Ivan Zdravkov


Senior Cloud Automation Engineer

Skills


Frontend

  • Angular
  • React
  • Bootstrap
  • HTML, CSS, SASS
  • TypeScript
  • JavaScript

Backend

  • C#
  • .NET
  • ASP.NET
  • AWS
  • Azure
  • SQL, NoSQL, ORMs

Miscellaneous

  • Leadership
  • System Architecture
  • Git, Code Reviews
  • Agile Methodologies
  • Continuous Integration
  • Unit & Integration Testing

Technical Leadership


Difficult Leadership

The Problem

The whole industry is facing leadership challenges across all organizational levels.

Technical leadership specifically, both on the individual team level and higher organizational levels, has notoriously been lacking, with many technical leaders being promoted solely based on their superior technical abilities or seniority, instead of covering the full scope of the role's complexity.

Predisposition

My Predisposition

As a Senior Software Developer, often times with little to none technical leadership to support me, I was regularly the informal technical leader who pushed the team forward.

The constant effort to optimize processes and practices as well as team and application performance, led me to take an interest in software architectures, cloud technologies, effective documentation, open communication and tools to support software development.

Successful Leadership

The Solution

Having done leadership in an informal capacity, I finally took the challenge to better understand the role and the requirements to successfully perform it. Listed bellow are what I believe to be the qualities, skills and expectations for any successful technical lead.

Technical Guidance


  • Lead the architectural work.
  • Lead the technical documentation efforts.
  • Advice on the infrastructure work.
  • Drive high level technical discussions and set overall direction.
  • Integrate, communicate and enforce code tools and best practices.
  • Assist with code blocks, bottlenecks, performance issues, deadlines and implementation ideas.
  • Assist the PM and the BA in product planning.

People Management


  • Create a team culture of openness and sharing.
  • Have an onboarding process and a buddy for new team members.
  • Have regular 1:1 meetings with agendas.
  • Realistically determine the team’s capabilities and manage client expectations.
  • Act as a buffer between team members and upper management and clients.
  • Rotate seconds for the interviews and hiring processes.

Team Communication


  • Reduce meeting bloat.
  • Organize async and transparent communication.
  • Utilize topic channels and external integrations.
  • Have regular engineering meetings for technical discussions, showcases, Q&As, etc.
  • Have transparency on team members' areas of expertise and utilize them accordingly.
  • Have developer seconds for complex work.
  • Assign and participate in coaching and mentoring as needed.

Process Facilitation


  • Have a healthy team composition of Developers, QAs, BAs, DevOps, etc.
  • Have required code review processes.
  • Have required reviewers based on areas of expertise.
  • Design applications, documentation, tools and processes in such a way as to allow the team to self-regulate.
  • Have people specialize and take ownership of parts of the stack or modules of the application.
  • Unblock team member’s productivity.

Success Requirements


  • Having the ability to mostly manage the team independently with regular team performance feedback.
  • Having the ability to exchange ideas with other people in similar roles in the organization.
  • Having an engaged lead of my own with regular 1:1.
  • Having the flexibility to mostly set my own agenda.
  • Having a clear understanding of the organizational structure, career opportunities for team members, feedback processes and payment actualizations.
  • Having some focused time set aside in my calendar, where no meetings will take place.

Challenges to Consider


  • Delegate and oversee, instead of take the lead on technical implementations.
  • Accept the role's complexity and the main goal to make sure everyone else is able to work effectively.
  • Overcome the feeling of underperformance, whenever no code is actively being written.
  • Utilize documentation, note-keeping and productivity tools.
  • Identify, prioritize and track work.
  • Limit work hours to reasonable amounts.
  • Better boundary keeping.

Experience


  • VMware

    09.2023 - Present

    Senior Cloud Automation Engineer

    VMware
    Remote full-time

    Developing cloud automation solutions for VMware's products: vRO, vRA, NSX, vCenter, Horizon, etc.

