I lead engineering teams in small companies, and I care most about helping engineers grow into the people their team relies on.

I started as a backend engineer ten years ago, co-founded a venture-backed startup as CTO, built a product from research to working software, and now lead a team of five at a food supply-chain company, reporting to the CEO. Alongside engineering, I taught maths for eight years.

“Milena is a hugely talented engineer and technology leader. … She is a purpose driven, emotionally intelligent, technically gifted engineer, manager and leader. She is a courageous, direct, demanding and caring leader in a quite exceptional melange of skills. I wish I could have her working full time in my team forever.”
Rich OsbornCEO, Equilibrium Markets · managed Milena directly · 2026

Recommendations

“What stood out most was how she led. She held together a five-person team plus our weekly partners at RnDAO, and when tensions came up she took the time for one-on-one calls instead of letting group discussions derail. When it became clear we needed business development more than design, she trusted me with it and introduced me to people in her network. … Milena combines a deep understanding of how her product works with real care for the people building it. I’d work with her again anytime.”
Artur ParutkinFounder of PrivatAI, first to join Milena’s team at Collabberry · 2026
“Milena is one of the smartest and most technically capable people I ever met. She is able to very quickly understand complex architecture, propose enhancements and then actually make it happen. … If you’re stuck in a corner on a timeline and need someone to help punch a way out, I cannot think of anyone better to have next to you!”
Lee ButlerCEO, managed Milena directly · 2026
“She is capable of managing the entire product delivery lifecycle end to end, from gathering requirements from stakeholders and translating them into well-defined technical tasks, through development and delivery, all the way to ongoing maintenance and improvement. … She is highly knowledgeable, well-organized, collaborative, and always a pleasure to work with.”
Nikolay ZhelyazkovManaged Milena at Equilibrium Markets · 2026
“She naturally drew team members to her and helped them evolve through leading by example and mentoring them. … The company founders often sought her opinion on HR, project management and client related topics. She was also integral to the closing of Centroida’s acquisition by ScaleFocus and seamlessly managed the smooth transition of the team.”
Angel KelchevCEO at Centroida, managed Milena directly · 2019

Full recommendations are on LinkedIn.

Work

Growing with a team, from integrations to leading it

Equilibrium Markets · 2024 – now

Equilibrium Markets helps UK public-sector buyers source local food with more transparency. Equilibrium started as a part-time role alongside Collabberry. I joined to build one piece of the platform and have taken on a bigger role each year as the team needed it.

  1. Integration Lead2024 – 2025

    Joined at 20% FTE to help build the platform from scratch. Designed and built integrations with four food distributors over EDI, FTP and their own standards, plus an API integration with Erudus. I worked directly with each distributor’s technical team, and all five went into production.

  2. Technical Product Manager2025 – 2026

    Stepped in when the team was working against unclear requirements and a short deadline to get the platform ready for its first users. I worked with the Supply Chain Manager to turn needs into specs before they reached engineering, introduced the team’s first roadmap and a RICE prioritisation framework, and ran the Scrum process. We met the onboarding deadline, and developers stopped guessing what mattered. The platform launched with major UK food distributors, and schools and hospitals now place their orders through it.

  3. Engineering Team Director2026 – now

    Now I lead and coach a team of five and report to the CEO. I built a 12-month upskilling programme that connects each engineer’s goals with what the company needs, with mentoring pairs, targeted assignments and a learning budget. It spread knowledge and ownership so the Tech Lead is no longer a single point of failure. I also started Prototype Days, coached the team through them, and handed the process over so it now runs without me. I built the team’s onboarding structure, covering the product, delivery process, testing practices and technical setup, and defined and hired for the team’s first dedicated QA role. I’m also setting how the company uses AI and what that means for the engineering team, and AI skills are part of the upskilling programme.

From a research question to software people kept using

Collabberry · 2024 – 2025

How should small, collaborative teams share money fairly when contributions change month to month? I spent a three-month RnDAO fellowship researching that question and published a paper and a model for compensation based on peer-assessed contribution.

