ialoc

Market leader and pioneer in front-of-house technology in Romania. And maybe even beyond

Fractional Chief Technology Officer

AIDA Growth

Head of Data & Analytics Services

CTO Craft

Hosting the CTO Craft Mixer events that are held in Bucharest, Romania.

My focus is around tech products and startups. Import knowledge and experience sharing to uplift tech leaders in Romania.

Mixer Host

Omniconvert

* Created an internal API for an AI Chatbot. Using RAG to feed the LLM with relevant code snippets to enable our developers to find faster what they are interested in. 
Covered the main areas with unit tests in a TDD fashion. 
Added E2E Tests as well.
CI/CD with merges into main branch being pushed straight into production.

* Full refactor of our Workers template used in special projects. Switched to Hono framework.

* Successfully transitioned to Jira Cloud. Rewrote custom scripts that we had and other workflow improvements. Continuously adjusted behavior based on feedback received.

Head of Implementation

Some achievements and actions I contributed to:

* Detached the reporting side in one of the products so that the Data Team can work independently and provide higher throughput.

* Supervised the E2E Test suit migration from Selenium to Cypress, leading to a 300-500% increase in runtime speed, allowing the team to intervene faster when issues occurred.

* Added, for the first time, data quality checks with real-time alerts. This allowed the team to be aware of data importing issues before finding out from the customers.

* Introduced a new Support Triage system to decrease the pressure on the engineering team, leading to an increase of velocity.

* Completely revamped the engineering documentation for end users, leading to an increase in satisfaction and decrease in the number of support tickets.

* Introduced a mechanism to upgrade older parts of the legacy system. This enabled the team to develop new features in an environment with latest version of PHP and Symfony.

* Kick-started an initiative to sync UI between the 2 projects, leading to an increase in user satisfaction.

* Created dashboards to be used for internal analytics to help in product management, leading to a better ability for the management to data-driven decisions.

* Introduced a live, public, Status Page for one of the products as well as an on-call rotation mechanism for the engineering department.

* Deployed logs + error collection systems with filtering and real-time alert system.

* Introduced Feature Flags to increase agility and time to market for feedback.

* Held internal workshops company-wide to increase the technical literacy and encourage use of AI where applicable.

Finally, started a cultural change for the engineering team to become much more agile. This lead to changes in the way they organized, the way they worked, the code written, the PRs created, the planning process etc. 
Having this, allowed the team to have their very first Quarterly Roadmap completed > 80%.

Chief Technology Officer

Growing a team of passionate and high-performing web developers capable of handling multiple projects simultaneously while bravely innovating.

My main responsibility? My team and all colleagues. 
Because a happy, growing team means happy customers and great projects.


The tools and languages that we use to achieve this are, amongst others:
- GIT, JavaScript, CSS, NodeJS, Docker, NGINX, Redis, PHP, PostgreSQL, REST APIs, GraphQL, Groovy, Go;
- AWS, Digital Ocean, Cloudflare, Google Cloud Platform, Jira, Klaviyo, Reveal, BitBucket, GitHub, GitLab, Zeplin, New Relic etc.

Our projects involve creating performant client-side JS as well as special projects that connect various tools and system for marketing, reporting or automation purposes. 
Tools such as: Shopify, VTEX, Salesforce, Klaviyo, Active Campaign, Sendgrid, Zendesk, Gorgias, Freshdesk, Snowflake, WordPress, Intercom, Bloomreach and other CDPs, CRMs, CDXPs etc Martech platforms

Head Of Implementation

Planning and guiding the “special projects” – those not-so-standard, interesting and innovative projects within the company.

Achieving data-backed, positive, results together with the brilliant front-end development team.

Some acronyms that are part of my day: MarTech, CDP, CRM, CDXP, ML
Working with: JavaScript, NodeJS, PHP, SQL, Redis, MongoDB, REST APIs, GraphQL, Webhooks, Serverless, GIT, Docker, Apache, nginx and others.

Solutions Architect

Omniperform

Developing a MarTech solution for the Agency using latest technology stacks (AWS, Docker, nodeJS, Express, React, CI/CD tools etc).
Responsible for gathering and transforming business requirements into Epics and User Stories.

Product Owner

Leading the Web Development team of OmniPERFORM.

Using my expertise in Web Development and my education background in Mathematics and Computer Science, the team and I help maximize the results of online campaigns run by the agency by developing high-performing digital assets.

