Oana Ciherean

As a restructuring consultant, I had to design a new team structure and engineering management processes for the software engineering department of the company, to enable scaling up their technical operations.

I created new career tracks, role descriptions, technical KPIs, and a performance assessment framework for individual contributors and people managers: software engineers, test engineers, DevOps, engineering managers, and project managers.

My role also involved analyzing and improving the company's software delivery processes and creating a new agile SDLC.

I managed a program of 15 interconnected software systems to develop the software infrastructure of a new line of business for fiber internet. The wireless LOB was migrated from a legacy system to this new infrastructure in the next year. The infrastructure was developed by eight remote cross-functional teams across Europe, Middle East, and Asia.

PROJECT DELIVERABLES
• Designed a web platform architecture for users in 40 countries that decreased the infrastructure and maintenance costs by 5x.
• Coordinated a team of software engineers, software testers, and UI/UX designers in activities like wireframing, prototyping, engineering, unit, system, and automated testing.
• Customized the client's V-model waterfall process with Agile methods for engineering flexibility. Organized Scrum demos and daily standup meetings.
• Created product release map and time and material contracts and monitored the costs.
• Coordinated the product releases involving technical and user acceptance testing activities; made sure the process required documentation was in place (traceability matrixes and testing reports), and created final release reports.
• Made and monitored technical processes for code reviews, unit testing, continuous integration, and delivery.
• Established the manual and automated testing strategy.
• Mentored team members and performed yearly performance evaluations, establishing the following steps according to the project's needs.

Technologies used: .NET Framework, C#, ASP.NET MVC, JavaScript, HTML 5, Solr, REST APIs, Windows Service Bus, SQL Server, Windows Services, ETL

Coordinated a team of 5-10 software engineers and testers to release a 3-tier enterprise web platform.

Customized the client's V-Model waterfall process with Agile methods for engineering flexibility. Organized Scrum demos and daily standup meetings.

Coordinated the product releases involving technical and user acceptance testing activities, made sure the process required documentation was in place (traceability matrixes and testing reports), and created final release reports.

Created and monitored technical processes for code reviews, unit testing, continuous integration, and delivery.

Mentored team members and performed yearly performance evaluations, establishing the following steps according to the project's needs.

Technologies used: .NET Framework, C#, ASP.NET MVC, JavaScript, HTML5, SQL Server, Windows Services, ETL

I managed the first phase of the migration of an enterprise web portal from legacy Ruby on Rails architecture and implementation to React and GraphQL microservices. I created the structure and managed the remote team of 10 contractor engineers around the world.

Coordinated the discovery lightning start phase; created the product backlog, project timeline, and deployment milestones; and decided on the team structure and allocation plan.

Supervised the development team of UI/UX designers and engineers that delivered a new component for language learning support, written in React and Node.js on the platform.

Edraak is a massive open online course platform supported by the Queen Rania Foundation in Jordan.

I managed a team of front-end engineers for an internal tool that provided document management and approval automation; the system was built as an extension of Atlassian Confluence and was written in React and Node.js.

The project started from scratch, and I was tasked with creating the initial timeline, budget, recruiting the team, and documenting the product and technical requirements. I also provided technical guidance to the team on architecting the system and finding solutions to complex issues that appear when developing web applications.

Coordinated eight software developers for the first release of UMT 360. UMT 360​ Enterprise Portfolio Management Web system was previously part of Microsoft Project Portfolio Management (PPM) Solutions.

Designed the architecture of software components, workflows, and data analysis modules for a financial management web platform.

Documented and analyzed requirements, transformed them into technical tasks, and performed backlog grooming and prioritization.

Created development processes for code review, source control, and bug and issue tracking.

Technologies used: Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Server, JavaScript, C#, .NET Framework, SQL Server, SQL Analysis Services, OLAP Cubes, Workflow Foundation

Toptal is an exclusive network of top freelance talent.

In my role as a Jira subject matter expert, I helped the Toptal core team implement their internal product and engineering processes using Jira and Confluence from the Atlassian suite. I acted as an SME and Jira/Confluence administrator and consulted the teams on how to migrate their data from old tools.

