Oana Ciherean, Project Manager in New York, NY, United States
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Oana Ciherean

Verified Expert  in Project Management

Project Manager

Location
New York, NY, United States
Toptal Member Since
September 6, 2018

Oana is a product and engineering lead with 15+ years of experience launching and scaling tech solutions that improve lives worldwide. She has directed a product for telecom apps used by millions, led platform development for two million K-12 students, and architected healthcare systems scaled in 40+ countries. A member of Toptal's top 3% and a multilingual, multicultural team builder, Oana founded the award-winning startup Dalia's Book, named Best Social Impact Startup twice.

Project Highlights

Intelligent AI Coding Tutor
Led the development of an AI coding tutor, overseeing all aspects from market research to product launch.
MVP Launch for an AI-Gaming EdTech
Created the strategic product roadmap, schedule, and team plan for launching an MVP.
Engineering Restructuring for a Telecommunications Enterprise | Management Consulting
Redesigned the organizational structure of a telecommunications enterprise to transition the R&D department of 40+ from flat to matrix reporting.

Expertise

Work Experience

Technical Consultant | Project and Product Manager

2018 - PRESENT
Toptal
  • Ran discovery and planning workshops for five projects: captured requirements, created and prioritized product backlog, estimated and planned release roadmaps, established team needs, and built project budgets.
  • Led product development for six clients from MVP to launch by identifying team needs, designing the right processes, and coordinating fully-remote design and engineering teams of 5-10 members.
  • Consulted clients in integrating AI in their products and development and designed AI integration solutions.
  • Managed engineering for large-scale enterprise solutions and startups in real estate, legal, healthcare, education, and telecom, overseeing product strategy, UI/UX design, engineering, and testing for DevOps and delivery.
  • Enabled the turnaround of five at-risk projects through product and technical audits and strategic planning for project rescue initiatives.
  • Provided technical leadership for web-based and mobile solutions, driving system design and manual and automated test architectures.
  • Designed systems and processes for scale across product management, agile development, technical documentation, and engineering best practices and coached teams in implementing them.
  • Invited to join the PM screening team for scoring in the top five highest candidate interviews.

CEO/CTO

2014 - PRESENT
Dalia's Book
  • Grew the user base twentyfold in one year by designing a product and marketing strategy for an online learning two-sided marketplace.
  • Built an education platform from the ground up, from prototype to MVP, and scaled it to over 6,000 users.
  • Assembled a cross-functional team of 15+ people for management, marketing, content, engineering, and customer support.
  • Closed 15 corporate sponsors through go-to-market, pricing, and product packaging.
  • Named finalist twice for Best Social Impact Startup at the Central European Startup Awards.
  • Streamlined operations and reduced human resource costs through a custom prompt engineering solution with NLP and generative AI for sales, marketing, and user training.
  • Designed K-12 technology courses to introduce students to Agile methodologies, AI and machine learning (ML), and AR/VR.

Game Producer

2016 - 2017
Evozon
  • Produced the studio's first games that broke even through data-driven planning, despite having no prior industry experience.
  • Shortened production from 2.5 years to 10 months by introducing a hybrid Agile process and documentation practices for the two teams of 20 artists, marketers, engineers, and testers.
  • Led three teams of 20+ members comprised of developers, 2D and 3D artists, and marketers.
  • Drove market analysis for mobile games strategy to define a go-to-market plan for new games and identified the right products to build.
  • Released two award-winning casual mobile games featured by Apple.
  • Managed the game roadmap across the entire software lifecycle: prototyping, production, Alpha and Beta testing, and update releases, setting market-relevant milestones.
  • Created internal processes for product documentation, demos, reviews, and Alpha and Beta testing.

