Experience

Head of QA | Babbel

September 2022 - Present, Berlin

  • Led Quality engineering department (4 direct reports, 25 total) across multiple product teams, setting vision and strategy for quality.
  • Reduced mobile release cycle time by ~20% by implementing a risk-based testing approach.
  • Standardised the bug workflow across all engineering teams, decreasing bug backlog by 40%.
  • Successfully led cross-company coordination for high-visibility projects like the rebrand, delivered on time with zero critical regressions.
  • Introduced static code analysis and quality gates, empowering product teams to iterate faster without sacrificing quality.
  • Led strategic Shift Left initiative, integrating testing as early as possible in the development lifecycle and redefined QA role and processes.
  • Oversaw hiring, headcount planning, and vendor management.
  • Collaborated with product and engineering leadership to define team OKRs and align quality initiatives with product delivery goals
  • Developed a career development framework, creating growth plans and mentoring engineers into senior and leadership roles.

Quality Manager | Unity Engine | Unity Technologies

February 2021 - August 2022, Berlin September 2015 - February 2021, Odesa

  • Led three distributed teams of senior engineers in the platform and foundation areas.
  • Created a student worker programme that converted 100% into successful full-time hires.
  • Established internal metrics and dashboards to drive continuous quality improvements and promote a strong quality mindset.
  • Partnered with the Developer Experience team to stabilise test infrastructure and reduce flaky test incidents.
  • Owned department-level quality strategy and worked directly with Engineering Directors on shared goals.
  • Contributed to cross-department hiring efforts, including interview design and DEI initiatives.
  • Represented Unity on forums and industry conferences in Eastern Europe.

Software Developer in Test | Unity Engine | Unity Technologies

July 2012 - September 2015, Odesa

  • Developed internal frameworks and automated testing tools using C#, improving test coverage by 60% across several engine areas.
  • Drove early bug detection and developer education around testability and quality practices.
  • Organised company-wide bug bashes and internal game jams to encourage engagement with product testing.
  • Acted as a customer advocate by relaying feedback from Unity’s user forums into engineering priorities.

QA Engineer -> Automation QA Engineer | HP BSM & HP SiteScope

2008 - July 2012, Odesa

  • Designed and maintained test automation using Java, QTP, and in-house tools.
  • Led test coverage efforts and collaborated with dev teams on release readiness.
  • Implemented automation tools to replace repetitive manual test tasks.
  • Managed service pack releases and post-release validation workflows.

Core Competencies

Engineering Leadership, Team management, Cross-functional collaboration, Quality strategy, Test automation, Developer experience, Hiring, Mentorship, Career Development, Goal setting, Performance Management, Static analysis, Release management, C#, Mercurial, Git, Fogbugz, JIRA, TestRail, NUnit, WebDriver, Playwright, Docker, Dev containers, Deepsource, Test automation frameworks, Github actions, Grafana, Python (basic), Ruby (basic), AppScript (basic), Tableau

Education

Odesa National University / Master’s Degree in Mechanics and Computer Science

2009, Odesa