Ilia Sidorenko's engineering projects

Chief Technology Officer & Founder • Turnout • June 2019—February 2021
MVP of the app
Description
  • Hired and led a team of 5 to come up with the design and subsequently implement the product
  • Worked closely with a Designer, a Front-end Developer, and a React Native Engineer
  • Built the product infrastructure on AWS using Terraform
Impact
  • The product gained at least 73,400 app installs, allowing the product to capture initial network effects and generate sustained user engagement
  • The product captured second place in its niche, being second only to CarMeets Inc (measured by app installs)
  • The product was relied upon by a loyal set of users
Technologies: Objective-C, React Native, Node.js, MySQL, AWS, Swift
Navigation with Turn-by-turn
Description
  • Integrated Mapbox's Turn-by-turn Navigation into the product using Objective-C and React Native's Native Modules
  • Led a contractor to implement the Android version of a Native Module using Java
  • Implemented additional product-specific features such as adding map markers, displaying map markers and other symbols on the map, integrating voice chat, and integrating dark mode
Impact
  • The feature was used at least 26,600 times, increasing user engagement and driving users to other parts of the app
  • Multiple users reported using the feature every day
  • There is still no alternative to the Mapbox Navigation SDK integration with React Native that we built (react-native-mapbox-gl/maps does not offer Turn-by-turn)
Technologies: React Native, Objective-C
VoIP feature
Description
  • Facilitated the design of a room-based VoIP feature similar to Clubhouse with a Designer
  • Delivered the VoIP feature to market using the Agora API with the help of a Front-end Engineer
Impact
  • We saw users create at least 6,600 committed VoIP sessions, on average lasting 74 minutes, which deepened engagement among our users
  • Increased attention from VCs since this feature allowed us to enter the audio space
  • Users reported using the feature over regular real-life Walkie-Talkies
  • The delivery of this feature allowed us to launch a big marketing campaign for the product
Technologies: AWS, React Native, Node.js, MySQL
Friends and Chat System
Description
  • Facilitated the design of a Friends System for the product similar to Twitter followers or Facebook friends with a Designer
  • Facilitated the design of a chat system similar to Instagram DMs with a Designer
  • Delivered the Friends and Chat Systems to market with the help of a Front-end engineer
  • Integrated existing product features like invitations and activities into the Chat System
Impact
  • At least 47,500 friend relationships were created
  • At least 13,500 messages were sent
  • The release sparked user interest and increased DAU 55%
  • Users reported meeting new people on the app who they would not meet otherwise
Technologies: MySQL, React Native, AWS, Node.js
Location Tracking feature
Description
  • Architected and built the live location tracking feature which allowed people to see their friends on the map
  • Linear interpolation and extrapolation were used to approximate positions between ticks, which made the tracking smoother
Impact
  • At least 50% of the company's revenue came from selling this feature
  • At least 46,400 people tried the feature out
  • Users continued being impressed with the feature
Technologies: Protobuf, WebSocket, AWS, Node.js, React Native, MySQL
Software Engineer • Boardingware • March 2017—May 2019
Parent web app workflow extensions
Description
  • Worked closely with the Team Lead, Mobile engineers, Designer and the PM to design and implement new workflows for the leave process
  • Closely communicated with the Designer to solve the intricate edge cases and constraints of the existing workflow which had to be supported for all existing customers (the company's product being multi-tenant)
  • Reviewed the security implications of the feature with the CTO
  • Facilitated the deployment of the new feature and post-deployment bug fixes and maintenance
Impact
  • A key customer was acquired after the feature was shipped
  • The feature became one of the selling points in the marketing collateral
  • Customer Success reported existing customers adopting the feature as well
Technologies: Node.js, Angular, AWS, MySQL
Check-In System
Description
  • Participated in the development of a company-defining new feature set which was aimed at attacking a new market (a pivot in the product's direction)
  • Participated in the design review and brainstorming of ideas of how the feature could work with the existing functionality and how to work around the edge cases