Engineering Manager for Roche

2010 - 2016
Nagarro (formerly iQuest Technologies)
  • Asked to take on the client management role due to a track record of on-time releases of a portfolio of 4 enterprise healthcare solutions over three years, with 4 teams of 20+ across engineering, QA testing, UI/UX design, and 3rd-level support.
  • Designed the architecture of multiple 3-tier enterprise systems powered by search and business rules engines with the .NET framework, ASP.NET, Solr, SQL Server, REST API, and Azure Service Bus. The systems were deployed in more than 40 countries.
  • Decreased system infrastructure and maintenance costs by a factor of five by designing the software architecture of web systems deployed in more than 40 countries worldwide.
  • Developed and coordinated processes to enforce deliverable quality: code reviews, audits, architecture reviews, source control, deployments, and environments.
  • Constructed a development process as a mix of a V-model waterfall process and Agile Scrum methods.
  • Created processes for product and technical documentation following high regulatory standards needed in healthcare. The documentation included product requirements, software architecture, quality, and traceability.
  • Designed the automated testing architecture for back-end services.
  • Coordinated estimation activities and managed budget, project release roadmap, and development.
  • Mentored 10 software engineers, created development plans, and conducted annual performance evaluations.

Career Management Lead

2014 - 2015
Nagarro (former iQuest Technologies)
  • Achieved the highest department yearly retention by fostering a cultural change of 30+ career managers in a department of 130+ people.
  • Outlined career tracks, role descriptions, and KPIs for software and third-level support engineers in a department of 130 people.
  • Built career opportunities through a new path for L3 support vertical, adopted company-wide.
  • Defined performance KPIs and metrics and drove the bi-annual assessment review sessions.
  • Identified root causes for client problems due to missing critical engineering skills and created a framework for learning and development implemented in the entire department.
  • Created and implemented a department-wide professional development strategy that increased employee satisfaction and decreased turnover.
  • Drove the department-level change of performance management processes and alignment with other departments.
  • Developed interview guidelines, promotion criteria, and onboarding and offboarding processes.
  • Took ownership of performance management KPIs and metrics as part of a leadership team for the Microsoft solutions department of 130 engineers.
  • Reviewed and contributed to career tracks and management and quality assurance department role descriptions.

.NET Engineering Lead

2008 - 2010
UMT CG Software
  • Coordinated eight software developers for the first release of UMT 360 (​UMT 360​ Enterprise Portfolio Management system was previously part of Microsoft Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Solutions).
  • Created processes for source control, unit testing, issue tracking, code reviews, and deployments.
  • Created development schedules, tracked progress, and created reports.
  • Validated and provided information for test cases and plans.
  • Designed and developed SharePoint, Workflow Foundation, and OLAP components.

Intelligent AI Coding Tutor

Led the development of an AI coding tutor, overseeing all aspects from market research to product launch.

I conceptualized and developed an AI-powered coding tutor designed to revolutionize learning.

My role was holistic, starting with market research to ensure product-market fit. I crafted the product design, focusing on intuitive UI/UX, resulting in wireframes, mockups, and user journeys that embody clarity and engagement.

As the project's architect, I drafted the scope, devised strategic roadmaps for both immediate and long-term goals, and distilled the project backlog into actionable user stories. My technical background shone as I documented requirements and engineered a robust system design encompassing a relational database, integrated APIs (including OpenAI's GPT-4), and a web platform. The AI algorithm, my proprietary design, combines generative data from GPT-4 with a curated learning path, creating personalized educational experiences.

My hands-on development approach, coupled with thorough alpha and beta testing involving real users, ensured a user-centric product ready for market introduction.

MVP Launch for an AI-Gaming EdTech

Created the strategic product roadmap, schedule, and team plan for launching an MVP.

• Guided the startup's CEO to refine the product vision for a core AI and gaming technology used in pre-K and K education for language learning, with the vision to monetize it by offering it as a service;
• Created a multi-release product roadmap starting with an MVP for the company that was struggling with too many conflicting priorities;
• Designed team staffing plan to ensure deliverability according to sales and marketing priorities and collaborated with recruitment to screen candidates;
• Contributed to creating an algorithm based on space repetition to ensure learning objectives were met;
• Managed implementation with an engineering team of three developers, synchronized dependencies with two other teams, and collected feature requirements from users;
• Reviewed architecture and introduced technical documentation practices in the company.

Technical Program Management Lead for a Telecom's New Line of Business

Led the turnaround of a crucial delayed initiative in time to launch a new line of business for fiber internet used by millions of users across the country.

