Senior Software Engineer

I'm Borut Balazek. For 15+ years I've built and scaled software products across full-stack, backend, data, infrastructure and DevOps - most recently as founding engineer on an AI market-intelligence platform, and for eight years on an EdTech platform that grew from tens of thousands to millions of users.

Available now for a long-term senior seat with real ownership of a product or system, as an employee or a B2B contractor. Hands-on either way.

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What I'm doing now

As of September 2026

Since my MarketAlerts engagement ended in March 2026 I have been building my own products, on tooling that lets one engineer ship several things at once.

Guestavo

Guest-engagement platform for hospitality venues: reservations, menus, events, loyalty and a guest portal. Live in beta, built solo.
guestavo.com →
AfterGather

Media hub for photographers: private client galleries plus QR-based guest uploads at live events. In early access, also mine alone.
aftergather.com →
The agent tooling behind all of it

180 workflow definitions with a gate and a model tier per phase, MCP servers that let coding agents read and write real project state, and a hard rule that nothing public ships without a human.
Read how it works →

What I'm looking for

Roles

Senior Software Engineer, Staff Engineer, or hands-on Technical Lead - positions where writing and reviewing code stays part of the job.

Scope

Meaningful ownership of a product or system over the long term, rather than short rotations across unrelated tickets.

Teams

Product-minded engineering teams that value honest tradeoffs, mentoring, and engineers who follow a problem across the stack.

Logistics

Based in Ljutomer, Slovenia, remote-first on CET. Full working-day overlap with UK and EU teams, mornings with the US East Coast. Most of my career has been remote with UK, EU and US teams.

Contract form

An EU employment contract, or a B2B contract through Corco Labs d.o.o. for companies outside the EU. Same seat and same commitment either way. Available now.

Languages

English and German fluent, Slovenian native. Comfortable working day to day in a German-speaking team.

Core technical strengths

Full-stack product engineering

TypeScript, React, React Native, Astro and Next.js on the frontend; Node.js, NestJS, PHP and Python on the backend. Comfortable owning a feature from schema to interface.

Backend & data

PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, Cassandra and Kafka. API design, ETL and Airflow pipelines, crawlers, and event-driven services handling large volumes of data.

Scaling & modernization

Query and caching optimization, incremental rewrites (jQuery to React, native to React Native), and cloud migrations executed without loss of service.

Infrastructure & DevOps

Docker, Kubernetes, AWS and GCP, CI/CD pipelines, monitoring with Grafana, and E2E/automated test infrastructure teams actually keep using.

AI & LLM systems

LLM-backed product features in production: hierarchical classification of financial signals, AI-driven watchlists and search - plus AI-assisted development workflows where they improve delivery without compromising quality.

Architecture and mentoring

Architecture decisions, mentoring juniors and new joiners, and translating between technical and non-technical stakeholders. Hands-on throughout.

Selected Engineering Experience

Long-running engagements where I owned the systems, the infrastructure under them and the people who kept them running.

Edukey Education / TES Global

2015 - 2023

Senior Software Engineer - contract via Corco Labs

Joined as the first developer alongside the CTO and stayed through the growth of ClassCharts from thousands of users into a platform serving millions across the UK education system, and through the acquisition by TES Global. The scope moved with it: building the product, then rebuilding the web app from jQuery to React in place, then the three mobile apps in React Native, then the infrastructure through Rackspace, GCP and AWS, then onboarding the teams that arrived with the acquisition.

Scaled the platform from tens of thousands to millions of users - database and query optimization, caching, and resilient architecture.
Modernized the frontend, splitting a jQuery codebase into separate React micro apps.
Rewrote the mobile apps in React Native.
Built the CI/CD pipeline, containerized development and production, and set up the E2E and automated test infrastructure.
Led infrastructure migrations across Rackspace, GCP and AWS with migration tooling and no loss of service.
Mentored newly joined and junior developers, and owned technical decisions across the product line.

Read the case study →

MarketAlerts

2024 - 2026

Founding Engineer - contract via Corco Labs

Founding engineer and CTO, hands-on throughout, on an AI-powered investment intelligence platform covering 20+ global markets: web app, mobile app, CMS, data platform and infrastructure. The company wound down in March 2026.

Built real-time market intelligence: AI watchlists monitoring stocks for earnings, analyst ratings, insider transactions and technical patterns.
Designed and built the data platform: containerised ETL run per source on Airflow and Kubernetes over SEC filings, news, congressional trades, analyst ratings and insider transactions.
Built an LLM-based classification system using hierarchical GPT models to categorize financial signals (M&A, guidance, products).
Owned architecture and infrastructure, including the cloud migration from AWS to GCP.

Read the case study →

Corco Labs

2012 - 2026

Independent Software Consultant

The consultancy I ran from 2012 - as Corcosoft, a sole proprietorship, until it was incorporated as Corco Labs d.o.o. in 2025. Edukey, MarketAlerts and the smart-city work were all delivered through it as long-term, full-time contracts, and between them it carried freelance and shorter client work - around 70 projects: full-stack products, internal tools, configurators, booking systems and campaign platforms.