Implemented Kanban in the organization.

Head Of Software Development

SiteUP

Leading the team to successfully complete all projects using Agile methodologies (Kanban). Involved in all aspects from proposals and estimates, to project management to QA and final delivery.
Fully responsible for P&L.

Senior Software Developer Team Lead

Taking everything I learned from previous experiences and taking it to the next level in the Romanian market. 
Wider day-to-day activities such as:
- Web development
- Increasing targeted website traffic
- A/B Testing for Improving Conversions
- Creating and optimizing PPC Campaigns for Google and Facebook
- Implementing email marketing automation
- Inbound Marketing activities

SEM/PPC Manager and Software Developer

Enhanced Media

As an SEO Manager, I created and ran SEO Campaigns for different clients in the UK market in the financial, personal injury, automobile and kitchen units niches focusing mainly on organic grow through search and social media.

Responsible for proper keyword research, websites configuration and administration, SEO audits, and more.

SEO/SEM Manager

Domain Management

My position required strict management of the team, project management and company administration. 

I was also involved in web development, while learning a lot about SEO, CRO and UX/UI.

Responsibilities included looking for and hiring new staff all the while making sure we respect deadlines and milestones in a multi-cultural team spread in 3 different countries.

Project Manager

Freelance Web Development

Web Developer

I started by doing my own thing. My own company — bureaucracy, administration, the whole nine yards. Thus, I grasp business better than your average manager/director/developer/CTO.

When it comes to software development and web apps, I tried everything. Horizontal development was the name of the game. I adapt fast, I don’t fight change, I catch on pretty quickly, no matter the task. 

Nowadays, I’m a fractional CTO with product responsibilities. Or VP of Engineering. Or a technical consultant. The technical-debt-exterminator. Up to you and your needs. These are my skills: 

⇒ Analytical, by nature — great with data driven decision-making
⇒ Organized — more than average
⇒ (Relatively) empathetic — great for managing a team
⇒ And the entire software delivery lifecycle: architecture and product management

I consider myself to be language-agnostic, but I have spent time with: PHP, MySQL, Clickhouse, Mongo, NodeJS, Docker, JavaScript, Serverless, Redis, AWS, GCP, Cloudflare, Digital Ocean, Supabase, Superset, Go, GTM and many others.

If you check out my recommendations ↓ the keyword is: MENTORSHIP. I help, support, and empower the people I work with. 

My ideal client exists at the intersection of companies who want to do good, understand sustainability, and are customer-centric. They want to break the standards, have a well-defined mission and an eye for quality. 

Most other professionals work in standard frameworks. Not this guy. Standard input can’t have an exceptional output. My flow state happens when I whip out quality using the available resources. 

My mission is pulling people out of the mud of complacency. Too many teams are not aware that there is a much better way of working! When you open your eyes, you get: 

=> Happy customers
=> Profitable company

Being a customer-centric professional, I can help you with both. You could call me the “Gordon Ramsay of Technical Debt”, in that I push people to do better. I’m not an a*shole, but I challenge the norms. 

If your company needs a push in the right direction, you know where to find me. DM me or book an appointment (up on my profile) and let's talk.

Vladi Iancu

Smarter Contact

Leading product transformation and establishing a strong product culture at Smarter Contact, an innovative SMS marketing platform. 

Driving significant improvements in product discovery, user engagement, and business outcomes.

Key Achievements:

- Established comprehensive AI strategy and implementation roadmap
- Enhanced product usage metrics through improved feature discoverability
- Implemented efficient feedback loops with customer-facing teams
- Improved story delivery speed 3x through strategic process optimization and team alignment
- Reduced backlog waste by 60% while increasing team productivity

Strategic Impact:

- Created and executing 2-year product vision and strategy
- Developed opportunity solution tree linking initiatives to business value 
- Mapped domain metrics for SMS campaigns to drive growth
- Enhanced core SMS capabilities usage (primary revenue driver)
- Improved CSAT scores across web and mobile platforms

Innovation & Process:

- Integrating AI capabilities throughout the product lifecycle
- Established a systematic approach to continuous discovery
- Created efficient product discovery and delivery workflows
- Promoting extensive automated testing for scalability
- Developing a comprehensive product documentation system

Team Development:

- Building high-performing product culture across functions
- Established a structured coaching and development framework
- Created systematic knowledge sharing through AI-powered tools
- Implementing regular feedback and improvement cycles
- Enhancing cross-functional collaboration with engineering, design, and customer-facing teams

Currently focused on scaling our product organization while driving innovation through AI integration and maintaining our momentum in delivering exceptional value to users.

