Dmitry Dzema Engineering consulting

Engineering leadership and hands-on backend work, for companies that need both.

  • 15+ years in software
  • Teams in Asia, Europe and the US
  • Based in Hong Kong
  • Previously Lynk, SoundCloud, Digital Turbine

I help founders, CTOs and investors understand what their software can carry, fix what holds it back, and build the teams that keep it running.

Write to consulting@dzema.name

Services

Find the real problem, make the smallest safe change, leave the team stronger.

  1. 01Technical due diligence

    An independent review of architecture, code, security and team before an investment or acquisition, with risks ranked by cost. I have led it from the company side through funding rounds.

  2. 02Legacy system modernisation

    Upgrading Ruby on Rails and JVM systems and moving critical parts, such as authentication, out of a monolith step by step, without a big-bang rewrite.

  3. 03Data pipelines and event-driven systems

    Kafka-based streaming and batch pipelines, with schemas that let teams change their parts independently and data that stays correct under high load.

  4. 04APIs, devices and integrations

    Protocols and data contracts between devices, mobile apps and cloud; partner APIs for push and pull access; device management and software updates.

  5. 05Incident response and management

    Setting up and training the teams that respond when production breaks: on-call, severity levels, clear roles during an incident, and blameless reviews that lead to real fixes.

  6. 06Interim engineering leadership

    When a lead leaves or a team must be built from scratch: hiring, onboarding, design reviews and a delivery process that fits the company.

Training & team building

For engineering, product and operations people who need to work as one team.

  1. 07Hands-on workshops

    Software design, API contracts, event-driven systems and incident response, taught on your own architecture. In person in Hong Kong, or remote.

  2. 08Cross-functional team building

    Sessions where engineering, product and operations agree on ownership, handoffs, on-call and how decisions get made — across countries and time zones.

  3. 09Coaching for new tech leads

    One-to-one coaching for engineers stepping into lead roles: hiring, feedback, planning and saying no, from someone who made the same move.

Experience

  1. Lynk

    VP of Software Engineering and IT Operations

    Ran software engineering and IT for an expert network with offices in seven cities, through several investment rounds.

    What I bring: running engineering and IT together, security, technical due diligence.

  2. SoundCloud

    Senior software engineer

    Authentication for millions of users: moved login out of a legacy monolith and added protection against account takeovers and bot sign-ups.

    What I bring: safe migration of critical systems, security in everyday engineering.

  3. Digital Turbine (Fyber)

    Senior software engineer and tech lead

    Led the ad ranking rebuild on Scala and Kafka — an order of magnitude faster refresh — and helped design the company’s event-driven architecture.

    What I bring: high-volume data pipelines, streaming and batch, event-driven design.

Contact

Tell me about the system, the team and what is at stake. You will get an honest answer on whether and how I can help. Also on LinkedIn.