Alex Senkevich
Senior software engineer and tech lead, backend and AI systems. Builds katelabs, a research project on news and crypto prices. Belgrade, Serbia.
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I have been writing software for money since I was 17. The last ten-plus years went into high-load, data-heavy backend systems in fintech, crypto, retail and automotive, leading engineering teams for most of that time: system design across hundreds of services under load, performance and infrastructure work, and lately AI engineering, where I ship AI into production rather than demos, including the unglamorous part where the system has to detect its own failures, fail over and roll data back on its own.
I studied mathematics and computer science at the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics of Ural Federal University, Russia.
Since October 2024 I collect and score every English-language crypto headline, trade a small account on the result, and publish what I find, including the parts that break. katelabs is that project.
Now
- Senior software engineer at Rivian, domain owner for Parts Management: the architecture of hundreds of microservices for parts logistics and analytics, the domain’s event-driven backbone on Redpanda and its federated GraphQL schemas, on-call, and mentoring senior engineers.
- Running the katelabs pipeline and the live account; writing research notes.
Open to consulting, mentorship and joint ventures. I can take an entire department from where it is to where it needs to be: I am driven by results, and the thing I do best is talking to people, from engineers to the board.
I am building katelabs full-time with the right partner. If that is you, write.
If that sounds useful, write to [email protected].
Work
May 2024 – nowRivian Automotive · Belgrade, remoteSenior software engineer, domain owner for Parts Management: the architecture of hundreds of microservices for parts logistics and spare-parts analytics, and the architectural reference for several teams. Moved the domain’s event-driven architecture to Redpanda without downtime; own its federated GraphQL schemas (Cosmo Router) and the on-call rotation; led Warranty & Returns from first design to production and shipped the VIN-printing system; modernised CI/CD and cut AWS costs; mentor senior engineers, several promoted.
Oct 2024 – nowkatelabs (formerly Quant Lambda) · BelgradeFounder and engineer. A real-time LLM pipeline (Go, TypeScript, PostgreSQL) that scores every English-language crypto headline within minutes of publication and stores it point-in-time, a per-coin news index served via API, research across 37 coins on how news tone and volume lead price, and a live trading record on Binance spot in which 32 of the first 34 real trades matched the simulator one to one.
Jan 2022 – May 2024Playrix · BelgradeLed the Expert Team at a top mobile games publisher: a cross-cutting group of senior engineers that set the architecture and engineering standards for all product teams, backend and frontend.- Unified the stack and architectural standards across product teams; cut time-to-market for new services.
- Platform and backend: authentication and authorization, CI/CD pipelines, the release system, infrastructure and cost reduction.
- Designed two generations of the company-wide React UI library.
- Lead expert on 15+ services; drove architecture reviews and service decomposition; mentored engineers across teams.
Dec 2020 – Jan 2022Trinity · MoscowSenior software engineer, then tech lead. First engineer on a React Native retail platform that merged sales, inventory and 1C accounting into one application; defined its backend architecture and system design. The product grew to commercial clients and was acquired by a major retail chain.
Jul – Dec 2020City Entertainment Ticketing · MoscowSenior full-stack engineer. Returned to lead the build of a high-load live-streaming platform during COVID-19: thousands of concurrent paying viewers and real-time interactive features.
Feb 2019 – Jul 2020kari · YekaterinburgTech lead at a retail chain. A workforce forecasting model and a real-time shift management system that cut labour costs; a B2B partner marketplace centralising inventory analytics and procurement.
May 2018 – Feb 2019Hiero Technologies · MoscowSenior software engineer, tech lead of four. Investment platform MVP with a proprietary Bitcoin and Ethereum payment gateway.
Aug 2017 – May 2018City Entertainment Ticketing · MoscowFull-stack engineer. A distributed master–replica server architecture and a custom 2D seat-selection widget (Canvas, PixiJS) for concert halls, cutting latency and improving conversion.
May 2015 – Feb 2017Smirnov Batteries · YekaterinburgFull-stack engineer. Internal logistics and inventory software that streamlined warehouse operations.
Education
2013 – 2017Ural Federal University · YekaterinburgFaculty of Mathematics and Mechanics, mathematics and computer science.
Stack
TypeScript · Go · SQL · Node.js (NestJS) · GraphQL federation (Cosmo Router) · Redpanda / Kafka · NATS · Temporal · PostgreSQL · Redis · Elasticsearch · MongoDB · AWS (EKS, Lambda) · Kubernetes · Argo CD · LLM pipelines in production · AI agent orchestration · React / React Native
Writing
Elsewhere