• Streamlined product development by defining features and planning roadmaps from conception to launch for an ecosystem of six user-facing web and mobile apps and 10+ back-end systems.
• Reduced time to market by designing hybrid agile processes over the end-to-end SDLC and leading seven cross-functional remote teams of 50+ managers, UI/UX designers, and engineers (QA and DevOps engineers).
• Increased team efficiency through standardization of documentation for user requirements, backlog, system design, and product release notes, adopted at the department level.
• Developed a staffing plan for multiple engineering teams.
• Created a program timeline integrating multiple project streams.
• Designed and facilitated the adoption of a prompt engineering solution using NLP and generative AI to automatically generate requirements and backlog items for epics and user stories.
• Transitioned to a healthy workload balance by empowering five entry-level managers through mentorship.

Engineering Restructuring for a Telecommunications Enterprise | Management Consulting

Redesigned the organizational structure of a telecommunications enterprise to transition the R&D department of 40+ from flat to matrix reporting.

WORK DONE
• Achieved leadership growth through new career paths and performance rubrics for design, engineering, testing, DevOps, support, and project management for individual contributors and people managers.
• Facilitated transition by creating an iterative change management plan and advised on the implementation.
• Designed a custom performance management strategy to foster cultural change in engineering.

AI Tool to Accelerate Product Development

Orchestrated the design and implementation of an innovative internal tool that automates and expedites product development workflows.

I designed an internal solution to improve product development efficiency within a dynamic company. My initiative involved creating a system that leverages data from Confluence and Jira, integrating it with a prompt-engineered solution atop OpenAI's GPT-4. This synergy of tools and AI capabilities resulted in the automatic generation of comprehensive product requirements and backlogs, including epics, user stories, and tasks tailored for engineering and design teams. From conception to execution, I designed a streamlined process, significantly reducing time-to-market and fostering a culture of productivity. StreamlineAI embodies my dedication to creating smart, efficient workflows in the tech industry.

Enterprise Document Search Platform for Healthcare | Roche Gmbh

Oversaw the system design of a solution that increased scalability by 5x of a legacy healthcare platform used in 40+ countries.

• Designed a web platform architecture for users in 40 countries that decreased the infrastructure and maintenance costs by 5x;
• Coordinated a team of software engineers, software testers, and UI/UX designers in activities like wireframing, prototyping, engineering, unit, system, and automated testing;
• Customized the client's V-model waterfall process with Agile methods for engineering flexibility. Organized Scrum demos and daily standup meetings.
• Created product release map and time and material contracts and monitored the costs;
• Coordinated the product releases involving technical and user acceptance testing activities; made sure the process required documentation was in place (traceability matrixes and testing reports) and created final release reports;
• Made and monitored technical processes for code reviews, unit testing, continuous integration, and delivery;
• Designed the manual and automated testing strategy.

Enterprise On-demand Software Update Platform | Roche Gmbh

Delivered a web-based enterprise platform for offline clients in 10+ countries in North America, South America, and Africa.

• Coordinated a team of 5-10 software engineers and testers to release a 3-tier enterprise web platform;
• Customized the client's V-Model waterfall process with Agile methods for engineering flexibility. Organized Scrum demos and daily standup meetings;
• Coordinated the product releases involving technical and user acceptance testing activities, making sure the process required documentation was in place (traceability matrixes and testing reports), and created final release reports;
• Created and monitored technical processes for code reviews, unit testing, continuous integration, and delivery.

E-learning Platform Extension | edraak.org

https://www.edraak.org

Led product design and engineering to enable language learning for two million K-12 students.

• Coordinated the discovery and planning workshop with a UX/UI designer and tech lead;
• Created the product backlog, project timeline, and roadmap;
• Established team structure and allocation plan;
• Supervised the development team of five UI/UX designers and engineers that delivered a new component for language learning support, written in React and Node.js on the platform.
• Released product ahead of time and saved costs by coordinating the design and engineering of a web front-end.

Agile Coach for an AI Medical and Legal Startup

Coached the project manager of Medlex.AI on how to organize the development of their product using Agile practices.

