Engineering Leader

18 years building engineering organisations that actually deliver. Currently at Microsoft, where I lead platform strategy for the core library powering Teams – 200+ contributors, CI pipelines, build performance, release reliability. Before that, I ran a 50-person engineering org at Tochka Bank and built a DevOps practice from scratch at SKB Lab with a 2-person team.

The thread through all of it: making large technical organisations faster, more reliable, and better at developing their people. The recent work at Microsoft – cutting PR cycle times by 44%, build times by 58%, pushing delivery throughput up 35–45% – was done with zero dedicated headcount, through cross-team alliances and quantitative diagnostics.

Check out my CV for the full picture.

Teaching & Research

I’ve been teaching in parallel with industry work for 7+ years. Senior Lecturer at Ural Federal University (in English), course author at Yandex Practicum (500+ students mentored), trainer at Stratoplan Management School, and since 2025 – founder of mysummit.school, where I teach managers how to work with AI tools.

That teaching led to research. Two applied studies on GenAI for managers:

• 54-model benchmark (2,121 evaluations, dual LLM-as-Judge methodology)
• Prompt engineering experiment (1,717 runs, 4,308 evaluations, pre-registered predictions)

I also run the Qazaqstan Community of Project Managers and regularly speak at events – 17+ engagements including Nordic DevOps Days, DevClub.ee, and PMI Kazakhstan Chapter.

Currently finishing an MBA at TalTech School of Business and Governance (2025–2027).

Latest articles

• Intersection of Engineering and Business metrics [RU]
• Manager's tenure affect the organization performance [RU]
• AI for Managers in Practice [RU]

How I Lead

Evidence first. Every transformation I’ve led – Microsoft platform modernisation, Tochka Kubernetes migration, SKB Lab DevOps implementation – started with data, not intuition. Measurable metrics, clear success criteria, honest reporting of what didn’t work.

People development is the job, not a side project. 500+ students mentored, 15+ managers developed through structured frameworks, 0% attrition over 3 years at Microsoft. I think the most useful thing a leader does is make the people around them better at what they do.

Influence over authority. The recent Microsoft work – recovering 1,400 developer-hours per week – was shipped entirely through cross-team alliances. No org chart authority, no dedicated headcount. Evidence-based persuasion and collaborative problem-solving.

Calm under pressure. 18 years of platform transformations serving thousands of engineers, including reorganisations where my team went from 18 to 4. The work still shipped.

Contact Me

You can reach me by email at to@belyaev.live. Connect on LinkedIn. Subscribe to the newsletter for regular writing on engineering leadership, AI in management, and organisational culture.