Danil Lobanov

Portfolio

AI-FIRST
PRODUCT
ENGINEER.

Product-minded engineer who ships. I take features from raw idea to production — across GameDev, AgriTech, HR Tech, and IoT. AI tools are my daily accelerators, not crutches.

Download CV Get in Touch

01. About

I am a product-minded engineer based in Asia (GMT+8), specializing in the .NET ecosystem with a strong AI-first approach. My focus is on designing scalable, secure, and high-performance systems — then shipping them to production.

I use AI tools daily (ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude) as accelerators for code generation, test coverage, documentation, and rapid prototyping. I know exactly where AI stops and human judgment begins — architecture decisions, security boundaries, and production deployments stay human-owned.

4+ Years Exp.
6 Side Projects
80%+ Test Coverage
AI Daily Driver

02. Experience

Appfox

Oct 2025 – Present

Senior Backend Engineer

Stack: C#, .NET 8, ASP.NET Core, Azure (AKS, Service Bus, Blob), PostgreSQL, EF Core, Redis, RabbitMQ, MassTransit, Kafka, SignalR, Docker, Kubernetes, CQRS, MediatR, GitLab CI/CD

  • Engineered hybrid matchmaking service (Redis in-memory + PostgreSQL fallback) deployed on Azure Kubernetes Service — reduced queue time by 60%, handling thousands of concurrent players under auto-scaling.
  • Redesigned CombatSimulator using CQRS pattern (MediatR) and stateless processing — increased system throughput by 4× with zero infrastructure changes.
  • Replaced HTTP polling with SignalR real-time channels — reduced game traffic by 40% while improving reliability and reducing Azure bandwidth costs.
  • Implemented UserLifecycleOrchestrator using MassTransit Saga pattern for distributed transaction safety across 4 microservices (Identity, Gateway, Combat, Inventory); migrated event bus from RabbitMQ to Kafka for higher-throughput event streaming.
  • Containerised all services with Docker, orchestrated via Kubernetes (Helm charts); built GitLab CI/CD pipelines with automated rollback for zero-downtime deployments.
  • Wrote unit and integration tests with xUnit + Moq, achieving 80%+ coverage on critical gameplay services.

Valletta Software

Mar 2023 – Oct 2025

Backend Engineer — CRM & Game Backend Systems

Stack: C#, .NET 6/8, ASP.NET Core, Azure App Service, PostgreSQL, EF Core, RabbitMQ, MassTransit, Redis, CQRS, MediatR, Docker, GitHub Actions, xUnit, Moq

  • Built notifications microservice with CQRS/MediatR command pipeline and RabbitMQ event-driven delivery — 35% faster delivery, 20% fewer errors; deployed to Azure App Service with auto-scaling.
  • Implemented Redis distributed caching layer for analytics reports — 25% faster report generation; cached query results stored in Azure Redis Cache.
  • Designed multi-tenant CRM platform: complex EF Core relational schemas with multi-migration strategy, background job scheduling (Hangfire), and Azure Blob Storage for document management.
  • Applied CQRS + MediatR throughout CRM command/query separation, reducing controller complexity and improving testability.
  • Built Unity game backend: PvP/PvE flows, player progression, leaderboards, in-game events — all event-driven via RabbitMQ.
  • Achieved 80%+ test coverage with xUnit + Moq + NSubstitute integration test suite; cut regression bug discovery time by 30%.

Empire Of Bloom

Sep 2021 – Feb 2023

Backend Engineer — IoT Smart Agricultural Container System

Stack: C#, .NET, MQTT, Modbus RTU, gRPC, RabbitMQ, PostgreSQL, Docker, Azure IoT Hub, Kafka, CQRS

  • Integrated MQTT, Modbus RTU, and gRPC to unify sensor telemetry from physical agricultural hardware into Azure IoT Hub — improved monitoring uptime by 25%.
  • Refactored legacy data ingestion pipelines with Kafka event streaming for high-throughput sensor data — reduced production bugs by 30% and cut incident response time by half.
  • Built CQRS-based command/query separation for sensor control commands vs. telemetry reads — enabled clean horizontal scaling per workload type.
  • Deployed containerised services to Kubernetes cluster on Azure AKS; implemented Helm charts for environment-agnostic deployments (dev/staging/prod).
  • Built real-time sensor dashboards (SignalR) with threshold alerting for temperature, humidity, CO₂, and nutrient monitoring in controlled-environment agriculture (CEA).