WORK DONE
• Served as an agile coach and advisor for Medlex.AI, helping the project manager to plan and organize the startup's engineering efforts of building an MVP and managing a remote team using Agile Scrum.
• Coached startup founders on agile development and Jira best practices.

Founder of Dalia's Book EdTech

http://carteadaliei.ro

Founded a technology nonprofit named the Best Social Impact Startup in Romania at the Central European Startup Awards in 2018.

WORK DONE
• Created an edtech nonprofit organization from the ground up, establishing the digital product strategy and roadmap, operational processes, building digital marketing and fundraising strategies, and setting and measuring KPIs.
• Created concepts, benchmarks, and roadmaps and managed the planning and implementation of digital projects and prototypes, such as mobile educational games and educational web platforms
• Built two nationwide education programs implemented in over 30 schools in urban and rural Romania in just three years.
• Coordinated a remote team of ten people and over 50 volunteers in six cities to implement software projects and educational programs.

Product Strategy for a Biotechnology Startup

Defined product features to improve patient adherence to treatment for a novel medicine.

• Led product discovery workshop with marketing, engineering, and strategy representatives;
• Designed product features based on market analysis data about patient profiles;
• Created personas, empathy maps, and user journeys;
• Designed the technical solution for mobile app and EHR system integration, containing AI features for image recognition;
• Defined and scoped product MVP;
• Supported technical vendor interviews and selection;
• Created a financial model for new product development.

Product Lead for a Piano Learning Platform

Streamlined the product roadmap for an education platform redesign for a company struggling with too many product priorities.

• Audited the existing platform and technology stack and created a roadmap to streamline engineering and ensure on-time delivery;
• Created a team restructuring proposal and staffing plan to achieve the engineering goals.

Project Rescue for a Real Estate Startup

Audited a failed software project and created a rescue plan.

• Audited engineering processes for a project suffering delays of over six months.
• Reverse-engineered the feature implementation status and created a rescue plan to bring the project back on track in three months.
• Coached the startup founders on product and engineering best practices.

Enterprise Portal Front-end Migration

Unlocked the migration from monolith to microservices architecture of a web portal through roadmap prioritization, team design, recruitment, and coordination of 15+ employees and contractors.

• Managed the 1st phase of the migration of an enterprise web portal from a legacy Ruby on Rails architecture and implementation to React and GraphQL microservices.
• Created the structure and managed a remote team of 10 contractor engineers worldwide.

Consultant for a Failing Land Management Project

Supported the company founders in replacing a software development agency for a failing project.

• Audited the feature completeness of a web platform for land management;
• Analyzed project and engineering management practices, consulted the company founders in new vendor selection, and supported them through the transition phase;
• Advised on legal aspects of engineering contracts and validated technology vendors;
• Coached the client's team members in using Agile Scrum to manage software projects.

UMT 360 Version 1

https://www.umt360.com

Led software engineering for the first version of UMT 360, formerly a part of Microsoft Project and Portfolio Server.

• Coordinated eight software developers for the first release of UMT 360. UMT 360​ Enterprise Portfolio Management Web system was previously part of Microsoft Project Portfolio Management (PPM) solutions;
• Designed the architecture of software components, workflows, and data analysis modules for a financial management web platform;
• Documented and analyzed requirements, transformed them into technical tasks, and performed backlog grooming and prioritization;
• Created development processes for code review, source control, and bug and issue tracking.

Technologies used: Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Server, JavaScript, C#, .NET framework, SQL Server, SQL Analysis Services, OLAP Cubes, Workflow Foundation.

Engineering Lead for a Data Analysis Platform | Roche

Led the engineering of a data warehouse used to analyze the health of diagnostic machines in hospitals worldwide.

• Designed data integrations from various internal and external data sources and developed ETL components for data import;
• Implemented dashboards for data analysis in web systems, used by internal employees to monitor, identify, and troubleshoot problems for diagnosis machines.

Internal Document Management Tool on Atlassian

Created Agile processes, managed the front-end engineering team, and provided technical guidance on architecture.

