🎯 Core Competencies

  • Software & Systems Engineering
  • Technical & Product Leadership
  • Financial Engineering
  • Protocol Architecture
  • Computer Security
  • Machine Learning
  • LLM/Agentic AI Engineering
  • Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKP)
  • Decentralized Finance (DeFi)
  • Blockchain & Distributed Systems
  • Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Development

💻 Professional Experience

Consulting & Contracting

Software & Distributed Systems Engineering
2020 –
  • Lead a team of 15 engineers across multiple projects
  • Implemented Machine Learning models and piplines and agentic systems for video image similarity search used at scale
  • Architected, led, and deployed a quasi-real-time, exactly-once, eventually consistent systems processing 300 K+ TPS
  • Refactored user-facing payment systems improving traceability, security, performance and double charge issues
  • Reverse-engineered numberous 30+ year old legacy systems for maintanance, development and rewrites
  • Managed, debugged, and optimized infrastructure mostly with Kubernetes
  • Implemented high-traffic user-facing systems in a concurrent environment
  • Took decisions on architectural and infrastructural changes which resolved constant outages
  • Labels: Backend, Frontend, Full Stack, Tech Lead, DevOps, CTO
  • Recent Tech: Python, NodeJS, JavaScript, TypeScript, Solidity, Rust, Django, FastAPI, React, NextJS PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, RabbitMQ, Kafka, MongoDB, DuckDB

Financial Engineering & Management

Corporate finance, capital structure & legal advisory
2025 -
  • Balance sheet, cash flow, leverage and risk management
  • Investment analysis, portfolio management and hedging
  • Legal guidance and compliance in financial markets
  • Derivative and synthetic asset exposure engineering
  • Real estate and housing sector

zkLocus - Founder

Verifiable private geolocation sharing with zk-SNARKs
2024 -
  • Architected recursive zkSNARK protocol for authenticated geolocation verification
  • Implemented the protocol in O1JS. Kimchi (PLONK-based) zk-SNARK proofs recursively wrapped with Pickles
  • Implemented smart contracts using the base circuits for Mina Blockchain
  • Released as client-side prooving, web app integration & deployed smart contracts
  • Proposed and accepted via Mina Foundation

Mina Foundation

Decentralized governance voting & treasury for Mina Protocol blockchain
2024 - 2025
  • Selected projects for ecosystem funding in the role of an expert
  • Developed Discord bot for on-chain treasury allocations, governance and voting
  • Developed web application for on-chain treasury allocations, governance and voting
  • Lead multiple engineers
  • Analyzed and reviewed tokenomics and proposals

Python Software Foundation (PSF)

Contributing member at the PSF
2018 -
  • Developed and maintained numerous open-source software available to public at no charge
  • Lead multiple workshops, training sessions and talks in corporate and open settings

Mercedes-Benz IO

Software Engineer
2018 - 2020
  • Took on backend software engineer and DevOps roles
  • Developed internal software tools for analytics, tracking and management
  • Migrated external user-facing systems to in-house kubernetes cluster
  • Developed and co-architected message-sending systems for real-time communication between software copmonents

⭐️ Projects & Contributions

Transport Layer Security (TLS) Version 1.3 ↗
Contributor to the IETF TLS 1.3 RFC 8446 specification. Also contributed to DTLS 1.3
CVE-2018-1000520 ↗
Discovered vulnerability in ARM mbedTLS
zkSafeZones ↗
Blockchain + ZKP for authenticated, private geolocation sharing for civilian protection in conflict zones.
GitHub Portofolio ↗
I contribute and maintain numerous open-source projects, totaling over 100 projects in over 20 programming languages

🎓 Education & Academia

BSc Computer Science and Engineering, Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Lisbon 2016

MSc Software Engineering and Distributed Systems, Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Lisbon 2019

MSc Law and Financial Markets, Finishing in 2026

🏆 Awards & Certifications

Mercedes-Benz IO SINFO Backend Challenge Winner
Programming Competition Champion, Lisbon 2018
Cryptanalysis of Ubiquitous Computing Systems
Training School Certification, Ponta Delgada 2018

📝 Articles & Publications

Illya's Threads • illya.sh/threads ↗
Micro-articles on topics in finance, blockchain, AI, Web3 and engineering
Illya's Thoughts • illya.sh/thoughts ↗
Microblogging on topics in finance, blockchain, AI, Web3 and engineering
Illya's Blog • illya.sh/blog ↗
Longer-form articles on topics in finance, blockchain, AI, Web3 and engineering
TLS For Internet of Things ↗
Master thesis as a part of the MSc in Software Engineering and Distributed Systems at IST
Deposit Guarantee Scheme of Japan: DIA & DICJ ↗
Academic paper on the legal framework of the Deposit Guarantee Scheme of Japan