StrawPod.tech

2025 – Present

Founder & Lead Engineer — AgriTech IoT Startup

Stack: C#, .NET 8, Azure IoT Hub, Azure Functions, Kafka, MQTT, CQRS, MediatR, PostgreSQL, Redis, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform

  • Building IoT-based smart sensor platform for precision strawberry cultivation: automated climate control, soil moisture and nutrient monitoring, AI-assisted growth analytics.
  • Full Azure-native architecture: Azure IoT Hub for device management, Azure Functions for serverless sensor processing, Kafka for event streaming, AKS for service orchestration.
  • CQRS + MediatR throughout: sensor command dispatch separated from telemetry query pipeline; Terraform-managed infrastructure as code.
  • Combines B.Sc. Agronomy domain expertise (soil science, plant physiology, crop protection) with production-grade backend engineering — target market: berry farms in Canada and Europe.

03. Selected Projects

Hover over any project to pause the animation. Each preview is a live CSS animation representing the project's core interaction.

NEXUS AI
AI Insight
Retention risk detected
Engagement
87%
Burnout
12%
View Details

NEXUS

AI-powered HR analytics platform with Semantic Kernel, Gemini integration, vector search, and real-time employee insights.

.NET 9 Semantic Kernel pgvector Gemini
Incoming Call
LIVE
View Details

ALLO

Cross-platform VoIP calling app with Avalonia UI, SignalR signaling, WebRTC, and 5-platform support.

.NET 8 SignalR WebRTC Avalonia
# general
A
Alice
Hey team, the new API is ready for testing!
M
Me
Great! I'll check it out now.
B
View Details

DevChat

Discord-like team messenger with voice/video calls via LiveKit, file sharing, and real-time messaging.

.NET 8 Next.js LiveKit SignalR
谢谢
xièxie
你好
老师
学习
View Details

Thanks Laoshi

Chinese language learning platform with SM-2 spaced repetition, multiple study modes, bilingual content, and PWA support.

.NET 8 React 19 SM-2 SRS PWA
$ godhunter scan --url linkedin.com/jobs
[INFO] Connecting to target...
[OK] Page loaded in 1.2s
[SCAN] Found 3 job postings
[AI] Generating tailored resume...
Processing 78%
$_
View Details

GodHunter

AI-powered job application assistant with LLM resume generation, Playwright scraping, and application pipeline tracking.

.NET Avalonia Playwright LLM APIs
PERFECT
1,240
COMBO x12
View Details

Rhythm Combat

Unity prototype combining rhythm game mechanics with real-time combat — timing-based attacks sync to musical beats.

C# Unity Cinemachine Game Design

04. Capabilities

Core Tech

  • C# / .NET 8/9
  • ASP.NET Core
  • TypeScript
  • PostgreSQL
  • Redis
  • MongoDB

Architecture

  • Microservices
  • Event-Driven
  • Clean Architecture
  • DDD
  • REST & gRPC
  • CQRS / MediatR

AI & Integration

  • Semantic Kernel
  • LLM APIs (OpenAI, Gemini, Claude)
  • Vector Search (pgvector)
  • SignalR / WebSockets
  • MQTT / Modbus / Kafka

Tools & DevOps

  • Docker & K8s
  • RabbitMQ / MassTransit
  • GitHub Actions / CI-CD
  • Terraform
  • Azure (IoT Hub, AKS)

AI Tools (Daily)

  • ChatGPT
  • GitHub Copilot
  • Claude
  • Cursor

Education

  • M.Sc. Software Engineering
    MEPhI (2026 Expected)
  • B.Sc. Agronomy
    RUDN (2015)