to expand technical ownership.
Engineering Lead (Contract) at Runity
January 1, 2022 - January 1, 2023
Delivered six previously stalled projects by establishing clear technical ownership. Improved estimation accuracy and reduced variance by 10–15%.
Engineering Lead (Contract) at Metamap
January 1, 2022 - Present
Led an architectural migration from monolith to microservices using Python, REST, and Docker/Kubernetes to enable product expansion. Reduced the codebase by 50% and cut release cycles from days to hours via a CI/CD overhaul.
Senior Software Engineer at Yandex
January 1, 2022 - January 1, 2023
Owned a Python library porting pipeline for Yandex’s air-gapped internal package ecosystem. Evaluated upstream OSS, authored compatibility patches, and integrated changes into proprietary VCS and registries. Built automation to reduce manual overhead for importing and patching workflows, enabling internal teams to track and adopt upstream releases reliably.
Lead Software Developer at EPAM Systems
January 1, 2018 - January 1, 2021
Technical lead for agile teams of 8–9 engineers building pharmaceutical software. Owned architecture, code quality, and delivery. Founded a Python Competence Center, raising engineering standards across 100+ engineers through lectures, workshops, and assessment frameworks.
Co-Founder & Lead Python Developer at Aglaya
January 1, 2014 - January 1, 2018
Co-founded the company and led technical delivery of custom information systems for enterprise clients with a team of 10.

Education

M.Sc. Data Science at MIPT University
January 1, 2023 - January 1, 2025
B.Sc. Information Security at ITMO University
January 11, 2030 - August 30, 2026

Qualifications

AWS Certified Solutions Architect
January 11, 2030 - August 30, 2026
IELTS 7.5
January 1, 2022 - August 30, 2026

Industry Experience

Financial Services, Software & Internet, Professional Services

Skills

Experience Level

Python
Expert
Leadership
Expert
API
Expert
Docker
Expert
Kubernetes
Expert
Redis
Expert
AWS
Expert
Go
Expert
PostgreSQL
Expert
MongoDB
Intermediate
PyTorch
Intermediate
GraphQL
Intermediate
ETL
Intermediate
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