Pavel Samsonov

Engineering Manager. I turn chaos into predictable delivery. I build autonomous teams where engineers grow, processes serve the business, not the other way around.

• 10+ years in IT, 5 years in Engineering Management.
• Led cross-functional teams of 8-15 (Backend, Mobile, Web, QA).
• BigTech experience: built processes and products in PropTech and E-commerce (Avito).

📍 Moscow

🌐 Remote / Hybrid

🎓 MTUCI '13 (Software Engineer)

Read my "Manager README" →

My achievements

Built 3 cross-functional product teams from scratch to launch new streams (hiring, onboarding, processes).

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Outcome

Teams achieved full autonomy; 2 teams successfully handed over to newly minted Team Leads.

Implemented PDPs aligned with business goals and delegated ownership via the Feature Lead role.

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Outcome

Promoted 7 Senior Engineers and 2 Tech Leads internally. Achieved full team autonomy with zero micromanagement.

Implemented a 'Shift-left' approach: involved engineers in Discovery/Grooming and established TTM metrics.

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Outcome

Reduced the gap between ideation and release; the practice was scaled to neighboring teams within the unit.

Managed the technical roadmap for a large-scale update serving millions of users.

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Outcome

On-time release across all platforms (Web/iOS/Android).

Planned a seamless migration of traffic and data, aligning with SEO, marketing, and legal requirements.

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Outcome

Project closed on time. Secured a transfer of +40K DAU and +1% Buyers to the main platform. 100% of resources redirected to growth tasks.

Formalized the 24/7 on-call rotation process involving all backend engineers in the cluster.

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Outcome

Established the operational foundation required to maintain cluster availability at the 99.9% level.

Experience

Avito

Jul 2020 - now

Teamlead

People Management

mentoring engineers and preparing them for senior roles to support organizational scaling.
managing the full recruitment cycle and ensuring seamless onboarding for new hires.
conducting regular 1:1s and Performance Reviews, creating Personal Development Plans (PDP).

Process Management & Delivery

forming new product squads, defining areas of responsibility, and delegating management.
aligning Discovery and Delivery phases to ensure predictable and rapid value delivery.
adapting team processes, implementing best practices, and eliminating inefficiencies.

Goal Setting

driving team KPIs by prioritizing tasks based on business value.
defining quarterly OKRs and synchronizing the technical backlog with the product roadmap.
making the development process clear, transparent, and predictable for stakeholders.

Technical Expertise

navigating the codebase, writing automation scripts, and working with logs and monitoring tools.
upholding engineering culture and personally ensuring release stability and reliability.
participating in technical and architectural discussions, leveraging a Senior QA background.

Avito

Sep 2018 - Jun 2020

QA/SDET

Domofond (QA Automation & Release Lead): Built a comprehensive quality ecosystem using a various stack (Kotlin, JS, Python, Go, PHP) covering the entire test pyramid. Took ownership of CI/CD infrastructure and acted as the Android Release Manager, ensuring predictable delivery to Google Play and transparent QA processes for the product team.

Busfor

May 2017 - Sep 2018

Lead QA Engineer

Joining the company as its first QA engineer, I established quality and continuous release processes, balanced manual and automated testing, and served as both a release engineer and QA lead, which let me work closely with the CTO and directly influence the development team.

Lamoda Group

Aug 2015 - May 2017

Senior QA Engineer

I developed my Python skills, wrote web and API automation tests and immersed myself in infrastructure and CI/CD while working as part of the product team on both the website and the mobile application.

Wikimart

Feb 2014 - Aug 2015

QA Automation Engineer

I began my career as a QA Automation Engineer: I wrote automated tests, explored code and frameworks in multiple languages and learned CI/CD and release processes—skills that became the foundation for my future growth.