  • Maersk

    02.2022 - 08.2023

    Senior Software Engineer

    MAERSK
    Remote freelance

    Architecture and development of manual and automated tools to ensure data and configuration quality for a project in logistics, using .NET, Angular and Azure.

  • Lindy Hop Plovdiv

    12.2018 - Present

    Dance Instructor

    Lindy Hop Plovdiv
    On-site part-time

    Teaching Lindy Hop, Charleston, Solo Jazz and other Swing Dances. Organizing social events, parties and performances.

  • Adidas

    08.2021 - 06.2022

    Senior Software Engineer

    Adidas
    Remote freelance

    Architecture, development and DevOps of an internal tool for the IT department of Adidas, using .NET and AWS.

  • Dext

    11.2020 - 08.2021

    Software Developer

    Dext
    Remote full-time

    Development and functionality support for a pilot payments product. Improvements on the main application's Segment tracking capabilities, using Ruby and React.

  • Amexis

    10.2018 - 10.2020

    Technical Lead

    Amexis
    Hybrid full-time

    Technically leading a team of developers to build from a successful PoC application, scale up and migrate existing functionality.

    04.2017 - 09.2018

    Senior Software Engineer

    Amexis
    Hybrid full-time

    Architecture and development of a pilot application in healthcare and education, using .NET, Angular and AWS. Continued development and support of the legacy application.

    04.2016 - 03.2017

    Software Engineer

    Amexis
    On-site full-time

    Development and optimization of a long-running project in healthcare and education, using ASP.NET, AngularJS and AWS.

  • Scalefocus

    04.2014 - 03.2016

    Software Developer

    Scalefocus Amexis
    On-site full-time

    Development of a pilot iPad application, using ASP.NET. Migration of a healthcare and education project's legacy Web Forms code base to ASP.NET, AngularJS and AWS.

  • Amexis

    10.2013 - 03.2014

    Junior Software Developer

    Amexis
    On-site full-time

    Praparation for the "Microsoft MCSD: Web Applications" certification track. Development of a project management solution for a cloud based platform, using ASP.NET.

  • 3S SOT Sliven

    05.2011 - 02.2012

    Technitian

    3S SOT Sliven
    On-site full-time

    Construction and mainteinance of security, video surveillance and fire alert systems.

  • Work End

Certification


Education


  • Technical University

    2016 - 2019

    Technical University of Sofia
    Branch Plovdiv
    Master of Computer Engineering

  • Tokyo University

    04.2018 - 11.2018

    Tokyo University
    Researcher

  • Technical University

    2009 - 2014

    Technical University of Sofia
    Branch Plovdiv
    Bachelor of Computer Engineering

  • Teleric Academy

    2013 - 2014

    Telerik Academy
    Software Engineering

  • Sliven

    2004 - 2009

    High School of
    Mathematics and Sciences
    "Dobri Chintulov"
    Sliven
    Informatics and English

  • Work End

Resume


Summary

A highly versatile software developer and technical leader, with 10 years of experience, sharing a love of developing and fleshing out application and cloud architectures, optimizing workflows and processes, keeping an always flexible, clean and maintainable code base and offering solutions to complex technical and business problems. Besides work, I'm a passionate dancer, martial artist and gamer. Check the header out for my LinkedIn and GitHub accounts.

Work Experience

Senior Cloud Automation Engineer

VMware
vmware.com 09.2023 - Present

Developing cloud automation solutions for VMware's products: vRO, vRA, NSX, vCenter, Horizon, etc.

  • Creating custom cloud automation solutions for VMware's products.
  • Leading teams of developers.
  • Client communication.
  • Supporting the pre-sales and architecture teams.
Typescript Python Powershell vRO vRA NSX vCenter

Senior Software Engineer

MAERSK
maersk.com 02.2022 - 08.2023

Architecture and development of manual and automated tools to ensure data and configuration quality for a project in logistics, using .NET, Angular and Azure.

