Head of Engineering · CTO · Technical Director — server security (malware detection, WAF, proactive defense, automated patching) · infrastructure · blockchain · SaaS & PaaS
📍 Belgrade, Serbia
18 years in software and infrastructure, 8 of them in executive leadership. I build engineering organizations that ship: teams grown from 5 to 40+, release cadence taken from 1 to 30–40 per month, high-load systems held at 99.99% uptime.
Technical Director, Imunify360 · CloudLinux · since Aug 2025
Own end-to-end technical direction for CloudLinux's flagship server-security suite — malware detection, WAF, proactive defense and automated patching protecting web-hosting servers at scale.
- Lead an engineering organization of ~65 across development, malware research and QA — architecture, delivery, technical quality.
- Drive AI adoption across R&D: AI agents embedded into QA and architecture-review gates, standardized internal AI workflows.
- Built an LLM-maintained knowledge and decision-context platform — one authoritative view of ownership, status and decisions for both teams and agents.
- Set the operating model for how missions are owned, decomposed and validated: single-owner accountability with a named stakeholder for every outcome.
| Years | Company | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 – now | CloudLinux | Technical Director, Imunify360 |
| 2024 – 2025 | Virtuozzo | R&D Director |
| 2021 – 2024 | Chainstack | Engineering Director |
| 2020 – 2021 | Yango.pro | Chief Technology Officer |
| 2018 – 2022 | Litexit.ru | CTO & Founder — successful exit |
| 2016 – 2020 | Qiwi | Technical Project Manager → Deputy CTO |
| 2015 – 2016 | ITCorp | Chief Technology Officer |
| 2014 | Mirmagnitov | Technical Team Lead |
| 2013 – 2014 | BUTIK.RU | PHP Team Lead |
| 2012 – 2013 | Прагматик | Senior Python Developer |
| 2011 – 2012 | PLANET EDS | Senior PHP Developer |
Selected highlights
Chainstack — Engineering Director, 2021–2024
- Key player in the company's expansion from 10 to 110 people in 2022; built and led a remote engineering team from 5 to 40+.
- Owned the end-to-end hiring process, salary negotiations and performance reviews until the HR department was formed.
- Led infrastructure across five global clouds (AWS, GCP, Azure, Virtuozzo) until the Infrastructure department was formed.
- Introduced OpenTracing observability, QA and security gates, Kanban and post-mortems; drove a cross-department initiative to 99.99% uptime.
- Moved the department to 30–40 micro-releases per month and to a product-focused operating model with KPIs aligned to product objectives.
Yango.pro — CTO, 2020–2021 · OTC trading platform, a niche Robinhood competitor
- Built 6 teams from scratch: 250+ interviews, 20+ hires.
- Cut the release cycle from 2–3 months to 2–3 weeks, daily releases for some products.
- Infrastructure as code with Terraform and Kubernetes; monitoring with Prometheus and Grafana, eliminating infrastructure failures.
Litexit.ru — CTO & Founder, 2018–2022 · book-publishing platform (Kindle Direct Publishing for the Russian market)
- Built the site with social-network mechanics for rapid audience growth, online payments, and new-chapter alerts that lifted engagement.
- Sold to the major player in the market — cash exit.
Qiwi — Technical Manager → Deputy CTO, 2016–2020 · QiwiBOX parcel lockers
- Took a high-load, fault-tolerant system from outsourced beginnings to a sustainable in-house product.
- Architecture and evolution of IT systems, agile process design, multi-level product support, hiring and onboarding.
- Microservices: Python 3, Django/Flask/Tornado/aiohttp, PostgreSQL, Redis, RabbitMQ as ESB, ELK + APM, Docker, Swagger API contracts, pytest.
Organizations — hiring and technical interviewing at scale, team topology, single-owner accountability, KPIs tied to product outcomes, performance reviews, one-on-ones with leads.
Engineering — high-load and fault-tolerant architecture, multi-cloud infrastructure, CI/CD and release engineering, observability, security and QA gates, post-mortem culture.
AI in R&D — agents inside review and QA gates, LLM-maintained knowledge and decision-context platforms, standardized internal AI workflows.
- System and method of blockchain ledger data transfer and replication
- Systems and methods of pull-based orchestration of nodes in a blockchain network
English — full professional · Russian — native
Open to conversations about engineering leadership, scaling remote teams, and AI-native R&D — including fractional CTO / advisory engagements. → alex@brilliantov.me · schedule a call