Eugene Blokhin
Amsterdam, NL | Remote | Open to relocation,
eugene.blokhin@gmail.com
https://eugene-blokhin.com
eblokhin
eugene-blokhin

Tech Lead with 13+ years of experience building scalable backend systems and leading cross-functional teams. Proven track record in driving architecture decisions, improving delivery processes, and mentoring engineers. I lead with a focus on ownership, trust, and continuous improvement—creating environments where teams deliver reliably and grow professionally.

Experience

Tech Lead (joined as Senior Software Engineer)
June 2021
 — 
September 2025

I am a tech lead and senior software engineer at Firely where I work on the Firely Server, a FHIR server that is used by healthcare organizations worldwide. My role involves leading a team of developers, planning, designing and implementing new features, and ensuring the quality and performance of our software.

  • Tech stack: FHIR, ASP.NET Core, SQL Server, MongoDB, Docker, Azure Dev Ops, Kubernetes, OpenTelemetry, OpenID Connect
  • Database Performance Crisis Resolution: When key clients experienced severe query performance issues threatening SLA compliance, I spearheaded a 4-month performance initiative. I introduced AST-based query optimizations and redesigned critical database operations, achieving up to 1000x speed improvements for key clients while completing the project with 4x less engineering effort than originally estimated.
  • Zero-Downtime Migration Strategy: Facing the challenge of updating production databases without service interruptions for healthcare clients, I designed and implemented a comprehensive zero-downtime database migration strategy. This enabled seamless updates across all client environments without any service disruptions, maintaining 100% uptime during critical migrations.
  • Release Documentation Automation: To address the Consultant Team's difficulty understanding technical changes for client migrations, I implemented AI-driven release documentation automation. This solution automatically generated clear, non-technical summaries of changes, reducing consultant onboarding time for new releases and streamlining client migration processes.
  • Team Process Transformation: When the team struggled with unpredictable delivery timelines and communication gaps, I led a comprehensive process overhaul focused on predictability and transparency. I established clear workflows, improved cross-team communication protocols, reducing feature delivery time and eliminating surprises for QA, PO, developers, and external stakeholders.
  • Large-Scale ETL Migration Project: For a major client requiring migration from their proprietary database of hundreds of thousands of patients to Firely Server, I led the architecture design and development of a custom ETL pipeline. I coordinated requirements gathering, designed the data transformation logic, oversaw the implementation, and gave demos to the client, successfully migrating millions of healthcare records while maintaining data integrity and compliance standards.
  • Remote Team Culture Building: Recognizing knowledge silos and reduced team cohesion in our remote-first environment, I initiated regular knowledge-sharing sessions and technical deep-dives. These sessions improved technical depth across the team, fostered stronger collaboration, and built a more inclusive remote-first engineering culture with 95% attendance rates.
Senior Software Developer
October 2019
 — 
May 2021

Helped the company with its transition to a cloud-based SaaS model by designing and building new features.

  • Tech stack: C#/.NET, Azure Storage/Functions/App Services/Service Bus/ARM templates
  • Large-Scale Data Backup Solution: When the company's event-sourcing system containing over 2.5 TB of critical business data in Azure Tables lacked a reliable backup strategy during their SaaS transition, I designed and implemented a comprehensive backup solution. The system ensured data integrity and compliance requirements while supporting the company's migration to a cloud-based SaaS model.
Software Developer
May 2017
 — 
September 2019

Helped the Uber-like startup for gas delivery in Brazil to scale on the technical side, gradually replacing MVP monolith with more reliable and maintainable microservices architecture and implementing new features as the business grew.

  • Tech stack: C#/.NET, NServiceBus, Azure Storage/App Services/ServiceFabric/Service Bus...
  • Architecture Transformation for Scale: Faced with an unreliable MVP monolith struggling to handle growing order volume at the Uber-like gas delivery startup, I pioneered the rewrite from synchronous to asynchronous messaging architecture using NServiceBus. This transformation dramatically increased system reliability and opened pathways for feature extensibility, enabling the platform to successfully process ~200,000 orders per day.
  • Performance Optimization Breakthrough: When Microsoft's default Azure Table Storage serialization became a bottleneck for our high-volume operations, I engineered a custom serialization layer. This optimization achieved a 20x speed improvement over the default implementation, significantly enhancing system performance under heavy load.
  • Financial Operations Infrastructure: To support the growing business needs for client billing and financial reporting, I implemented and maintained a comprehensive service for calculating and rendering invoices. This system handled complex pricing models and ensured accurate financial processing for thousands of daily transactions.
Software Engineer
December 2014
 — 
April 2017

Built and maintained software powering photo-products production facilities in The Netherlands and India

  • Tech stack: C#/.NET, ASP.NET, SQL Server, RabbitMQ
  • High-Volume Photo Delivery Modernization: When the existing photo delivery system struggled with reliability and maintainability while handling 3.5 TB of daily user photos, I modernized the service architecture. The new solution successfully delivered photos from cloud storage to print factories in Netherlands and India, enabling the decommissioning of several obsolete services and significantly improving system reliability.
  • Database Schema Governance Tools: Recognizing the need for better database management as the system scaled, I implemented a comprehensive set of SQL static analysis tools. These tools helped the team maintain database schema integrity and prevent issues before they reached production.
  • Production Optimization Through Data Analysis: After gathering requirements and analyzing workflows in a critical factory production stage, I developed a monitoring system that optimized workforce distribution. This data-driven approach helped achieve maximum throughput for that production stage, improving overall factory efficiency.
Software Developer
November 2012
 — 
November 2014