  • Creating a new services driven architecture to support the functionality migration of an old monolith.
  • Configuring the application's architecture as code on top of Azure.
  • Configuring the Kubernetes and Docker deployments.
  • Documenting the design, architectural and structural decisions.
  • Setting up a new automated testing framework.
  • Migrating and extending the existing in-house manual testing framework.
ASP.NET Angular Azure SOA Kubernetes

Dance Instructor

Lindy Hop Plovdiv
plovdiv.lindyhop.bg 12.2018 - Present

Teaching Lindy Hop, Charleston, Solo Jazz and other Swing Dances at Dance Station Plovdiv. Organizing social events, parties and performances.

  • Teaching Swing Dances.
  • Organizing Events.
  • Organizing Parties.

Senior Software Engineer

Adidas
adidas.com 08.2021 - 06.2022

Architecture, development and DevOps of an internal tool for the IT department of Adidas, using .NET and AWS.

  • Migrating a legacy .NET Framework application to .NET.
  • Reviewing and optimizing the application's processes and workflows.
  • Overseeing the successful data, functionality and user migration.
  • Setting up the deployment pipelines, using Jenkins.
  • Developing new features.
  • Supporting the legacy application, until decommissioning.
ASP.NET MVC Entity Framework Dapper AWS Jenkins

Software Developer

Dext
dext.com 11.2020 - 08.2021

Development and functionality support for a pilot payments product. Improvements on the main application's Segment tracking capabilities, using Ruby and React.

  • Developing and supporting Bank Integration capabilities.
  • Developing Segment tracking capabilities.
  • Working on Dext's Payment product.
  • Mastering Ruby, React and GraphQL.
Ruby Ruby on Rails React GraphQL Kubernetes

Technical Lead

Amexis
amexis.net 10.2018 - 10.2020

Technically leading a team of developers to build from a successful PoC application, scale up and migrate existing functionality.

  • Engineering from the ground up a complex multi-layer application.
  • Architecturing and structuring the cloud infrastructure.
  • Organizing and keeping a thorough technical documentation.
  • Designing and supporting core application systems.
  • Optimising core and long-running server operations.
  • Helping with the immersion of new team members.
  • Technological and business knowledge sharing.
  • Developing new features.
  • Hot fixes and Bug fixes.
  • Code reviews.
  • Deployments.
ASP.NET Angular AWS Agile Methodologies Leadership

Senior Software Engineer

Amexis
amexis.net 04.2017 - 10.2018

Architecture and development of a pilot application in healthcare and education, using .NET, Angular and AWS. Continued development and support of the legacy application.

  • Leading a sceleton crew of developers to build a PoC application.
  • Developing a dashboard to showcase UI and performance improvements.
  • Structuring the application layers.
  • Designing and supporting core application systems.
  • Building on top of a life production read-only replica.
ASP.NET Angular AWS Leadership

Software Engineer

Amexis
amexis.net 04.2016 - 03.2017

Development and optimization of a long-running project in healthcare and education, using ASP.NET, AngularJS and AWS.

  • Helping with the immersion of new team members.
  • Optimising server and database operations.
  • Unit and integration testing.
  • Developing new features.
  • Hot fixes and Bug fixes.
ASP.NET Web API .NET Framework AngularJS SQL AWS

Software Developer

Scalefocus Amexis
scalefocus.com 04.2014 - 03.2016

Development of a pilot iPad application, using ASP.NET. Migration of a healthcare and education project's legacy Web Forms code base to ASP.NET, AngularJS and AWS.

  • Unit and integration testing.
  • Data validation scripts and alarms.
  • Improving the dev toolkit.
  • Developing new features.
  • Bug fixes.
ASP.NET Web API .NET Framework AngularJS SQL AWS

Junior Software Developer

Amexis
amexis.net 10.2013 - 03.2014

Praparation for the "Microsoft MCSD: Web Applications" certification track. Development of a project management solution for a cloud based platform, using ASP.NET.