  1. Test by hand

    Before writing code, I ran the method, TeamPoints, with Excel and Google Forms. Five to ten organisations used it for monthly compensation cycles for several months.

  2. Fund it

    Secured about $38k in grants and public-goods funding, including an Arbitrum grant and Gitcoin. We paid our own contributors with the Collabberry model, which stretched the runway.

  3. Build it

    Led product decisions and built the backend, smart contracts and infrastructure, working with contributors in frontend, design, product and marketing. The organisations from the manual phase moved onto the software and kept using it after I stepped away.

Co-founding a company and building its technology

Āut Labs · CTO & co-founder · 2021 – 2023

Āut Labs builds tools that help online communities handle membership, roles and decision-making. It started as a hackathon project. After winning a hackathon and joining the Filecoin Launchpad Accelerator, we turned it into a startup backed by nearly €2M in pre-seed funding.

  1. Architecture

    Designed and built the core blockchain protocol, which put each member’s identity, skills and roles on-chain. Membership, permissions and governance in the rest of the product are built on it.

  2. Team

    Hired and led a team of four frontend, full-stack and smart-contract developers, and stayed hands-on with protocol work. I owned architecture, delivery and mentoring.

  3. Learning from developers

    We took the first developer product to market through hackathons like ETHGlobal and used sponsored bounties to watch outside developers try our docs and APIs. What we saw led me to drive a pivot from login and identity infrastructure to a modular platform for running digital organisations.

  4. Fundraising

    In the Filecoin Launchpad Accelerator, powered by Tachyon, we worked with mentors and advisors to shape our pitch deck. I prepared the technical materials for investors and joined investor calls. We also worked with ecosystem partners including Polygon.

Earlier roles

  1. 2020 – 2021

    Software Architect · Equilibrium Markets

    Modernised the architecture of a legacy supply-chain platform, making it more reliable and easier to build on.

  2. 2019 – 2020

    Software Engineer · ScaleFocus

    Designed backend and distributed systems for a US healthcare product built from the ground up, in Node.js and Go.

  3. 2016 – 2019

    Software Engineer · Centroida

    One of the early hires. Built backend and distributed systems across several products, mentored newer engineers, worked directly with clients, and helped the team through Centroida’s acquisition by ScaleFocus.

  4. 2016 – 2024

    Mathematics teacher · Independent

    Taught secondary-school maths, mostly to students who struggled with the usual approach. I changed how I taught for each student, focusing on understanding over memorising. That is still how I think about helping engineers grow.

  5. 2014 – 2018

    BSc Computer Science · Sofia University

How I work

Growth plans that the company needs too

A development plan is useful when it connects what someone wants to learn with work the team actually has. I pair people with mentors and give them real responsibility.

Test cheaply before building

A spreadsheet run for months, a one-day prototype, a hackathon bounty. I like to learn what matters before the team commits to building it.

Enough structure to stop guessing

Roadmaps, clear ownership, specs before code. Just enough process that engineers know what matters and why.

Close to the technology

I’ve built supply-chain integrations, a blockchain protocol and distributed systems myself. I still get hands-on when the team needs it, in architecture, code review or a hard bug. Most of my time goes into helping the team do its best work.

Engineering leadership · people development · hiring · software architecture · backend & distributed systems · Node.js · .NET · Go · APIs & integrations (EDI, FTP) · Kafka · blockchain protocols & smart contracts · product discovery · user research · roadmaps & prioritisation

What I’m looking for

I want to lead engineering in a small company, close to product. Depending on what a company needs, that could mean managing and growing the engineering team, or working where product and technology meet, turning what users and the business need into work a team can build. I’ve done both at Equilibrium Markets.

I’ve built two things from zero. Now I want to join an existing team and product for the long term, and put that experience into helping them grow.

I want to work on something I believe is useful.

I’m based in Sofia and work remotely on UK time +2. I contract through my own Bulgarian company and can start soon, with no notice period.

CV (PDF) LinkedIn GitHub