# **Albert Popkov**

<albert@popkov.com>

Hardworking, self-motivated software engineer and entrepreneur with 35+ years of experience in software development, cloud computing, and scalable system architecture. Founder of Odnoklassniki and Sravni, with a proven track record of building large-scale platforms serving millions of users.

## **Experience**

### **Freelance Software Engineer** - _London, UK / International_ _(Current)_

- Bespoke systems architecture and software development
- AI agents and systems (tool use, multi-agent orchestration, MCP, RAG, vector stores, evals)
- Cloud services (AWS, Azure, GCP, Yandex.Cloud, Kubernetes, Serverless)
- Web, mobile and data platforms (NodeJS, Flutter, React Native, Postgres, ClickHouse, MongoDB, DynamoDB, etc...)

### **Sravni.ru Ltd** - _Moscow, Russia / International_

#### **Founder, CEO** _(2009 - 2015)_

- Leading financial services and insurance comparison website in Russia
- Real-time rate calculations for 3,500+ financial products from 900+ banks
- Scalable system used by millions of people on a regular basis
- Russian National Internet Award (PremiaRuneta, 2009)

### **Odnoklassniki Ltd** - _Moscow, Russia / Riga, Latvia / International_

#### **Founder, CEO** _(2006 - 2010)_

- One of the most popular social networks in all ex-USSR countries, honored with numerous awards
- Grew from a prototype to 45M registered users and 9M daily unique visitors
- Founded as a single-developer startup and left it with more than 100 employees
- High-load self-hosted cloud cluster with hundreds of geo-distributed servers

### **The Number (UK) Ltd** - _London, Cardiff, UK / Dublin, Ireland_

#### **Head of Web** _(2006 - 2006)_

- 118118, 118888, 118.com, UK directory enquiries services
- One of the most advertised brands in the UK at the time
- Development teams in London, Cardiff, and Dublin

### **I-CD Publishing (UK) Ltd** - _London, UK_

#### **Software developer, Software Director** _(2000 - 2006)_

- Largest online directory enquiry service in the UK, 192.com
- Industry awards in the UK in 2004, 2005 and 2006
- Real-time access to over 200M records for over 6M customers
- Passado.com, a major European social network at the time with 4M+ users

### **Quantum Art** - _New York, USA_

#### **Software Development Manager** _(1998 - 2000)_

- Simon&Schuster Inc (simonsays.com)
- Canon USA intranet
- PoliceOne.com portal
- Elizabeth Dole 2000 U.S. election campaign website
- Urban Box Office and a few others

### **TPS/OrgService** - _Moscow, Russia_

#### **IT Manager, Software Developer** _(1997 - 1998)_

- Websites for the leading Canon and Minolta dealers
- Office network administration
- Intranet services development

### **Information Technology Labs** - _Moscow, Russia_

#### **Senior Software Developer** _(1996 - 1997)_

- Virtual environment for schools with PC as a host and old computers as terminals
- Embedded telemetry system for multiple thermal power plants in Moscow
- Telegraph and telex modem for Soviet and Russian railroads

### **Science and Research Institute of Digital Machines** - _Moscow, USSR_

#### **Leading Software Engineer** _(1989 - 1996)_

- Over 100 educational and gaming software releases used all over USSR
- System software for school computers, including Korvet and gaming sets
- Drivers for early Soviet PC computers

## **Certifications**

- AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate
- CKAD Certified Kubernetes Application Developer
- 11 Microsoft certifications (outdated)
- Others like Adobe/Macromedia/Allaire (outdated)