Stephen Salaka, Management Consultant in Melbourne, FL, United States
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Stephen Salaka

Management Consulting Expert

Melbourne, FL, United States

Toptal member since April 6, 2026

Bio

Stephen has spent 25 years turning fractured technology organizations into high-velocity engineering teams. He walked into 12 post-acquisition IT organizations at a $1 billion manufacturer and unified them, streamlining 624 applications down to 120 and reducing inventory. Before that, he grew a defense engineering team from 12 to 107 and turned a $2 million deficit cost center into a $4.2 million profit center. He's currently building an AI-driven food-tech startup from scratch to MVP.

Expertise

  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  • Change Management
  • Computer Science
  • Information Technology
  • Project Management
  • Python
  • React
  • System Architecture

Work Experience

CTO

2024 - PRESENT
MealMatch.AI
  • Built the entire technology platform from zero on React Native mobile, React 18 web, Python Flask API, PostgreSQL, LangChain AI engine, and Kubernetes deployment infrastructure.
  • Recruited, hired, and onboarded a 12-person engineering team across front end, back end, mobile, and data science with zero prior headcount.
  • Designed and deployed a RAG-driven meal recommendation engine using LangChain and Google Gemini that achieved 95% user satisfaction in beta.
  • Architected a dual-platform strategy (React Native mobile + React 18 web) sharing a single Flask API back end, reducing duplicated development effort by around 40%.
  • Established CI/CD pipelines, Docker-based local development environments, and Kubernetes production configurations, enabling zero-downtime deployments.
Focus areas: System Architecture, Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Education

1900 - 1991

PhD in IO Psychology

Walden University - Minneapolis, MN, USA

1900 - 1900

Bachelor's Degree in Applied Computer Science

University of Central Florida - Orlando, FL, USA

1900 - 1900

Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Information Technology

Florida Metropolitan University - Tampa, FL, USA

Certifications

DECEMBER 2010 - PRESENT

Project Management Professional (PMP)

Project Management Institute (PMI)

Skills

Data & Analysis Software

PostgreSQL

Other

Change Management, Information Technology, Computer Science, Project Management, System Architecture, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Python, React, Docker, TypeScript, Node.js, Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Terraform

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