Senior Software Engineer

I'm Borut Balazek. For 14+ 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.

I'm currently open to senior engineering roles where I can take real ownership of products and systems - and stay hands-on while doing it.

Download CV Discuss a role

LinkedIn GitHub [email protected] Full skill list

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.

Setup

Remote-first, based in Slovenia (EU). Comfortable working with distributed UK, EU and US teams - most of my career has been remote.

Core technical strengths

Full-stack product engineering

TypeScript, React, React Native, Node.js and Astro on the front, Node.js, NestJS, PHP and Python on the back. 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.

Technical leadership

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 systems end to end, not just features.

Edukey Education / TES Global

2015 - 2023 · 8 years

Senior Software Engineer

Joined as the first developer alongside the CTO and stayed for eight years, 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.

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 / CTO

Hands-on founding engineer for an AI-powered investment intelligence platform covering 20+ global markets, built end-to-end: web app, mobile app, CMS, data platform and infrastructure.

Built real-time market intelligence: AI watchlists monitoring stocks for earnings, analyst ratings, insider transactions and technical patterns.
Designed the backend and data platform - a monorepo with 100+ API endpoints, scheduled Airflow pipelines, crawlers and ETL workflows over SEC filings, news and market data.
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 - Present

Founder & Senior Software Engineer

Founded Corco Labs (previously Corcosoft), an independent software consultancy through which I have delivered software for startups, SMEs and enterprise clients - and the entity I contract long-term engagements through, which is why these dates overlap the roles above. The experience has given me end-to-end ownership across requirements, architecture, implementation, deployment, client communication and long-term support.

Independent and contract work spanning startups, SMEs and enterprise brands - among them Philips, RWE and Innogy - delivered directly and through partner agencies.
Tech lead and backend architect on a government smart-city IoT platform: 20+ microservices on Kubernetes with Kafka event streaming and Cassandra time-series storage.
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 government 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:

" 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 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

" 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

" 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

See what I'm looking for next →

What about Corco Labs?

Corco Labs is my independent software consultancy and has been part of how I've delivered projects throughout my career. I'm currently open to both a strong long-term engineering role and selected independent engagements.

If I join a company full-time, I will respect the position's exclusivity and conflict-of-interest requirements and will not take on client work that conflicts with that role.

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.

Discuss a role Download CV