Technology Strategy & Operations Leader

Albina Babaev

480-***-**** ******.**********@*****.*** Forest Hills, NY 11375 LinkedIn

TECHNOLOGY STRATEGY & OPERATIONS LEADER

Transformational technology executive with 18+ years of experience driving digital innovation, platform modernization, and business growth across SaaS, POS and ad-tech environments. Proven success leading globally distributed engineering, data, and DevOps teams to deliver scalable, cloud-native platforms that power real-time analytics, campaign automation, and AI-driven insights. Skilled in defining and executing end-to-end technical roadmaps, unifying complex architectures, and accelerating speed-to-market through Agile development and DevSecOps practices. Recognized for aligning cross-functional stakeholders around strategic priorities, building high-performance culture, and deploying machine learning models that optimize performance, increase revenue, and future-proof enterprise systems.

K EY S TR EN G TH S

P RO F ES SI O N AL EX P E RI EN C E

MRI-SIMMONS NEW YORK, NY 11/2022 – 6/2025

Senior Vice President of Technology

Served as de facto CTO, scaling a high-performing 120+ global team of engineers, data scientists, and ML/DevOps specialists to accelerate innovation and operational efficiency. Directed transformation of MRI-Simmons’ technology organization, setting strategic product and technical vision for an AI-driven consumer analytics platform powered by Snowflake and Databricks. Oversaw large-scale legacy system modernization and cloud optimization across Azure and AWS, while aligning product, engineering, DevSecOps, and infrastructure to drive advertiser value and maintain MRC compliance.

Collaborated with product and engineering leaders on the technical design and successful launch of new 0-to-1 SaaS product initiatives, proactively incorporating scalability measures from inception to support rapid growth and broad adoption

Architected enterprise data platform on Snowflake with multi-cloud orchestration (Azure/AWS), implementing cost governance and usage metering that reduced infrastructure spend by 30% ($200K annually) while scaling to support

nTB data warehouse.

Increased user engagement and platform adoption by implementing NLP-enhanced search, delivering new tagging

features for seamless support and content discovery.

Reduced defect count by 20% by introducing Agile methodologies, hiring the company’s first Scrum Master, and aligning sprint planning to stakeholder priorities.

Improved audit readiness and enterprise security posture by elevating the organization’s security rating from “D” to “A” by addressing all critical vulnerabilities across products and processes.

Cut legacy platform support costs by $180K annually by transitioning vendor-managed systems in-house.

Responsible for timely production deliverables and cross-functional transparency by establishing Agile processes and centralized documentation practices across product, engineering, and operations.

TRANSACT CAMPUS INC. PHOENIX, AZ 4/2019 – 9/2022

Senior Director of Product Operations (1/2022 – 9/2022)

Promoted to provide strategic and operational leadership for the Product Management organization, overseeing the full product portfolio in a complex, matrixed environment. Aligned technology and business priorities with market needs to accelerate the delivery of integrated campus solutions. Partnered with Product, Sales, Marketing, and cross-functional teams to drive strategic investments and enable data-driven execution.

Improved product delivery velocity by 25% by introducing standardized change management, backlog prioritization, and lifecycle phase gates across product teams.

Enabled executive decision-making and portfolio iteration by launching program reviews and KPI tracking processes, aligning investments to strategic objectives.

Increased stakeholder engagement and roadmap visibility by centralizing reporting and aligning product milestones to business timelines and beta-client expectations.

Strengthened prioritization discipline and communication transparency by implementing structured intake and review processes across stakeholder groups.

Senior Director of Software Engineering (4/2019 – 1/2022)

Led global SaaS product development using scaled Agile methodologies, managing a portfolio of enterprise solutions for the higher education sector. Oversaw engineering execution across distributed teams in Europe and the U.S., ensuring cost efficiency, quality, and on-time delivery. Strengthened testing and accelerated release cycles by upskilling QA teams in Selenium and implementing standardized regression testing. Elevated product quality and delivery consistency by unifying Agile practices and aligning engineering execution with strategic product goals.

Improved revenue margins by 17% and maintained delivery continuity by transitioning five product teams to India and Ireland and restructuring engineering operations without delays.

Achieved $2M+ in annual cost savings by consolidating international vendor portfolio and renegotiating key support contracts while preserving service quality.

Captured over $5M in cost savings by consolidating legacy products and leveraging Ireland-based tax incentives through offshore team transitions and strategic platform retirement.

Reduced onboarding time by 30% and increased internal collaboration by launching mentor-mentee model that accelerated knowledge transfer across senior leaders.

Improved roadmap execution to 80–90% of planned commitments by implementing Agile training, alignment meetings, and shared SDLC/PDLC frameworks across teams.

KRYTERION TEMPE, AZ 8/2015 – 4/2019

Director of Software Development

Led full-cycle software development for Webassessor, an integrated SaaS platform supporting test scheduling, payment, grading, and reporting. Rebuilt underperforming engineering organization, scaling from 14 to over 50 FTEs across Dev, QA, DevOps, and DBA functions, while modernizing architecture, migrating to AWS, and embedding Agile delivery discipline. Directed product engineering, infrastructure transformation, and compliance strategy—achieving 130% YoY revenue growth, 240% user increase, and full PCI DSS and SOC 2 Type II certification.

Drove aggressive modernization of legacy systems by modularizing dependencies, separating core services, and initiating transition to more modern frameworks

Improved platform scalability and security by leading full cloud migration to AWS and retiring costly, failure-prone third-party on-prem infrastructure.

Reduced outages and cut infrastructure support costs by 30% through integrated monitoring and proactive alerting systems.

Boosted development velocity and release frequency by introducing Agile best practices, including continuous delivery and standardized quality control processes.

Delivered automation framework using Selenium and regression/performance testing suite to improve platform stability and resilience.

ED U C ATI O N & C R ED EN TI ALS

COMPUTER PROGRAMMING & ANALYTICS PHOENIX COLLEGE PHOENIX, AZ

BACHELOR OF ARTS (BA), MARKETING BARUCH COLLEGE NEW YORK, NY HILLEL TENNIS

CERTIFIED SITUATIONAL LEADER – SL II KEN BLANCHARD 3/2022

CERTIFIED LESS (LARGE-SCALE SCRUM) PRACTITIONER (CLP) EFFECTIVE AGILE DEVELOPMENT LLC

CERTIFIED SCRUM PRODUCT OWNER (CSPO) SCRUM ALLIANCE

CERTIFIED SCRUMMASTER (CSM) SCRUM ALLIANCE

TEC H N I C AL P RO F I CI EN CI ES

Cloud Platforms / Infrastructure: AWS (EC2, S3, Lambda, RDS, CloudFormation), Azure (VM, Blob Storage, Azure DevOps, AKS), Azure Databricks, Databricks Clean Room, SAP.

Programming / Frameworks: NLP, MS Copilot, OpenAI, LLMs, Java, Python, C#, React, Angular.

DevOps, CI/CD, Deployment: Azure DevOps, Docker, Kubernetes.

Security & Monitoring Tools: New Relic, Wiz (Cloud Security), SonarQube.

Databases & Analytics: Snowflake, Databricks, MySQL, Oracle, NoSQL.

Project Management: Miro, Figma, Visio, JIRA, Confluence, Smartsheet, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Office 365, Dynamic 365

HR, CRM, Talent Platforms: Workday, ADP, StandOut, SparkHire, Salesforce, Hubspot

Data & Analystics: Zapier, custom API, SAP, PowerBI, Customized MDM

Regulatory Compliance: PCI DSS, SOC 2 Type II, MRC Compliance.

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