Askar is available for hire

Askar Akhmerov

Verified Expert in Project Management

Project Manager

Location

Berlin, Germany

Toptal Member Since

April 6, 2022

Askar is a project manager with a software engineering background. He combines business understanding with technical concepts, design, and planning. He implemented a catalog management system with highly configurable products, oversaw product distribution, and kicked off a monolithic application breakdown. Askar has supervised teams, onboarded talent, built roadmaps, and set up agile systems. Previous roles have included senior technical product owner and head of software development.

Software Development Technical Project Management Project Management Agile Project Management Jira Amazon Web Services (AWS)Shopify Continuous Delivery (CD)BPMN

Project Highlights

Scorekompass Website and App

Launched and managed several releases of the Scorekompass website and app and initial go-to-market.

PIM Core System

Provided conceptual reference and a stable execution roadmap for an internal product inventory management system with high configurability of products.

Marketo Integration

Launched the Marketo integration for the client to provide automated omnichannel customer communication.

Expertise

API Integration Agile Project Management Docker Java JavaScript Jira Software Architecture Spring

Work Experience

Senior Technical Product Owner | Platform

2022 - PRESENT

Forto

Facilitated workshops and ensured the definition of the mission, vision, and purpose of the team.
Prepared and communicated yearly roadmap and execution plan with respectful correlation to the OKRs.
Worked on the conceptual and technical design and breakdown of the stories into tasks with the engineers to successfully deliver the first iterations of the application registry, on-demand test environments, and internal code analysis tools.
Performed budget predictions and estimations for the upcoming year based on planned initiatives and current utilization of resources.
Conducted prioritization workshops with senior management and staff engineers.

Senior Technical Product Owner

2021 - 2022

KIS GmbH & Co. KG

Led user stories, use cases, and requirements definition for in-house product inventory system (PIM).
Revisited and rebuilt a project roadmap three months after joining as a technical product owner.
Integrated progress reporting to stakeholders and set up an agile development and delivery process, including all Scrum ceremonies and transparent and groomed backlogs.
Integrated wireframing as a part of the requirements definition process.
Provided the user story specifications along with the acceptance criteria to the team.

Technical Product Owner

2018 - 2020

Smava GmbH

Restructured and reorganized work with remote teams consisting of 12 people to ensure the delivery of business value.
Conceptualized and integrated the CRM tool Marketo into the company's landscape to provide omnichannel customer communication.
Guided the teams through on-call and postmortem processes as part of DevOps initiatives advancement in the organization.
Collaborated with the tech leads to provide architectural concepts and integration plans for new features spanning across multiple subdomains.

Core Developer

2016 - 2018

Camunda Services GmbH

Developed an open-source BPMN engine, specifically batch processing its features.
Created a commercial analytics module based on Elasticsearch, Java, and Maven.
Provided third-level technical support to enterprise customers.

Head Of Software Development

2013 - 2016

smava GmbH

Supervised and onboarded external engineering teams to integrate bank APIs into the platform.
Recruited and onboarded talent into internal engineering teams and ensured a headcount of 10+ developers.
Performed conceptual planning and kicked off monolithic application breakdown into separate services.

Software Engineer

2012 - 2013

Yandex

Developed a Maven plugin to provide internal QA teams easy access to test execution plans and reports.
Provided conceptual guidelines on front-end development for reporting software based on a comparison of JavaScript technologies.
Implemented automated packaging of software components based on Debian packaging manager.

Senior Software Engineer and Team Lead

2010 - 2012

First Line Software

Provided technology selection and implementation guidance. Onboarded a team for a data analytics-based startup.
Participated in the recruiting process of software engineers and guided junior team members.
Implemented government portal services based on IBM technologies integrated with the Spring framework.

Software Engineer

2009 - 2010

I-Teco LLC

implemented a monitoring system with various data sources.
Ensured software distribution on the customer's servers. Provided training to personnel responsible for software maintenance.
Provided third-level customer support with availability over the phone.

Project History

Scorekompass Website and App

Launched and managed several releases of the Scorekompass website and app and initial go-to-market.

Managed a team of developers, QA specialists, designers, and service providers to ensure the proper design and launch of the website and application. Provided architectural design and guidance to the management and stakeholder team during conceptual definition and kick-off phases. Ensured a clear understanding of deliverables by the team members, transparent delivery and release plans, and test strategy.

PIM Core System

Provided conceptual reference and a stable execution roadmap for an internal product inventory management system with high configurability of products.

Managed 11 people participating in the cross-functional agile development of the PIM system. Provided conceptual guidance around attribute management of the products represented in the system and data migration from the legacy systems, release planning, and testing. Ensured transparency in the planning process and provided a clear roadmap of features delivered by the team.

Marketo Integration

Launched the Marketo integration for the client to provide automated omnichannel customer communication.

Together with a team of two developers and a stakeholder from the marketing department, I delivered an evaluation and comparison of Marketo against Adobe Campaign. I provided MVP integration implementation of both platforms into the existing infrastructure. I launched an integration that spanned the whole marketing organization based on the initial MVP.

Cloud Migration and Infrastructure Automation Consultancy

Provided consultancy to a non-technical customer on DevOps and cloud migration processes. Planed and supported the migration of the first infrastructure components to the public cloud.

Provided guidance and conceptual understanding support to a client in modern DevOps processes and cloud technologies in the format of workshops.

Outlined initial introduction plan of the organization to DevOps processes and performed migration of first components into the public cloud.

Education

2004 - 2010

Master's Degree in Mathematics and Computer Science

Kasan State University - Kasan, Russia

2008 - 2009

Undergraduate Exchange Program in Computer Science

Rochester Institute of Technology - Rochester, New York, USA

Certifications

NOVEMBER 2012 - PRESENT

M101P – MongoDB for Developers

MongoDB, Inc.

NOVEMBER 2011 - PRESENT

Oracle Certified Java Professional

Oracle

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