  • Preparing for the Microsoft MCSD: Web Applications Certifications.
  • Developing new features.
  • Bug fixes.
ASP.NET Web API ASP.NET MVC .NET Framework jQuery JavaScript

Technitian

3S SOT Sliven
3ssotsliven.com 05.2011 - 02.2012

As a security and network technitian at 3S SOT Sliven, I was engaged in constructing and maintaining security, video surveillance and fire alert systems.

  • Constructing radio security systems.
  • Maintaining fire alert systems.
  • Installing video surveillance.
  • Supporting the company's computer network.

Skills & Tools

Primary Skills

  • C#
  • .NET
  • ASP.NET
  • AWS
  • SQL
  • Angular
  • TypeScript
  • JavaScript
  • Leadership
  • System Architecture
  • Agile Methodologies
  • Continuous Integration

Complimentary Skills

  • MVC
  • Web Api
  • Azure
  • GraphQL
  • Kubernetes
  • NoSQL
  • Entity Framework
  • Dapper
  • React
  • Bootstrap
  • HTML
  • CSS
  • SASS
  • jQuery
  • Git
  • Code Reviews
  • Unit Testing
  • Integration Testing

Other Skills

  • Assembly
  • C
  • C++
  • Matlab
  • Python
  • Ruby
  • Ruby on Rails
  • WPF
  • WCF
  • RFID
  • Motion Capture
  • Human Computer Interaction
  • Leap
  • Unity
  • Unreal Engine

Education

  • MCs in Computer Engineering
    Technical University of Sofia Branch Plovdiv
    2016 - 2019
  • Research
    Tokyo University
    04.2018 - 11.2018
  • BCs in Computer Engineering
    Technical University of Sofia Branch Plovdiv
    2009 - 2014
  • Software Engineering
    Telerik Academy
    2013 - 2014
  • Informatics and English
    High School of Mathematics and Sciences "Dobri Chintulov" Sliven
    2004 - 2009

Certification

  • VMware vSphere 7 Professional
    LinkedIn
  • Complete C# Unity Developer 2D
    gamedev.tv
  • AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate
    Amazon
  • The Fundamentals of Digital Marketing
    Google
  • MCSA - Web Applications
    Microsoft
  • MCSD - App Builder
    Microsoft
  • Developing Azure and Web Services
    Microsoft
  • Developing ASP.NET MVC Web Applications
    Microsoft
  • Programming in HTML5 with JS and CSS3
    Microsoft
  • Certificate in Advanced English
    Cambridge University

Language

  • Bulgarian (Native)
  • English (Professional)
  • Japanese (Elementary)

Interests

  • Swing Dancing
  • Martial Arts
  • Gaming

About


Plovdiv

Plovdiv Based

The town of my choosing is the beautiful Bulgarian town of Plovdiv. It is one of the oldest cities in the world, the whole area full with Roman, Turkish and Bulgarian sights. Plovdiv has a rich cultural heritage and a rapidly growing economy, both industrial and IT. Plovdiv is named 2019's European Capital of Culture.

Swing Dancing

Swing Dancer

Lindy Hop Plovdiv and Lindy Hop Bulgaria introduced me to the magic of swing dancing in 2016 and I was forever changed. Nowadays my whole life revolves around travelling the World, dancing, learning and meeting others. Fully engaging in it is without a doubt one of the most rewarding decisions I have ever taken.

Aikido

Martial Artist

I have spent 15 years practicing and mastering Aikido, as well as a bit of Judo and Karate and I can hardly imagine my life without that. The discipline and philosophy of Japanese martial arts have shaped me into a person, not afraid to tackle any problem with clarity and persistence.

Gamer

Gamer

From beating Mario Brothers and endless hours of Battle City with my father, to keeping a last-gen gaming PC and a console, I still enjoy the medium greatly. My fascination with game technology is what pushed me towards programming.

I enjoy story-rich and non-competitive games and If I have to name the most influencial game series to me, that would have to be thе Half-Life series with all of its spin-offs, Interplay's Fallout series and the Mass Effect trilogy.

Contact Me