Product Lead

Doodle

Agile Delivery Manager/Team Lead for a Product team and Principal Engineers team. Company Product Operations

E2E Product/Agile transformation of Software Product Development Life Cycle

- Defined our Vision and Mission and set clear Metrics for Product goals together with Principal Product Manager, team and Leadership
- Visualized the big picture using Outcome-driven User Story Map
- Improved existing Roadmaps to show alignment with our Strategy; presented regularly to Leadership
- Sliced out the product into thinnest highest-value releases, getting feedback and customer/business value fast (did company-wide trainings on how to do this)

- Managed to cut ~70% of the scope compared to the original plan & ~6 months earlier delivery
- Improved Epics with better format & Jira automation; breaking down smallest User Stories and using Gherkin for Acceptance Criteria
- Done Event-storming sessions, Product Pre-Mortems

- Managed the whole Value stream flow with Kanban, from Backlog to Done
- Improved quality, efficiency, and structure of Sprint Plannings and Refinements; leading meetings.
- Introduced strategic Time Budgeting to better manage different types of work (feature, improvement, bug, tech debt, etc) and prioritize Backlog; done together with PPM and stakeholders

- Creating outcome-oriented team improvement strategy and improvement board Retros; facilitating Retros
- Coordinated releases together with PPM; improved risk-decreasing in releases 
- Making sure everyone is aligned on all levels; handled escalations or communication issues

- Improved Lead time 2x, Cycle time 3.5x, Throughput 2x, Average WIP Age 10x; introduced XmR; used Nave, Executive dashboards, PowerBI; presenting to others how to do this
- Analysing data and Metrics, making data-driven decisions
- Using for Planning advanced Monte Carlo forecasting techniques 

- Great managing & coaching - 100/100 score on manager-NPS; 80 is average
- Improving company Portfolio Kanban process

Agile Delivery Manager & Team Lead

ProdGoal

- Product Manager of www.ProdGoal.com, a free Product and Project management tool reimagined using the newest Product, Agile, and Kanban practices

- My main role was the Product Manager / Product Owner, but since this is a startup I also worked as a Growth Product Manager / Marketing Manager and the Product Designer 

- Implemented Continous Discovery - from Continuous Interviewing to Opportunity solution trees, Assumptions mapping and Rapid testing  

- Using Design Thinking and Design Sprints to collaboratively come up with the best solutions, find all assumptions, test them and iterate

- Leading product research and experimentation, tracking & analyzing all user behavior through events in Google Analytics, SQL queries through MySQL WorkBench, Looker Studio, Amplitude, and doing continuous user testing

- Created wireframes, mockups, Figma UI designs, and interactive prototypes; built a design system for our application

- Focusing on the number of active users, returning users and user satisfaction

- Prioritizing based on goals we want to achieve, assessing both qualitative and quantitative data and market research, with various prioritization frameworks (WSJF, ICE, RICE, and confidence meter)

- Worked on Product marketing: creating various campaign landing pages, working on search engine optimization SEO - both organic and pay-per-click (PPC) Google Ads as well as content marketing blogs for better SEO

Product Manager, Growth Product Manager, Product Designer

codecentric Serbia

- Through Codecentric and ProductDock, working at eBay, Adevinta, Kerberos, and the Nordmann group with multiple cross-functional Teams, Managers, and Leadership

- Doing Product/Discovery coaching, leading Scaled Agile transformations using elements of SAFe and LeSS, and improving the whole Product development process - both hands-on and as a Consultant

- Led the Strategic mapping to identify all problems, needs and opportunities. Created a clear Vision, Goals, Roadmap and ensured buy-in from all needed stakeholders. Sliced up all initiatives into small valuable pieces

- Assessing maturity of Product and Agile practices and driving measurable improvements in ways of working. Organized many workshops and training, tailored specifically to the group and their needs

- Driving quarterly planning process (PI) of the unit (7 teams) using Story mapping at Scale for scope Dependency, Risk discovery, and prioritization. Ensuring overall alignment with strategy. Supporting organizational (System) Demos