Helped build new features for a SaaS solution for legal matter management (a Wolters Kluwer product) used by numerous large law firms in the US

  • Tech stack: C#/.NET, ASP.NET WebApi, SQL Server, SoapUI
  • RESTful Service Performance Leadership: When the team's new RESTful service for legal matter management needed performance optimization for large US law firms, I took ownership of the complete performance testing and optimization process. This work ensured the service met enterprise-level performance requirements for the Wolters Kluwer SaaS platform.
  • Academic Research Integration: Successfully integrated my practical work experience into academic research, writing my master's thesis based on this project and bridging the gap between industry practices and academic knowledge.
Junior Software Developer
September 2011
 — 
October 2012

Helped develop and maintain a game using Unity3D

  • Tech stack: C#/.NET, Unity3D, DirectDraw

Projects

Freelance marketplace MVP for Czech market
February 2024
 — 
March 2025

Led the end-to-end development of a freelance marketplace for the Czech market. Owned the full technical stack and delivery process, transforming business requirements into a production-ready MVP with a clean, scalable architecture.

  • Full-Stack Marketplace Development: When tasked with creating a freelance marketplace MVP for the Czech market from scratch, I led the complete end-to-end development process. I owned architecture decisions, technology selection, and delivery processes across backend (.NET, PostgreSQL, MassTransit), frontend (Nuxt.js), and deployment (Kubernetes, ArgoCD). The result was a production-ready MVP with scalable architecture and integrated analytics, operations tooling, and AI prototyping for future capabilities.
  • DevOps and Deployment Excellence: Established automated CI/CD pipelines with GitOps methodology, managing multiple environments through Kubernetes and ArgoCD while integrating comprehensive monitoring, analytics (Meta Pixel), and operational tools (SendGrid error alerts).
  • Technical Leadership and Mentoring: Successfully guided a frontend engineer in building a responsive web application while maintaining technical ownership of the complete stack and ensuring architectural consistency across all components.
AI-Powered Telegram bot for matching freelancers and clients
November 2024
 — 
February 2025

Built an intelligent Telegram bot that automatically matches freelancers with clients using semantic analysis of service descriptions and requests. Despite successful technical implementation and deployment, the project was discontinued due to user acquisition challenges.

  • AI-Powered Matching System: When traditional keyword-based matching proved insufficient for freelancer-client connections, I developed a semantic matching system using fine-tuned transformers and OpenAI API. The bot successfully analyzed the semantic meaning of service descriptions and requests to provide intelligent matches, demonstrating advanced NLP capabilities in a production environment.
  • Full-Stack Bot Development: Built the complete system using C#, ASP.NET Core, and PostgreSQL with Entity Framework, deployed on Kubernetes with ArgoCD for automated deployments, showcasing modern cloud-native development practices.
LSTM-based stock price prediction
June 2023
 — 
June 2023

Explored machine learning applications in financial markets by implementing LSTM neural networks for stock price prediction, demonstrating proficiency in AI/ML fundamentals and financial data analysis.

  • Financial ML Implementation: Applied LSTM neural networks to analyze historical stock data and predict future price movements, gaining hands-on experience with time series analysis and financial modeling using TensorFlow, Pandas, and NumPy.
Implementing a 3D scanner control software (freelance)
June 2020
 — 
April 2021

Led the development of controlling software for a hardware 3D scanner used in an AR/VR marketplace. Re-architected the entire solution to improve maintainability and system reliability.

  • Hardware-Software Integration Challenge: When an AR/VR marketplace needed reliable controlling software for their hardware 3D scanner, I completely re-architected and rewrote the existing solution. The new system dramatically improved code maintainability and system reliability by implementing a clean separation between high-level web interface (ASP.NET Core Blazor on Raspberry Pi) and low-level hardware control (C++ on ATMega328P microcontrollers).
  • Cross-Platform Embedded Development: Successfully bridged the gap between web technologies and embedded systems, creating a robust solution that operated reliably in production environments for the design industry.

Education

University Of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics (ITMO) - Russia, St. Petersburg
September 2009
 — 
June 2014
Master in Software Development / Information Systems

Certificates

Machine Learning Specialization
February 2023
DeepLearning.AI, Stanford University

Languages

English:
Fluent
Dutch:
Beginner
Russian:
Native

Skills

Programming Languages / Frameworks:
C# (ASP.NET Core, EF), Python, JavaScript / TypeScript / Node.js (+ React and Vue), C / C++, F#
Architecture:
Data: SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Azure Storage, Neo4j, Messaging: RabbitMQ, Kafka, Cache: Redis, Standards: OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect
DevOps / CI/CD / Cloud:
Azure (Service Bus, Functions, App Services, Storage, ARM/bicep templates), Docker, Kubernetes, Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, GitOps (ArgoCD), OpenTelemetry
AI / Machine Learning:
ML Fundamentals (Gradient Descent, Backpropagation, Transformers), TensorFlow, CrewAI, LangFlow, Prompt Engineering, Vector Databases, MCP Server Deployment
Soft Skills:
Tech Leadership, Conflict Resolution, Tech Mentoring, Cross-team Collaboration, Agile Methodologies (Scrum, Kanban)