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Pavel Bakunovich

Senior Project Manager

I'm a project manager currently acting as a manager of portfolio consisting of 16+ projects. Total headcount ~330ppl. Started career in 2008 as .NET engineer. Turned to project manager role in 2016. I currently work at EPAM systems. We create software for our client using various set of technologies: Java, Python, Angular, React, AWS, Gen AI. My role is to organize structured processes so everybody knows what to do, establish relationships with client, seek and win opportunities, staff new teams, take care of people and help them grow.

Work Experience

2021 - now

Portfolio Manager at EPAM Systems

Manager of portfolio consisting of 16+ projects, mostly working in staff augmentation mode. Total headcount ~330ppl. Part of ~1500ppl account. My role is to organize structured processes so everybody knows what to do, establish relationships with client, seek and win opportunities, staff new teams, take care of people and help them grow. Priorities I take care of:

  • How to shape leadership structure in my organization?
  • Am I making my financial targets (like margin and revenue)?
  • How can I find opportunities to grow my business?
  • How can I help my leaders grow professionally?
  • How my portfolio is contributing to my account's success / company’s success?

    • 2018 - 2021

    Project Manager at EPAM Systems

    We were working on 2 products in Legal business domain: 1. So-called “Google for lawyers”. It’s a web-based container of legal documents and a search mechanism built on top of them. 2. Desktop-based app that provided tools and automation for drafting legal documents. These projects are part of the Managed Service program operating in full ownership mode: the team is ultimately responsible for delivering results end-to-end. It gives a lot of freedom in decision making and a high level of accountability at the same time. Key highlights of my role:

  • Managed transition of the project from another vendor, coordinated all the process - from putting together transition plan till start of autonomous work.
  • Performed annual roadmap planning - taking into account such things as estimates, budgets, resource plan, priorities, dependencies on other teams.
  • Worked under strict SLA with financial penalties for breaching metrics threshold.
  • Produced resource plan and team structure, hired the team of 20+ people form the scratch.
  • Organised work of the project team, established processes - such as overall project lifecycle, scrum ceremonies, scrum of scrums with external teams, continuous improvements, analysis of metrics, etc…
  • Made staffing decisions, managed attrition, worked on retaining people.
  • Worked with escalations from client - concerns and complaints about things client wasn’t happy about.
  • Did status reporting on different levels - such as status reporting to all project stakeholders, status reporting on program level.
  • Operated in complicated setup of Product Owners - there were many of them (~10) and with conflicting interests.
  • Organized project management structure, established roles and responsibilities in the team (who does what).
  • Coordinated end to end delivery of projects - starting from the initial requirements discussion and high-level roadmap planning till execution of the release plan and post-release support.
  • Communicated with difficult client - handled micromanagement, constant pressure, tough negotiations, blame and escalations.
  • Client had very high expectations from the team. Persisted in requesting more work to be done than capacity allowed. Team operated under constant pressure of delivering results according to commitments. Thus, absorbed a lot of stress coming out of that.
  • Fostered “ownership” mindset in the team. Every project was treated as a commitment, a promise, for which we are accountable for. If an obstacle arose on the way - team should be considering every possible option to mitigate the obstacle without breaking commitment.
    • Team: 20+ team members, including leadership roles such as Tech Lead, Scrum Master, Architect, QA Lead.

    2016 - 2018

    Lead of Innovations Program at EPAM Systems

    Activities I perform in Innovations Program:

  • Design and shape strategy of the program
  • Seek for Innovations Challenges
  • Build a team, solve Innovations Challenges
  • Regular presentations of Innovations Program for customers
  • Facilitate brainstorms

    • 2013 - 2016

    Team Lead at EPAM Systems

    This project was started from the idea born in Innovations Program. My team implemented the prototype, presented it to client and they decided to turn it into a full fledged product. Here is my responsibilities:

  • Communicating with customer: clarifying requirements, release and sprint planning
  • Assigning tasks to team members
  • Staffing new team members.
  • Coding.

    • 2012 - 2013

    Lead Software Engineer at EPAM Systems

    Eikon Mobile is a financial application which brings such features as News, Market data, Watchlists. I was a project coordinator, I did: communicating with customer, understanding requirements, planning development. What is very interesting is how we got this Eikon for Blackberry 10 project (currently living project). Initially it was a POC. I initiated and driven it. We implemented very good, almost production quality product in a month. In the same time our customer hired another vendor to implement Eikon for Blackberry 10. They spent about half of year on implementation and our functionality was more rich! Finally customer laid off that vendor and hired us.

    2008 - 2012

    Developer at EPAM Systems

    My journey from Junior Developer to Lead Developer. I was working on such technologies as: .NET, ASP.NET, HTML+CSS+JS

    My skills

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