Roman StepanovsBuilding engineering teams that consistently deliver value
Implementing strategic AI solutions and metrics-driven frameworks to create predictable, efficient, and scalable engineering operations.
Is your engineering team struggling to deliver consistent results?
Inefficient decision making
Teams often operate on gut feelings rather than data, leading to misaligned priorities and repeated mistakes. 73% of data collected by engineering teams goes unused in decision-making processes.
Operational bottlenecks
Without clear metrics and processes, teams struggle with unpredictable delivery times, resource allocation issues, and scaling difficulties. This results in missed deadlines and budget overruns.
Technology integration hurdles
While AI and automation offer tremendous potential, many teams struggle to effectively implement these technologies, missing opportunities for optimization and growth.
Performance visibility gap
Engineering leaders lack clear insights into team performance, making it difficult to identify improvement areas and justify strategic decisions to stakeholders.
Here's how I transform struggling teams into high-performing units
Deep-dive analysis
I begin with a thorough assessment of your current state - team structure, processes, tools, and pain points. Understanding where you are is crucial for plotting the path forward.
Establish clear metrics & visibility
Implementing the right metrics framework to track what matters - from delivery speed to code quality. This creates transparency and enables data-driven decisions.
Define clear engineering standards
Setting up engineering practices, coding standards, and architectural guidelines. This creates consistency and quality across all deliverables.
Streamline development workflows
Optimizing the entire development lifecycle - from planning to deployment. I remove bottlenecks and create predictable delivery patterns.
Build strong engineering culture
Fostering ownership, continuous learning, and technical excellence. Great teams need both solid processes and the right mindset.
Implement effective communication
Creating clear communication channels between engineering and stakeholders. This ensures alignment with business goals and builds trust.
Create scalable processes
Documenting and automating key processes to ensure consistent quality as the team grows. This turns individual successes into repeatable wins.
Continuous improvement framework
Establishing feedback loops and regular retrospectives to identify improvement areas. The best teams never stop evolving.
Experience & Achievements
Asubium- Directed multiple cross-functional teams across business strategy, software development, DevOps practices, and new product ideation, which accelerated project delivery and aligned engineering efforts with company objectives.
- Established company-wide software development and quality standards, enhancing product reliability, ensuring compliance with industry best practices, and improving overall development efficiency.
- Led the end-to-end development of a performance-enhancing service for third-party platforms, overseeing everything from requirements gathering to sales and production deployment to banking clients, strengthening client relationships and expanding the customer base.
- Led negotiations with potential outsourcing and outstaffing partners, as well as cloud service providers like Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), establishing strategic partnerships that enhanced operational capabilities and supported business growth.
Avaloq- Advised stakeholders on technical intricacies and guided product development to meet customer demands, culminating in a ~30% surge in client satisfaction and seamless alignment with business goals.
- Spearheaded the end-to-end development of a full-text search solution, leading from initial concept to production deployment and seamlessly integrating it into multiple products. This resulted in a 20%–80% improvement in app usability across projects, significantly decreasing the time users spent navigating the app.
- Actively participated in architectural design and coached software developers throughout the project, enhancing team capabilities and ensuring adherence to best practices.
- Optimized the legacy search engine’s code and system architecture, boosting search efficiency by 10x and increasing data processing speed by 100x, significantly enhancing system performance.
- Designed and executed a comprehensive data security strategy, strengthened the data layer security system, resulting in a 99% reduction in security incidents and ensuring adherence to stringent data protection standards.
Citadele Bank- Conducted a comprehensive investigation into organizational DevOps practices, identifying critical pain points and developing a 5-year strategic roadmap to enhance efficiency and scalability.
- Developed a metrics framework to enhance the performance of the internal team and oversaw critical product metrics, resulting in enhanced team performance by 25%, leading to faster project completions and increased client satisfaction.
- Conducted multiple DevOps workshops on Git, Docker, Kubernetes, Elasticsearch, and cloud technologies, which upskilled over 30 employees and enhanced cross-functional collaboration, resulting in 6 successful cross-department projects.
