I’m looking for a senior backend or hands-on technical lead role where I can own APIs, integrations and event-driven systems from design through production. My main languages are Go and PHP. I value clear product ownership, pragmatic engineering decisions and teams that share knowledge. I work remotely around CET hours and am based in Italy.
Open to opportunities
Valentin Nikolaev
@valentinnikolaev
Senior Backend Engineer | Go, PHP, AWS, Kubernetes | APIs, event-driven systems and production reliability
ItalyWhat I'm looking for
I’m a senior backend engineer working with Go and PHP, with experience as both an individual contributor and a Technical Lead. I design APIs, integrations and event-driven systems, and stay involved in the code and their operation in production.
At Simple.life, I owned Go backend systems connecting helpdesk platforms, internal services and AI workflows. At CRURATED, I took technical ownership of a production event analytics system, increasing DataLake throughput by over 10x and reducing the setup of new analytics streams from several days to under four hours. Earlier, I led five backend engineers on a transactional-email service handling around three million messages in an ordinary month, with up to tenfold volume during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
My core stack is Go, PHP, AWS and Kubernetes. My work includes API design, message queues, observability, performance and production reliability. As a technical lead, I’ve worked with Product and engineering teams on architecture, delivery and mentoring while staying close to implementation.
I’m based in the Rome area and looking for senior backend engineering opportunities in Italy and the EU/EEA. I also consider compatible UK and international contracts. My working language is English, and I’m learning Italian.
If your team needs someone to own backend systems from design through production, let’s talk.
Experience
Work history, roles, and key accomplishments
Owned Go backend systems connecting helpdesk platforms, internal APIs and AI workflows. Built a vendor-neutral helpdesk gateway and LLM tools with an evaluation pipeline. Added partial-success handling and sharded ticket scans; consolidated three pipelines. Owned backend development for Amazon Connect telephony and GDPR workflows. Stack: Go, PostgreSQL, AWS, Kubernetes, Terraform.
Concurrent part-time PHP consulting alongside Simple.life. Owned production DataLake and event analytics: over 10x throughput, new streams configured in under four hours instead of days, and event delivery above 99.9%. Built versioned events, routing with retries and backpressure, and the Crutrade integration using PHP and AWS EventBridge.
Led backend delivery from planning through production, working with Product and engineering on roadmaps and releases. Coordinated implementation priorities, mentoring and technical decisions. Defined team metrics; the team increased its feature delivery rate by approximately 20%. Conducted more than 20 technical interviews.
Led backend performance work, reducing average API response times by about 30%, tracked in Prometheus. Removed bottlenecks and redistributed workload, bringing peak load on the main database down to 65%. Built a shared Laravel/Symfony logging package, improved CI/CD and resolved production issues.
Technical lead on a Web3 social and NFT platform that progressed from prototype to closed beta in under six months. Worked with business stakeholders and the CTO on product priorities, OKRs and technology choices. Coordinated backend delivery, microservices and CI/CD. Stack included PHP, Phalcon, PostgreSQL and Prometheus/Jaeger.
Developed backend microservices for GDPR requirements and worked on code subject to PCI DSS requirements. Assessed technical solutions against functional, performance and operational needs, and participated in system audits and security assessments. Stack: PHP, REST APIs, Zend Framework and MySQL.
Founding member of the in-product backend team responsible for high-volume transactional and lifecycle email systems.
Led five backend engineers building a transactional-email service and owned technical decisions. Supported around three million emails in an ordinary month, with up to 10x volume during Black Friday/Cyber Monday. Worked on DNS, DKIM, SPF, DMARC and feedback loops, and led capacity and reliability work for seasonal peaks.
Earlier PHP backend work across CoinsBank/bit-x, Aurum Software and freelance projects. Built exchange features, payment integrations and event-based notifications. Improved database schemas and queries; developed reporting, planning algorithms and integration scripts. Work included code reviews and automated tests.
Education
Degrees, certifications, and relevant coursework
NI
National Technical University "Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute"
Master of Computer Applications (MCA), Microprocessors, C, ASM, IT Management
2003 - 2008
Availability
Open to opportunities
Location
ItalyAuthorized to work in
Job categories
Backend EngineerSoftware DeveloperTechnical LeadSoftware EngineerDevOps EngineerSite Reliability EngineerEngineering ManagerBackend EngineeringBackend Infrastructure EngineerBackend Systems EngineerBackend Services EngineerProduct Backend EngineerBackend Platform EngineerCloud Backend EngineerSaaS Backend Engineer
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