General Info

• My name is Roman Pietrzak
  
  • Have a look at the LinkedIn profile
    
  • Download my CV in pdf or ask me by email: roman(at)ke.mu
    
  • my portfolio - not updated for a while
    
• Currently: Leading the software at The Ozone Project as Head of Software / Lead Architect
  
• Availability: I'm open - looking to find my next mission.
  

What I do

I develop software

• Roles:
  
  • Recent: Head of Software | Lead Architect
    
  • Past: Tech Lead, Lead Developer, Software Engineer, Automated Test Lead
    
• I am a hands-on software developer
  
• Experience at all sides of software delivery process:
  
  • I bridge product and tech
    
  • I bridge data and software
    
  • I work with people, lead teams and build processes
    
  • I have strong understanding of devops, infra, including specifics of AWS and GCP
    
  • I love improving. Scale, reduce costs, better, faster, simpler, more secure
    
• I worked with variety of IT projects: web, cloud, AI, data, embedded, mobile, desktop and some hardware design (PCB).
  
• Currently in AdTech. Last few projects in crypto/banking/transactional industries.
  

My specialities are

• Leading in tech on every scale - a project, a team, the whole company stack.
  20+ years of experience, with modern practices, I love:
  
  • efficient fully-remote teams - think "timezones", not "countries"
    
  • cost optimization vs scale - think billions of requests per day, respond in milliseconds, hundreds of servers, 10's of regions
    
  • the proper use of testing, TDD and monitoring - the "know where we are" approach (max observability)
    
  • efficiency of the business processes - perfect balance between "automate everything" and "do this manually"
    
  • efficiency of the software processes - optimizations of workflows, team practices, optimizing the resources
    
  • good security/data safety practices - "least privililege" principle, zero trust, nontrivial backup flows
    
• Full stack development:
  
  • most recent: node.js, JavaScript/Typescript, golang, Python
    
    • past: Java, Scala, C
      
    • further past: C++, Qt, QML, PHP, Laravel, ActionScript (Flash)
      
  • React/Vue/Angular, webSockets, webGL, Canvas, HTML 5, Stylus/CSS, nunjucks, Chakra, development of FrontEnd frameworks, advanced flow models
    
  • code on edge: CloudFlare workers
    
  • backend: NoSQL/SQL/graph databases, Kafka, Redis, MongoDB and more
    
  • data engineering, data science: BigQuery, TB/s of data processing, Airflow, DBT, Snowplow
    
  • 3rd party integrations: payments + subscriptions (e.g. Stripe, Adyen), KYC (e.g. sumsub), data feeds (crypto, forex, stocks), geolocation,
    
  • web-on-desktop applications: Electron
    
• dev-ops, CI, SDET, performance optimization:
  
  • Amazon AWS: AWS CDK (Cloud Development Kit), SDK, ECS (Elastic Container Service) with Fargate (serverless containers), IAM, Systems Manager, EC2, CloudFormation and more
    
  • GCP: especially pub/sub, bigquery and GCP's "compute" eco-system
    
  • containerization: docker, kubernetes (k8s), ArgoCD, helm, Rancher
    
  • monitoring: Grafana, Prometheus, Datadog, Elastic Seach, Victoria Metrics
    
  • continous integration: Jenkins, CircleCi, github/gitlab/bitbucket pipelines
    
  • TDD, jest, mocha, selenium, karma, tape
    
• embedded
  
  • IoT (car cameras), STB (Digital TV) and Raspberry Pi-s
    
  • Digital TV (SetTopBox, IPTV, MPEG, DVB etc.)
    
  • IoT, ARM/Cortex/MIPS, linux embedded, bare-metal
    
  • VHDL (FPGA)
    
  • electronics, PCB design
    
• typical dev stuff:
  
  • git, kanban, agile, scrum, jira, linux
    

• example: React application connected to node.js API platform (with graphQL) on the AWS Cloud talking to IoT devices, embedded devices and desktop C++/Qt application
  

• Techs I'm good with (random order):
  KISS, node.js, C, C++, Java, PHP, JavaScript, ES5/ES6, CoffeeScript, Electron, Python, ActionScript, mySQL, noSQL, Ajax, HTML 5, Websocket, HTML Canvas, WebGL, SVG, GLSL, CSS, CASS, Selenium, Qt, QML, XML, JSON, binary JSON, WinAPI, linux, drivers, embedded, networking, sockets, GDI, openGL, directX, blitter, vertex shader, pixel shader, GLSL, HDTV, STB (Set Top Box), DVB, ATSC,
  multi-threading, memory optimisation, defects identification/fixing (debugging), TDD, BDD, automated tests, continous integration, Agile, Scrum, Jira, Bugzilla, Sprint, Workflow, ISO
  

My small team aka 'Kemu Studio'

• we help with expert knowledge - either by joining the company or working as consultants
  
  • strategical and tactical decisions about software stack, cloud and vendors
    
  • guide the transition:
    
    • new technologies: AI, node.js, golang, big data
      
    • scale - 100's of servers, billions of requests, minimal latency (code on edge!)
      