- Led the integration of Nutanix private cloud solution, reducing cloud costs by 60%, streamlining infrastructure management, and enabling data-driven decision-making at scale.
- Accelerated the migration of the Internet banking application to microservices and containers, reducing the development lifecycle by ~30% and improving the bank’s responsiveness to market demands.
C.T.Co- Pioneered a transformative workplace enhancement initiative, gathering critical feedback and orchestrating the development of an internal community platform that facilitated seamless collaboration and sparked innovation, resulting in a ~30% increase in employee engagement.
- Facilitated the seamless transition to Agile methodologies across multiple teams within the organization, driving on average a ~25% boost in team efficiency by adopting core Scrum practices to enhance collaboration.
- Led tailored in-house training initiatives, providing >50 colleagues and new talent with comprehensive knowledge of Java and DevOps best practices.
- Accelerated the conceptualization and execution of a robust Kubernetes cluster on bare metal, significantly enhancing the internal project infrastructure, which led to a ~60% reduction in resource cost.
- Established the seamless migration of diverse technical project resources to Docker and Kubernetes, increasing deployment frequency 3 times on average, allowing for continuous delivery and faster response to market changes.
- 2016 — 2017Java Software Engineer· C.T.Co
- 2015 — 2016Junior Software Engineer· C.T.Co
- 2014 — 2015Full Stack Engineer· Axioma Group
- 2012 — 2013Junior Full Stack Engineer· Optum Plus
I'm Roman Stepanovs
..an engineering manager who thrives on leading teams to success. Throughout my career, I've guided cross-functional teams through complex challenges, always with a focus on innovation, collaboration, and leadership. My approach centers on fostering an environment where individuals can excel and deliver scalable, efficient solutions. From shaping strategic direction to executing on ambitious projects, leadership has always been at the heart of my work.
Outside of work, I'm always on a quest to balance my career, family, and personal growth. Through my blog, I'll be sharing insights from both my professional journey and life's balancing act.
Contact meKey Competences
Engineering Leadership & Team Development
Inspiring and guiding teams to achieve their best through mentorship, collaboration, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement. Developing future leaders and aligning diverse talents to maximize team performance
Strategic Planning and Technical Vision
Driving initiatives that align engineering efforts with broader business objectives. Combining a strategic mindset with hands-on leadership to execute projects that scale and support long-term growth
Process Optimization & Tailoring
Expert at analyzing, designing, and implementing processes tailored to the specific needs of teams and projects. With a focus on continuous improvement, I refine processes to enhance productivity, reduce bottlenecks, and drive operational excellence
Technical Expertise
Deep knowledge of software architecture, cloud infrastructure, and modern development frameworks, providing technical leadership to ensure scalable and efficient solutions
Cross-functional Collaboration and Communication
Building bridges between engineering and other departments to ensure alignment with business objectives. Skilled at facilitating communication between product, marketing, and leadership teams, ensuring that technical solutions meet both customer and organizational goals
Project & Resource Optimization
Managing complex projects from planning to execution, optimizing resources, budgets, and timelines. Skilled at mitigating risks and ensuring successful delivery of large-scale engineering initiatives
What colleagues say
“...Under his leadership, we have seen significant improvements in engineering efficiency, cross-team collaboration, and innovation. Roman is also highly skilled at navigating complex technical challenges and guiding teams through technical transformations, whether it involves scaling cloud architecture or integrating machine learning technologies into existing systems...”
“...Even after many years, Roman's strategic plan continues to guide the IT department of the company, and the DevOps department he established has become an incredible success. I wholeheartedly recommend Roman for his visionary leadership and unwavering commitment to excellence.”
“Romans is a great guy to fix your problem, he takes the responsibility and does the job right always trying to learn and improve himself in the process..”
“...His mentorship played a critical role in accelerating my career as a software engineer. His career advice and technical knowledge were always spot-on... His leadership style is incredibly inspiring, as he leads by example, empowers others to take ownership, and fosters a supportive environment for growth and learning.”
“Talented devops professional! Got dozens of solutions for your pressing challenges. My recommendation for sure!”