- Using probabilistic Forecasting methods (advanced Monte Carlo simulations modeled to each team and unit) for capacity planning, predictable delivery, and continuous forecasting

- Setting up an Agile Metrics-driven process throughout multiple organizations to manage efficiency and quality. Improving DevOps practices. All this led to reduced Lead and Cycle times of items and bugs (15x speed, Cycle time 2 days), raised throughput (5x in some teams), getting the number of bugs to 0 using Zero bug policy

- Sharing and scaling these initiatives in companies in Germany, Australia, Spain, UK, Italy

- Working on improving Product metrics. Also supporting OKR implementation and outcome-based goal management. Doing User Story Mapping on the team level, unit level, and initiative level. Coaching teams on Product development and Product discovery

- Doing Event-storming and Domain mapping to achieve full down ownership, understanding and transparency between teams

Agile Coach, Discovery Coach, Product Ops

eBay

- Doing Product/Discovery coaching, leading Scaled Agile transformations using elements of SAFe and LeSS, and improving the whole Product development process - both hands-on and as a Consultant

- Led the Strategic mapping to identify all problems, needs and opportunities. Created a clear Vision, Goals, Roadmap and ensured buy-in from all needed stakeholders. Sliced up all initiatives into small valuable pieces

- Assessing maturity of Product and Agile practices and driving measurable improvements in ways of working. Organized many workshops and training, tailored specifically to the group and their needs

- Driving the quarterly planning process (PI) of the unit (7 teams) using Story mapping at Scale for scope Dependency, Risk discovery and prioritization. Ensuring overall alignment with strategy. Supporting organizational-wide Demos

- Using probabilistic Forecasting methods (advanced Monte Carlo simulations modeled to each team and unit) for capacity planning, predictable delivery, and continuous forecasting. Using Reference Class Estimating to get fast and accurate estimates in least amount of time

- Setting up an Agile Metrics-driven process throughout multiple organizations to manage efficiency and quality. Improving DevOps practices. All this led to reduced Lead and Cycle times of items and bugs (15x speed, Cycle time 2 days), raised throughput (5x in some teams), getting the number of bugs to 0 using Zero bug policy

- Sharing and scaling these initiatives in companies in Germany, Australia, Spain, UK, Italy

- Working on improving Product metrics. Also supporting OKR implementation and outcome-based goal management. Doing User Story Mapping on the team level, unit level, and initiative level. Coaching teams on Product development and Product discovery (especially Continous Exploration / Continous Discovery)

- Doing Event-storming and Domain mapping to achieve full down ownership, understanding and transparency between teams

Agile Coach

ActiveCollab

- Recruiting, teaching and coaching new Scrum Masters.

- Scrum Master / Coach for one of the development teams of ActiveCollab (also setting-up new teams).

- Constantly trying to improve the relations and processes inside the team and company.

- Started with Scrum as a base framework but moved it incrementally towards XP and Lean Startup.

- Applying Lean principles throughout the whole process. 

- Team Happiness gradually raised from 7.4/10 to 9.8/10 through many stormings and normings 

- Velocity raised more than 70% on average in the first three months; after 11 months we started using NoEstimates and measuring cycle time (<1 day is our average) and raised the number of delivered items 30% more. After implementing radical slicing, throughput raised to 20-25 items in 2-week iterations.  
  
- Using One-piece flow approach to development, together with Mob and Pair programming when needed.

- Occasionally using various Management 3.0 practices to enhance changes.

- Designed and implemented with a fellow colleague a more Agile interview process for hiring new developers and Scrum Masters.

- Resolving company impediments.  

- Introduced and implemented Developer Experience (DevEx) initiative and Zero-bug policy. 

- Working on improving DevOps practices, especially Trunk-based development and Continous Integration 

- Occasionally using Liberating structure formats to help collaboration. 

- Made a Growth system for developers in tight collaboration with them.