• Managed a team of front-end engineers for an internal tool that provided document management and approval automation; the system was built as an extension of Atlassian Confluence and was written in React and Node.js.
• Created the initial timeline and budget, recruited the team, and documented the product and technical requirements.
• Provided technical guidance to the team on architecting the system and finding solutions to complex issues that arise when developing web applications.

Senior Software Engineer for MicroLoan Platform

Designed and developed APIs and back end for a microloan platform owned by AMPCreditTech in Southeast Asia.

Provided technical leadership to the team of five engineers (one front-end, two back-end, and two database developers) to develop a web-based microloan platform for a startup in Southeast Asia. Designed and developed APIs and back-end infrastructure on the .NET technology stack.

Jira Migration Consultant

Consulted the Toptal core team in implementing their product and engineering processes using Jira and Confluence.

WORK DONE
• Helped the Toptal core team implement internal product and engineering processes using Jira and Confluence from the Atlassian suite.
• Acted as an SME and Jira and Confluence administrator. Did consultation with the teams on how to migrate data from old tools.

Discovery of a Telecom CRM

Designed a large-scale complex B2G2B CRM solution to support local internet service providers in managing their customers' service usage.

• Ran discovery and planning workshops with a team of five business stakeholders, UX/UI designers, full-stack and radius experts;
• Designed a multi-tenant telecom solution as a suite of web and mobile apps, CRM, SAP, and internet AAA protocol management platform to be deployed nationwide;
• Created a product roadmap from MVP to scale and rollout plan at the country level;
• Developed product backlog, generated estimates, project timeline, and established implementation staffing plan;
• Created a technical RFP for a government tender offer.

Disco Dave

Contributed to the creation of Disco Dave, which was featured by Apple and received the "Best Kids and Family Game" award at Casual Connect, TelAviv, 2016.

Managed a team of 10 software developers, 2D and 3D artists, game designers, testers, and marketers for 10 months to release Disco Dave, a mobile game produced under the AmusedSloth brand.

Disco Dave was featured by Apple and received the "Best Kids and Family Game" award at Casual Connect, TelAviv, 2016.

Created the entire game roadmap, decided on the major milestones, and coordinated the production activities, from the prototype, alpha, and beta testing sessions to the main release and then subsequent update releases.

Established KPIs, defined art and game development processes as a mix of Kanban and Scrum, and created project documentation templates, reducing, as a result, the production process in the studio from 2.5 years to 10 months. The game was the studio's first that broke even, reducing the loss that the studio had had with the previous titles.

The game was developed in Unity 3D and released worldwide on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Fire OS, and in local stores in China and Japan.

Super Pet Hero

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LioWmqg21bY

Oversaw the creation of Super Pet Hero, a mobile game that received the "Best Mobile Game" award at Casual Connect in 2017, Berlin.

Managed a team of 10 software developers, 2D and 3D artists, game designers, testers, and marketers to release Super Pet Hero, a mobile game produced under the AmusedSloth brand.

Super Pet Hero is a mobile game that received the "Best Mobile Game" award at Casual Connect in 2017, Berlin.

Created the entire game roadmap, decided on the major milestones, and coordinated the production activities, from the prototype, alpha, and beta testing sessions to the main release and the subsequent update releases.

Established KPIs, defined art and game development processes as a mix of Kanban and Scrum, and created project documentation templates, reducing, as a result, the production process in the studio from 2.5 years to 1 year.

The game was developed in Unity 3D and released worldwide on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and in local stores from China.
2022 - 2023

Tech Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Entrepreneurship & Innovation

NYU Stern School of Business - New York, NY, USA

2010 - 2012

Master's Degree in Computer Science

Technical University of Cluj Napoca - Cluj Napoca, Romania

2005 - 2010

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science

Technical University of Cluj Napoca - Cluj Napoca, Romania

JANUARY 2017 - PRESENT

PMP Certification Training

PM Access

JANUARY 2016 - PRESENT

Design of Serious Games

University of Tallinn

JANUARY 2013 - PRESENT

Evolutionary Project Management

Gilb Academy

NOVEMBER 2012 - PRESENT

Certified Scrum Master

Scrum Alliance

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