As an Agile coach and advisor for Medlex.AI, I helped the project manager to plan and organize the startup's engineering efforts of building an MVP and manage a remote team by using Agile Scrum.

Managed a team of 10 software developers, 2D and 3D artists, game designers, testers, and marketers for 10 months to release Disco Dave, a mobile game produced under the AmusedSloth brand.

Disco Dave was featured by Apple and received the "Best Kids and Family Game" award at Casual Connect, TelAviv, 2016.

Created the entire game roadmap, decided on the major milestones, and coordinated the production activities, from the prototype, alpha, and beta testing sessions to the main release and then subsequent update releases.

Established KPIs, defined art and game development processes as a mix of Kanban and Scrum, and created project documentation templates, reducing, as a result, the production process in the studio from 2.5 years to 10 months. The game was the studio's first that broke even, reducing the loss that the studio had had with the previous titles.

The game was developed in Unity 3D and released worldwide on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Fire OS, and in local stores in China and Japan.

Managed a team of 10 software developers, 2D and 3D artists, game designers, testers, and marketers to release Super Pet Hero, a mobile game produced under the AmusedSloth brand.

Super Pet Hero is a mobile game that received the "Best Mobile Game" award at Casual Connect in 2017, Berlin.

Created the entire game roadmap, decided on the major milestones, and coordinated the production activities, from the prototype, alpha, and beta testing sessions to the main release and the subsequent update releases.

Established KPIs, defined art and game development processes as a mix of Kanban and Scrum, and created project documentation templates, reducing, as a result, the production process in the studio from 2.5 years to 1 year.

The game was developed in Unity 3D and released worldwide on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and in local stores from China.

I created an edtech nonprofit organization from the ground up, establishing the digital product strategy and roadmap, operational processes, building digital marketing and fundraising strategies, and setting and measuring KPIs.

I also created concepts, benchmarks, roadmaps and managed the planning and implementation of digital projects and prototypes such as mobile educational games and educational web platforms, in diverse and versatile teams of two to ten members with different backgrounds like marketers, UI/UX designers, software developers, educators, and business developers.

I built two nationwide education programs implemented in over 30 schools in urban and rural Romania in just three years.

Finally, I coordinated a remote team of five to ten people and over 50 volunteers in six cities in Romania to implement both software projects and educational programs.

Provided technical leadership to the team of five engineers (one front-end, two back-end, and two database developers) to develop a web-based microloan platform for a startup in Southeast Asia. Designed and developed APIs and back-end infrastructure on the .NET technology stack.

I consulted the company CEO on software development and management best practices. I advised on MVP features to build the IP Word Engine for proprietary mobile games and apps. I created an MVP roadmap and documented it. I created a team plan and consulted the startup team on recruitment needs. I audited internal Jira configuration, set up a new format, and advised the development team on best practices. I coordinated two teams of generalist software developers and pedagogy experts. I was the point of contact for back-end and game development teams, synchronizing on cross-system dependencies.

I audited engineering processes for a project suffering delays of over six months. I reverse-engineered the feature implementation status and created a rescue plan to bring the project back on track in three months. I also coached the startup founders on product and engineering best practices.

I audited the feature completeness of a web platform for land management. I also analyzed project and engineering management practices, consulted the company founders in new vendor selection, and supported them through the transition phase. In addition, I advised the company team on the legal aspects of engineering contracts and coached the client's team member in using Agile Scrum to manage software projects.

I worked with the startup's CEO to refine the company's vision and create a roadmap to launch an MVP for a core AI and gaming technology used in pre-K and K education for language learning, with the vision to monetize it by offering it as a service. The company struggled with too many priorities and a lack of resources. I created for them a roadmap to deliver the work in multiple releases, starting with an MVP and a team plan to ensure deliverability according to sales and marketing priorities.

The most challenging activity was to contribute to creating an algorithm based on space repetition to ensure learning objectives were met.

My activities included: strategy review, synchronizing with sales and marketing, OKR review, project management process review, Jira cleanup and setup, technical architecture review and guidelines for improvement, graph data model review and guidelines, feature prioritization, release roadmap, project scheduling, and creating role descriptions for missing team members.

I also managed the implementation of work with an engineering team of three developers, synchronized dependencies with two other teams, and collected feature requirements from users.