Aleksandr Ishchenko

End-to-End Ownership: First engineering hire, solely responsible for full-stack delivery of a secure fintech platform — from architecture decisions to production, reporting directly to the CTO. Full-Stack Product: Built complete React/Next.js UI (admin panel, auth flows, dashboards, data visualizations, PDF viewer) with a type-safe tRPC/Prisma API layer and NestJS backend services. Auth & Security: Designed and implemented end-to-end authentication flows and a "Secure by Design" framework (IAM, Encryption, Audit Logging) to meet rigorous fintech compliance standards. Production-Grade Infrastructure: Architected a full AWS stack using TypeScript CDK — ECS Fargate + ECR for containerized Docker deployments, ALB for load balancing, RDS (PostgreSQL + pgvector), ElastiCache (Redis), S3, SQS, SES, SNS, Route 53, ACM, Secrets Manager, IAM, and CloudWatch — with automated CI/CD and VPC isolation for 1-click deployments. Real-Time AI Financial Engine: Engineered a high-throughput Node.js backend for reactive financial data streams — integrating an LLM-driven RAG pipeline with pgvector for document analysis and automated financial categorization, ensuring data integrity and sub-second UI updates. Leadership: Conducted hiring interviews, mentored team members, established Agile processes, and drove code review culture.

AI Pioneer: Championed Hugging Face API adoption in a conservative enterprise — presented to the executive board, secured approval, and participated in legal negotiations to ship the company's first AI-powered features. Technical Leadership: Bridged and aligned frontend and backend teams, architected the unification strategy across fragmented applications, mentored a 5-person team including the team lead, and established code review standards and Agile practices. Backend Unification: Architected and led consolidation of duplicate user management and authentication logic from multiple app-specific backends into a single shared NestJS/PostgreSQL API layer with Zod type-safe validation. Frontend Modernization: Built new React/Next.js applications for interdepartmental operations (ordering systems, dashboards, video-sharing) and refactored legacy Ruby on Rails and vanilla JS apps to modern architecture. Design System: Unified component library across 12 applications using Storybook, distributed via private npm registry — adopted by designers as daily documentation tool for non-technical stakeholders.

Scale & Ownership: Owned the core KYC completion metric for an identity verification platform processing 1M+ daily verifications across travel, fintech, social, and government enterprise clients — built with Angular, RxJS, and Redux. Adaptive Frontend Pipeline: Engineered dynamic resource loading based on connection quality and device capabilities, improving verification completion rates through measurable A/B tested iterations replicated across iOS and Android teams. Browser-Side ML: Built real-time user guidance using PyTorch-trained models delivered via WebAssembly for browser-side inference (lighting, document positioning, corners) — reducing failed attempts and cutting server processing costs by ~40%. Staff-Level Influence: Aligned TypeScript/JS tech stack decisions across global engineering teams, evaluated and standardized new technologies via POCs and fractional deployments — serving as release master across teams, participating in release ceremonies, and owning hotfix vs rollback decisions. Recognition: Won internal hackathon among 200+ developers — leading to company-sponsored ML training. Holds Stanford/DeepLearning.AI Machine Learning Specialization and DeepLearning.AI Deep Learning Specialization (Andrew Ng).

Platform & Context: Led frontend development for a secure AAA subtitle translation platform at Deluxe Media — Hollywood institution founded 1915, 10 Academy Awards, serving Warner Bros and major studios worldwide — maintaining daily collaboration across a 9-hour time difference for the full 2.5-year tenure. Team Leadership: Joined as the 3rd team member, grew and led a 10-person team — conducting frontend interviews independently, participating in backend hiring, and delivering 30%+ of a legacy Flash app reproduction in 6 months against a hard cancellation deadline. Complex Web Editor: Built a video editor combined with a Git-like translation workflow for AAA movie productions — featuring multi-translator approval, round-based review, and per-language change proposals for Warner Bros content. Translator Marketplace: Built end-to-end marketplace covering signup, automated skill-testing, contribution tracking, payment calculation, account management, and payment history. Distribution & Security: Built scheduling UI for simultaneous delivery to 86+ platforms worldwide (YouTube, Facebook, and movie-specific platforms); operated in a high-security environment with watermarked per-developer video IDs for leak tracing.

Platform: Built and maintained core frontend for a high-traffic international sportsbook — KYC flows, payment interfaces, and account management for a large global user base. Engineering Culture: Championed A/B testing and Agile adoption in a Waterfall-driven organisation; mentored junior developers, established code review standards, and contributed to a shared component library across product teams. Mobile: Developed Apache Cordova mobile application following TDD principles.

Studio: Founded and scaled a web development and SEO agency to 20 employees serving 200+ corporate clients — covered in local press, secured angel investment, and successfully exited via sale to employees (rebranded as Rocket Business, still operating today). SEO Platform: Built an automated SEO analytics platform — keyword tracking, link management, automated reporting, and pay-as-you-go billing — serving 200 solo SEO clients. Achieved #1 Google.ru ranking for "SEO" in Russia for multiple years. Infrastructure & Products: Managed full server infrastructure (Nginx, MySQL, PHP, WordPress) for 200+ client websites; developed Oversource.com, a B2B lead marketplace for trading qualified leads. Met prominent investors, including Guy Kawasaki, during Silicon Valley fundraising.