  • Implemented the backend and the frontend business logic in a team of 6 engineers
  • Facilitated the deployment and bug fixes reported by customers
  • Helped Customer Success with training for the new functionality
Impact
  • Hybrid customers who were already in the space picked up the feature after the release and started adopting
  • In a few months after the delivery of the feature, new customers were signed up just for the Check-In feature
  • The feature became an integral part of the Contact Tracing solution the company started developing further on, laying down a robust foundation for it
Technologies: AWS, Angular, Node.js, React
Training 2 new engineers
Description
  • Trained 2 graduate interns that were hired for the summer
  • Led their ramp-up and taught them the software development lifecycle, the technologies being used at the company and the product knowledge
  • After both of them got a full-time role, I continued to lead and mentor them in other projects
Impact
  • Four months later, the interns were hired as junior developers
  • Six months later, they were promoted to Mid Level engineers after showing incredible performance and a quick ability to learn
  • After I left the company, one was promoted to a Senior Software Engineer and the other left to start his own venture
Technologies: React, GitHub, Node.js, Angular, MySQL
New Frontend for Staff members
Description
  • I was part of the team which built a new frontend for the web app. The management's vision was that the old version was clunky and dated, and it needed a fresh look
  • Implemented the frontend logic
  • Directed a Front-end engineer on how to implement the layout from designs
  • Facilitated the release strategy and the switchover
Impact
  • The sales team gave feedback that the new frontend is easier to sell
  • The customer support team gave very positive feedback on the ease of use of the common jobs to be done
  • Customers noted the extra polish of the new version
Technologies: jQuery, Node.js, AWS, Angular
Software Engineer Intern • Boardingware • November 2016—February 2017
New Deployment system (CI/CD)
Description
  • Owned the project and was fully responsible for its success, with the CTO only brainstorming the requirements
  • Used Docker, CodeDeploy, Bamboo and PM2 to build a CI/CD pipeline
  • Keymetrics.io was used for logging
  • CloudWatch alerts for paging during production incidents were also implemented
Impact
  • The number of deployments went up significantly, from a few a month to 5 to 10 a week (10x improvement)
  • Deployments became less error-prone, which allowed engineers to have more confidence in bug fix and feature releases
  • More observability of infrastructure was achieved
Technologies: AWS, Node.js, DevOps, Bash
Software Developer • CarJam • December 2015—March 2017
Japanese imports report
Description
  • A new type of report (Japanese imports) that customers could order had to be implemented
  • Implemented the front-end layout
  • Implemented the fetching of the reports from a data vendor
Impact
  • The Japanese imports report feature was shipped
  • Management mentioned that customers started ordering the reports, and the company had a revenue uplift
Technologies: CSS, PHP, HTML
Photos feature improvements
Description
  • Made improvements to the photos feature including a responsive layout, a filtering UI and a more modern look
Impact
  • Management appreciated the ease of use of the new version
  • Since the deployment of the new version, the number of hosted photos grew substantially
Technologies: HTML, CSS, jQuery, PHP
Most popular cars feature
Description
  • Developed the frontend for the list of the most popular cars in the NZ fleet based on an existing database
  • Integrated backlinks into the reports UI so that the feature can be found
Impact
  • The feature extended the completeness of the CarJam offering and made the reports look more substantial
Technologies: HTML, CSS, jQuery, PHP
New PPSR API joint working group
Description
  • Working with the government to define the new Personal Property Securities Register API to use at CarJam
  • As one of the main users of the API, CarJam was invited to review and implement the draft version of the REST API spec to see if it satisfies the use case
  • Reviewed the Swagger REST API definition and implemented draft prototypes of the API to ensure we received all the data
Impact
  • Changes to the API have been communicated to the govt API team and were subsequently implemented
  • The API was shipped, and when the time came to implementing the production version we had all the data we needed
Technologies: MySQL, PHP