(Lead) Scrum Master

Eipix Entertainment

- Working both as a Product Manager/Owner and a Scrum master in the team. Leading and managing a cross-functional team of 10 people working on multiple flagship video games from scratch 

- Managing the whole Product lifecycle process from market and user research to planning, cross-department collaboration, Alpha/Beta testing, and feedback from the users, improvements, releases, after-launch feedback, customer care, and community reviews

- Creating a Product pitch and a Product vision aligning people around it

- Brainstorming in a cross-functional team different solutions, assessing feasibility, desirability and viability

- Converging on the most optimal solutions, creating sketches and prototypes, and testing them out

- Creating a Roadmap, and a Backlog, aligning with stakeholders, and doing stakeholder management

- Writing product backlog items, refining them with the team, and additionally optimizing 

- Prioritizing backlog items, slicing them, and sequencing in a way to decrease the risk and gain the biggest business/customer value from the product with the least amount of effort, on the needed dates (time and money are big factors in the gaming industry)

- Implementing Agile principles and Scrum/Kanban frameworks into the team. 

- Continually communicating with the team to clarify each user story and to implement new innovative ideas on how to solve them (especially when we are able to get more for less effort)

- Always looking at the project from a customer perspective and making sure to get as much feedback as possible from the stakeholders and customers to raise the quality of product backlog items.

- Inspecting the product progress and accepting or rejecting the work done. 

- Communicating product and timeline status to supervisors and stakeholders. 

- Continuously eliminating waste in the process

- Having regular 1:1 sessions with team members, teaching, coaching and managing them

- Trained over 50 people in Agile and Scrum

Product Manager & Scrum Master

- Constantly doing market, competitor, and customer research to understand how to create the best experience for the player

- Actively doing user persona research to better understand our customers, bring them and their ways of working and thinking closer to all other team members, and for all of us to create the best and most intuitive experience for them

- Designed and documented user interactions (gameplay, game mechanics, special features, puzzles...) and overall user experience for games using various design tools and office suites .  

- Wrote narrative elements of the game: concept proposals, story, backstory, dialogues, and cinematic scripts.

- Worked together and constantly communicated with members of the Concept Art, 3D Art, 2D Art, Character Art, Producers, Level Design, Programming, Cinematic team, and the rest of the Game Design members to achieve a high-quality game experience.

Game Designer (Research, UX, Narrative)

Cultural Center of Novi Sad

- Hired full-time as a part of a new project manager team to plan, organize, and manage various new projects 

- Used Waterfall methodologies in managing projects but soon discovered and implemented some of the Agile practices like the daily stand-up meetings 

- Identified and implemented best practices and best opportunities for optimization 

- Identified and quickly resolved all problems that appeared 

- Developed several great promotions grounded in a clear understanding of public needs along with their feedback 

- The number of visitors per project I personally organized increased from 100-400% 

- Worked effectively in a heavily cross-functional, fast-paced environment with numerous people

Lead Project Manager

• Hired part time to plan, organize and manage a project which would revitalize the Forum for Young people in the Cultural Center of Novi Sad 
• Did a thorough research during the February 2013, planned three events, made a promotional and a financial plan, found people needed to do the project which was named University at the Turning-point and successfully managed all three events during March, April and May 2013
• Project was a great success, and next month I got full-time employment in this institution

Publishing house Zlatni zmaj

• Developed sales, communication, presentation and people skills

Sales Representative

STR "Lio"

I help organizations transform their products through strategic leadership and AI innovation. With over 10 years of experience, I've developed approaches that consistently deliver remarkable results:

- Established scalable product development processes that stand the test of time
- Transformed product delivery speed by 3x through strategic process optimization
- Built comprehensive AI strategies that drove business growth
- Reduced waste by 60% while increasing team productivity and engagement

My passion lies in helping organizations navigate the complexities of modern product development. I specialize in:

🎯 Product Strategy & Vision

Leading product transformations that align with business goals while keeping user needs at the center. I help teams see the bigger picture while executing on the details that matter.

🤖 AI Integration & Innovation

Turning AI from a buzzword into a practical tool for product excellence. I help teams implement AI solutions that create real value, from automated workflows to enhanced user experiences.

💫 Team Development & Culture

Building high-performing product teams isn't just about processes – it's about people. I focus on creating environments where product managers and teams thrive, innovate, and deliver their best work.

✨ Process Excellence

Developing frameworks that make complex product development simple and effective. My approach has helped teams achieve consistently better results while maintaining agility and innovation.

Currently focused on helping companies transform their products through strategic AI integration and product excellence. Particularly passionate about:

- Mentoring product managers, designers, and product teams
- Implementing practical AI solutions
- Creating scalable product organizations
- Driving measurable business outcomes

Let's transform your product organization into a force for innovation and growth.

taplio

The Battle

Vladi Iancu

Igor Rajnjak 🎯

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