Open to work | Remote-first | Novi Sad, Serbia

Vladimir Golubev

Backend Tech Lead & Software Architect

Backend engineer → tech lead.
I'm the one fuzzy specs go to die.

13+ yrs high-load / high-throughput systems | 7,000 req/sec | stats core live 10+ yrs | System Design | Distributed Systems | Microservices | ClickHouse | AWS | AI-augmented development

13+ years shipping
production backends
7K req/sec peak
on a single API
10yr+ stats core still
live in production
4 payment gateways
integrated end-to-end

AboutSummary

the long version

Backend engineer turned technical lead — 13+ years building, scaling and owning production systems, with team-leadership and lead/architect responsibilities since 2018. I design high-load distributed backends and I'm accountable for the architectural decisions behind them.

Plain version of what I do: requirements analysis and system design (I'd rather pick a fuzzy spec apart for an hour than ship a bug for a month), architecture trade-off decisions (monolith vs. microservices, relational SQL vs. column-store — I choose by load, not by trend), and the documentation, code review and testing discipline that keep systems alive for years.

Proof points

AI-augmented development as a default, not a novelty. I use Claude / Claude Code, ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot, Cursor and Codex daily, and I own the agentic harness end-to-end. I stress-test AI-assisted workflows in my solo indie game studio (nomorecare.gg), where I am sole architect, engineer and operator.

AI architecture with production engineering underneath. I design agentic pipelines, own the harness around them, evaluate model behaviour, and turn AI-assisted workflows into repeatable engineering processes. My focus includes tool use, LLM fine-tuning, local models and human approval at the points where correctness matters.

I validate these patterns in my solo studio at nomorecare.gg: a web-novel design pipeline and a game-master pipeline, with the first version built on an agent framework. Engineering judgement remains the foundation: agents draft, systems validate, and the owner approves.

Core stack: PHP (5–8), system design, microservices, distributed systems, AWS, ClickHouse, Terraform, Docker, Redis; relational and NoSQL databases (MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, ClickHouse, MongoDB, Couchbase, DynamoDB, OpenSearch).

Open to Tech Lead, Software Architect and Staff Engineer roles where trade-offs and decisions matter more than volume of code. Remote-first, based in Novi Sad, Serbia. English C1, Russian native.

Open to AI Architect and AI-Augmented Engineer roles where agentic systems, model workflows and sound backend architecture meet. Remote-first, based in Novi Sad, Serbia. English C1, Russian native.

ExperienceWork Experience

2013 → now
  1. Jul 2022 – Jun 2026 Remote

    Senior Backend Engineer / Tech Lead at Quintegro Senior Backend Engineer / Tech Lead — Quintegro · Jul 2022 – Jun 2026 · Remote

    Technical lead and senior backend engineer across a collectible-car ecosystem — multiple products: event-car rentals, US auction sites, an analytics platform, an RV marketplace.

    • Served as tech lead on an event-car rental marketplace through its support phase; designed the seller-side deal-offer flow on an in-house PHP framework (PHP, jQuery, MariaDB).
    • Built the backend for a data-heavy collectible-car analytics dashboard: subscription-based price-alert emails, currency converter, aggregated historical data blocks by car generation and model, and an authenticating request proxy.
    • On a recreational-vehicle (RV) marketplace built on microservices: delivered automatic spam/abuse blocking, asynchronous image optimisation, CRUD admin tooling and notification flows; built a full local development environment for the entire microservice fleet enabling cross-service testing; rewrote the in-house DynamoDB library from raw arrays into a query-builder API; owned release management.
    • Applied an Agents Framework, Claude Code and AI process automation to the working workflow: agents prepare drafts and implementation context, while the owner reviews and approves the result.

    Technical LeadershipSystem DesignMicroservicesDistributed SystemsPHPMariaDBAWSDynamoDBOpenSearchCloudWatchTerraformRelease Management

    Agents FrameworkClaude CodeAI process automation

  2. Jul 2021 – Jun 2022 St. Petersburg

    Senior Backend Developer at Playkot Senior Backend Developer — Playkot · Jul 2021 – Jun 2022 · St. Petersburg

    Backend engineer on a live mobile-game backend under production traffic: implemented multi-provider authentication with account linking, and optimised partial-load / lazy-loading patterns over MongoDB for hot player data (performance optimisation under load).

    PHPMongoDBNoSQLAuthenticationGame BackendPerformance Optimization

  3. Oct 2020 – Jun 2021 St. Petersburg

    Senior Backend Developer at Rabota.ru Senior Backend Developer — Rabota.ru · Oct 2020 – Jun 2021 · St. Petersburg

    Backend engineer on one of Russia's largest job boards (high-traffic web platform): built the in-account customer notification service, migrated client-account features off a legacy codebase onto the new internal framework (legacy modernisation), and extended automated-test coverage across PostgreSQL-backed services.