    • removing 3rd-party dependencies - to save costs, remove frictions
      
      • or the opposite removing in-house costly products, where there is existing good-fit 3rd party solution
        
    • move to general cloud or to on-premise
      
    • identify and simplify processes
      
      • e.g. where things could be data-driven instead of software-deploy driven (shorten the cycle from days to seconds)
        
  • we develop and maintain software for web, embedded, desktop apps and Digital TV (SetTopBox)
    
  • we help non-software companies to identify and fix issues with both their processes and their software - e.g by introducing automation, AI or redefinition of the process
    
• we use a mix of on-site/remote way of working - in a very efficient way
  
• we have expertise in hardware design
  
• we developed https://calculla.com
  

Work I'm looking for #1 - leading in software development

I'm happy to talk about:

• Leading roles or roles where I'm expected to take ownership of the project, to get things done, being responsible for a whole thing in a long-term work
  
• I'd be especially interested in crypto/financial/AI/scaling
  

Type of work:

• Ideally I'm looking for long-term, full-time, permanent work with a company
  
  • "permanent" means "long-term", not "salary" (the IR35 concept doesn't mean anything in fully-remote world)
    
    • I provide my work through Kemu Studio Limited (UK registered) or Kemu Studio Poland (EU registered).
      
  • General note about salary based work:
    
    • it doesn't work with fully-remote, international style of working. If your HR/financial say otherwise - it's time for a change
      
    • it doesn't cover expenses - delopers buying their own tools (AI, IDE), training and paying for insurance and taxes in the country of residence shouldn't affect your hiring
      
    • UK-specific disclaimer: IR35 is a UK-only thing. Hire near-shore and it no longer exists. Think permanent work, paid by invoice. This is the only sensible way for remote work.
      

Location

• Remote first or partially remote. I'm national of UK and Poland (the whole EU), I can go to any place in the world for a meeting once-twice a month.
  
• I'm close to West London and west of Poland
  

The Rate

• 400-800 GBP/day + VAT
  

Priority goes to

• "take responsibility of something" roles
  
• Leading roles
  
• Direct roles before agencies
  
• Projects involving my team instead of just me
  

Work I'm looking for #2 - Lead near-shore site in Poland

• 2011: I led "The Intro Team" of 3 devs that joined Nokia's new Mobile Project center in Ulm, Germany. We gained trust and traction, moved development to Wroclaw, Poland and quickly expanded the team to 20+ ppl. This was done for Tieto and I delivered great Automated Testing experience for Nokia's Middleware team.
  
• 2012: I was a funding dev (2nd after the site-lead) of the off-shore team in Zielona Góra, Poland for Canadian company called Code Project. I designed and implemented all the initial backend in node.js and MongoDB.
  
• 2014: I helped Red Embedded in Yorkshire, UK with their first offshore team. This was advisory role - I helped with the decision process. Poland, Wroclaw site has been successfully started and grown to 200+ ppl.
  
• 2019 - 2021: In ModusBox we focused on hiring near-shore based on a timezone. We hired from both Europe and Africa.
  
• 2021 - 2023: I've built software teams for 2 crypto companies - UK based LondonLink and UAE based Evai. In both cases it was a balanced mix of UK, Poland, Ukraine of leads and developers.
  
• 2023 - now: We're building The Ozone Project with the most of the software/data team centered around Poland, Zielona Góra.
  
• Also I worked for a number of smaller missions as a consultant in the initial "decision" phase or during near-shore site launch.
  

Service legals

• Kemu Studio Limited in UK - EU-VAT registered
  
• Kemu Studio in Poland - EU-VAT registered
  

Contact

• email: y@ke.mu
  
• Book a meeting: https://calendly.com/yosheeck/30-minutes-meeting
  
• mobile: currently hidden