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Vlad Balabkin

@vladbalabkin

Senior fullstack engineer specializing in video infrastructure and SDK architecture for scalable B2B streaming platforms.

United States

Message

What I'm looking for

I want to build and scale video-centric products and SDKs for B2B platforms—owning end-to-end delivery, reliability, and performance—within a team that values mentorship, clean architecture, and measurable outcomes through A/B testing.

I’m a Senior Fullstack Engineer with 9+ years of experience building video infrastructure, modular frontend systems, and Node.js backend services for B2B platforms in EdTech, OTT streaming, and digital marketplaces. I architected a framework-agnostic video player SDK adopted across React, Vue, Angular, and Svelte, scaling DRM-protected streaming to 500k+ daily users. I lead end-to-end delivery with a focus on SDK architecture, BFF and API design, performance optimization, and engineering mentorship.

At Guild Education, I led development of a video-centric Learning Experience Platform serving 250k+ active users using React, TypeScript, Node.js, and Nest.js, including smart pause interaction design and Playwright-backed cross-device reliability improvements. I also instrumented Mixpanel and Amplitude telemetry to power A/B tests that lifted outcomes like Course Completion Rate by 18%, while mentoring 4+ junior React engineers to reach production-grade contributions within 12 weeks.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

Senior Fullstack Engineer

Current

Guild Education

Dec 2022 - Present (3 years 6 months)

Led end-to-end development of a video-centric learning experience platform for 250k+ active users using React, TypeScript, Node.js, and Nest.js. Built a Smart Pause layer and BFF architecture that increased student engagement by 27%, reduced LMS sync errors by 41%, improved course completion by 18%, and enabled 15+ enterprise B2B clients within 6 months.

React TypeScript Nest BFF API Design Mixpanel Amplitude XState Video Player UI Performance

SDK Engineer

Cyber-ROM

Jun 2020 - Dec 2022 (2 years 6 months)

Developed a modular, framework-agnostic video player SDK used across React, Vue, Svelte, Angular, and Vanilla JS bundles. Improved HLS playback reliability with MSE and adaptive bitrate, cutting playback complaints by 46% and rebuffering events by 14%, while reducing merge-to-production time to 10 minutes via automated release pipelines.

TypeScript Web Components Mitosis Compiler SDK Media Source Extensions (MSE)Jest Playwright GitHub Actions Docker

Senior Fullstack Engineer

Ex Corp

Jun 2018 - Jun 2020 (2 years)

Drove development across catalog and trading flows for an international digital goods marketplace serving millions of users using React, TypeScript, Next.js, and Node.js. Integrated Notion as a headless CMS via an Express.js BFF with caching and webhook invalidation (2 days to 5 minutes), modernized to strict TypeScript/MobX/InversifyJS, and improved onboarding by 31% with Storybook.

React TypeScript Next.js MobX Notion AI Feature Toggles React Virtualization OpenAPI

Frontend Engineer

Mc2 Software

Sep 2016 - Jun 2018 (1 year 9 months)

Built OTT streaming platforms with 500k+ daily active users using JavaScript and the HTML5 Video ecosystem. Implemented DRM with EME (Widevine/PlayReady), improved seek performance with HLS.js/MSE and look-ahead prefetching (58% faster time-to-play after seek), and reduced RAM usage by 43% through profiling and GC optimizations.

Javascript (ES6)HLS Media Source Extensions (MSE)Encrypted Media Extensions (EME)Widevine DRM FairPlay Performance Optimization