    PHPPostgreSQLNotificationsLegacy Migration / ModernizationTest Automation

  4. Apr 2015 – Oct 2020 St. Petersburg · 5y 7m

    Lead Backend (PHP) Developer at Smart Line Lead Backend (PHP) Developer — Smart Line · Apr 2015 – Oct 2020 · St. Petersburg

    Grew a small internal PHP utility into offergate.pro — a multi-tenant CPA (cost-per-action / affiliate marketing) platform with two product surfaces and a ClickHouse analytics stack.

    • Designed a real-time statistics / analytics core in 2016 that still runs in production today; the platform API peaked at 7,000 requests per second (high-load system design).
    • Led a small backend team from 2018: code review, mentoring, architectural sign-off, and a team-wide rollout of automated testing.
    • Early ClickHouse adopter for analytics; initiated the team's migration to Vue.js and containerisation with Docker.
    • Integrated four payment gateways end-to-end — WebMoney, Platron, ePayments, bank131 (payment processing / billing integration).

    Technical LeadershipTeam LeadershipMentoringSystem DesignHigh-Load SystemsPHP 7Vue.jsClickHouseMariaDBRedisCouchbaseDockerPayment Gateway Integration

  5. Jan 2013 – Mar 2015 St. Petersburg

    Full-Stack Engineer at TAXOFT Full-Stack Engineer — TAXOFT · Jan 2013 – Mar 2015 · St. Petersburg

    Designed, built and maintained the full software stack of a taxi-aggregator / ride-hailing service end-to-end — first hands-on exposure to production scale and on-call operations.

    PHPJavaScriptHTMLCSSMySQLFull-Stack Development

Side studioProjects

solo, end-to-end

No More Care — Founder / Solo Engineer

nomorecare.gg →

Solo (one-person) indie game studio with three roguelike games in development — sole owner of design, software architecture, code, infrastructure and release. Used as a real-world test bed for agentic AI / LLM-assisted (“AI-in-the-loop”) development workflows.

AI pet projects include a pipeline for designing web novels and a game-master pipeline for running structured tabletop scenarios; the first game-master version is built on an agent framework and is evaluated as an engineering workflow, not a toy prompt.

Near release

Terminal Stake

Stock-market roguelike with procedurally generated companies and hidden difficulty scaling. Pure terminal UI.

In dev

Incrememory

Fast auto-battler roguelike with deep upgrade mechanics.

In dev

Increvolution

Ecosystem-management roguelike with evolutionary mechanics.

Core competenciesSkills

literal index for search
Pinned

Roles / seniority

Technical LeadSoftware ArchitectStaff EngineerSenior Backend EngineerEngineering Team Lead

Leadership

Technical leadershipTeam leadershipMentoringCode reviewArchitectural sign-off / decision ownershipRelease management

Architecture & systems

System designSoftware architectureDistributed systemsMicroservicesMonolithic architectureHigh-load / high-throughput systemsScalabilityPerformance optimizationAPI designREST APIs

Languages & runtime

PHP (5, 7, 8)JavaScriptSQLPython (beginner, pipelines)

Data

ClickHouseMySQLMariaDBPostgreSQLMongoDBCouchbaseDynamoDBOpenSearchRedisNoSQLRelational databasesColumn-store databasesDatabase design

Cloud & infra

AWSDockerTerraformCloudWatchCI/CDLinuxInfrastructure as Code

Domains

Payment gateway integrationBilling / payment processingAffiliate / CPA platformsMarketplacesAnalytics / statistics platformsGame backendsNotifications

Quality

PHPUnitBehat / BDD (behavior-driven development)Test automationTechnical documentation

AI-augmented development

Claude / Claude CodeChatGPTGitHub CopilotCursorCodexAgentic AILLM-assisted developmentAgentic frameworksOpenHands SDKLLM fine-tuningLocal LLM setup: OpenHands SDK + LM StudioPython pipelines

Frontend (working level)

Vue.jsHTMLCSSJavaScript

Languages

Russian (native)English (C1)

All skills

Backend DevelopmentPHPMicroservicesDistributed SystemsTeam LeadershipMentoringHigh-Load SystemsScalabilityPerformance OptimizationAPI DesignREST APIsClickHouseAWSDockerTerraformRedisMariaDBPostgreSQLMySQLMongoDBCouchbaseDynamoDBOpenSearchNoSQLDatabase DesignPayment Gateway IntegrationRelease ManagementCode ReviewCI/CDPHPUnitBDD / BehatTest AutomationVue.jsLinuxAI-Augmented DevelopmentAgentic AILLM ToolingOpenHands SDKLLM fine-tuningLocal LLM setupPython pipelinesPython (beginner)

If you're hiring

Roles

Tech Lead · Backend Tech Lead · Software Architect · Solutions Architect · Staff Engineer · Principal Engineer · Backend Lead · Engineering Lead.

Format

Remote (preferred) · Hybrid · On-site in Novi Sad.

Employment

Full-time, ideally B2B via my Georgian IE (individual entrepreneur).

Hard no

Projects that violate rights, anything fraudulent or harmful.

Reach me at wladyspb85@gmail.com or @WladySpb on Telegram.

Off-clock

1,000+ hours in Factorio. Cooking, travelling, sometimes with a tent. Cycling. Run and play tabletop RPGs (D&D and others).