Backend engineer on a smart-city IoT platform (2024-2025): designed and built 20+ microservices on Kubernetes with Kafka event streaming and Cassandra time-series storage.
Around 50 projects ran through partner agencies: 33 for German clients via Cuibono Media Network, among them Philips, RWE, Innogy, Stadtwerke Krefeld and Ruhrbahn; and 19 via Organizem.
Built 18 Facebook campaign and prize-game apps, three of them returning every December as advent-calendar campaigns for six to seven consecutive seasons - fixed launch dates, no room to slip.
Full lifecycle responsibility: scoping and estimation, architecture, delivery, deployment and ongoing maintenance.

Visit Corco Labs →

View All Case Studies

Major engineering outcomes

Helped scale an EdTech platform from tens of thousands to millions of users across the UK education system, through to acquisition by TES Global.
Split a monolithic jQuery codebase into separate React micro apps and rewrote the mobile apps in React Native, incrementally and in production.
Led infrastructure migrations across Rackspace, GCP and AWS, including the migration tooling.
Built an AI investment intelligence platform end-to-end as founding engineer, including a 100+ endpoint data platform and Airflow pipelines over SEC filings, news and market data.
Architected a smart-city IoT backend of 20+ microservices on Kubernetes, with Kafka event streaming and Cassandra time-series storage.
Introduced CI/CD, containerization and E2E test infrastructure that outlived my involvement.

What People I've Worked With Say

Colleagues, managers and founders I've worked alongside - several of them over many years. Ten of the thirteen are from the Edukey Education and TES Global years, so they cover the same engagement from five different seats.

" I worked with Borut for 7 years, he was our longest serving developer and he was an excellent person to work with. Borut always feels & displays a high level of responsibility to the project and the team and brought immense value to what we were trying to achieve, he understood our vision & grew with our codebase to become a hugely valued developer who you could rely on & would always deliver. Time keeping, attention to detail & working with others were never a problem. Borut worked on each of our products, working with different team members, platforms and codebase & responsibilities. I have zero hesitation in recommending Borut as he is an intelligent & hard working individual with a good sense of humour and liked by the rest of the team - he was a huge asset! "

Duncan Wilson CEO @ Edukey Education Ltd

" Borut delivered immediate value after joining our team. He brought clarity to complex problems, unlocked efficiency, and significantly increased throughput. He quickly identified mission-critical technical debt and resolved it on schedule. Borut communicates clearly with both technical and non-technical stakeholders and consistently connects technical concepts to practical business goals. His experience enables him to leverage AI to accelerate delivery without compromising quality. We were fortunate to have him on board and would gladly collaborate with him again or recommend him for any project. "

Vito Martin CEO @ ZeroSigma Capital

" Borut is an amazing developer who throws himself at all different types of challenges and has been our very own secret James Bond, because only we know how awesome he is, while the rest of the business are oblivious of the impact he has, but now it's time to change that! "

Valter Cunha Tech Lead @ TES Global

" It has been an absolute pleasure working with you over the past five years. In 25 years of coding, you are one of the most gifted developers I have ever worked with and an all round great guy. "

Simon Beckett Senior Software Engineer @ TES Global

More from the teams

Hey Borut, just a quick one to say thank you for everything. You're one hell of a developer and honestly I don't think we'd be where we are without you.

David Williams · Product Manager @ Edukey Education Ltd

It was a pleasure working with you and we are definitely going to miss the speed with which you complete tasks. You are one of the fastest developers I have ever worked with!

Tomislav Knezevic · Lead Frontend Engineer @ Martian

At this point I have to draw my breath, because Borut is amazing and I have worked with him for more than half a decade, he is simply dynamite!

Steve Murphy · QA Engineer @ TES Global

It's been fantastic working with you. You are so talented and nothing is ever any trouble. Unfortunately, because you are so brilliant, I now have high expectations!

Grace Evans · Project Manager @ Edukey Education Ltd

It was great collaborating with Borut. He consistently delivers high-quality work, is quick to respond and available when needed, and is always willing to help teammates find the best solution.

Alexander Sijan · Frontend Engineer @ Martian

Finally I can confirm from my personal experience that Borut has been an indispensable enabler for the QA team. He has worked with me and my colleague to develop and maintain the automated test environments including the Cypress infrastructure.

Russell Scott · QA Engineer @ TES Global

Borut has been an irreplaceable member of the team and an undervalued asset to the business. He definitely deserves recognition for all of his hard work.

John Beer · System Operations Manager @ Edukey Education Ltd

He has been a vital member of the team during difficult times. Borut is always approachable, willing to listen and collaborate on solving problems.

Jamie Beer · System Operations Manager @ Edukey Education Ltd

Borut is an incredibly hardworking member of the development team. He is efficient, getting his work completed quickly and efficiently.

Peter Meldrum · Project Manager @ TES Global

See what I'm looking for next →

What about Corco Labs?

Corco Labs d.o.o. is the consultancy I ran from 2012, as the sole proprietorship Corcosoft until it was incorporated in 2025. My long engagements were delivered through it as full-time contracts - eight years at Edukey, two at MarketAlerts - and between them it carried freelance and shorter client work. It was never an agency with a bench; the engineering was me, and the long engagements never had other work alongside them.

Since MarketAlerts wound down in March 2026 it has been winding down with it. I am looking for one long-term role, not another short contract, and that role would be my only professional commitment.

corcolabs.com

Let's talk

If you're hiring for a senior engineering role, I'd be glad to hear about the team, the product and the problems you're solving.

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