Romeo Kollar

Experienced Software Development Manager with a proven track record of leading high-performing teams to deliver exceptional software solutions. With 25 years of commercial experience in developing complex enterprise software systems, and over 8 years of experience in leading various project teams, I bring a strong technical background and deep knowledge of agile methodologies. Skilled in problem solving, team building, and process improvement.

Lead Software Engineer (Platform) RealVNC Dec 2022 – Nov 2024 Cambridge, UK Managed a team of 8 engineers to deliver vital software updates and features. Led team meetings, allocated tasks and workloads, and promoted collaboration both within the team and across departments. Worked with stakeholders to define project requirements and ensure alignment with business objectives.

Carried out line management responsibilities and duties, including conducting regular performance reviews and providing feedback to team members.

• Improved development processes empowered the team to consistently deliver 2-3 releases per month with confidence, a significant improvement from the previous pace of one release per month.
• Spearheaded the architecture, development, and management of the Product Analytics project - a business intelligence tool designed to enhance the company's understanding of user behaviour, identify opportunities for improvement, and drive growth. This high-priority project was delivered on schedule and provided key benefits, including enabling data-driven decision-making, enhancing the user experience, and guiding product development and design. 
• Supported the team in building expertise and confidence in making changes to the legacy service written in Go and led investigations to resolve several business-critical production issues, ensuring 99.99% uptime. 
• Supervised the refactoring of legacy projects into Java Spring-based services and addressed critical vulnerabilities previously identified by Mend, an enterprise application security tool suite. 
• Led the migration from a monolithic to a microservices architecture, reducing system response times and improving modularity for faster development. 

• Managed and mentored teams in both Cambridge and Skopje (10 people total), fostering greater collaboration and ensuring successful releases. 
• Implemented Jira Portfolio to manage projects, plan, and forecast release dates, resulting in on-time project delivery. 
• Designed and implemented the user interface for a diagnostic application and web portal following Figma design specifications. Technology stack included Angular, React, and Node.js for the web, and Android and iOS for mobile platforms.
• Designed and led an Automation Testing initiative to execute test scripts in a complex web and mobile environment, while developing a communication platform for client information exchange. This effort significantly reduced bugs and enhanced software quality. Tech stack: Node.js, TypeScript, Android, Xcode, Selenium. Cloud: Google Cloud Platform. The communication platform utilized the Publish-Subscribe pattern.
• Conceptualized, developed, and directed a solution for semi-automating content transfer between Android and iPhone devices. This project included generating detailed reports and validating data integrity. Tech stack: Node.js, JavaScript, Android, iOS. Cloud: Google Cloud Platform. 
• Improved deployment efficiency by implementing CI/CD pipelines with GitLab and containerizing relevant projects using Docker.

• Effectively managed and delivered key software products in startup environments, contributing to the successful securing of contracts for the company. 
• Built a highly skilled Platform Team, comprising UX, UI, full-stack, and back-end engineers, which successfully delivered business-critical features on time and within budget. 
• Designed and developed the foundation for the next-generation Administration Platform, built to be scalable, resilient, and robust, utilizing a microservices architecture and deployable via Amazon EC2 Container Service (Amazon ECS). The front-end is based on Material UI, React, and Redux, while the back-end is powered by Java 8. 
• Successfully planned and executed the project on time to showcase the Trading Platform's capabilities (monitor, control, forecast, and trade) for Smartest Energy, leading to the successful acquisition of a contract. 

• Implemented a Single Sign-On solution using OpenAM (ForgeRock), leading to a significant enhancement in security across enterprise applications. 
• Automated UI testing using Node.js and Protractor (Selenium), resulting in a 30% reduction in QA time and an overall improvement in software quality. 
• Created a multi-module installer using Install4J on Windows, resulting in an enhanced customer experience for product installation. 

• Designed and developed a patent-pending solution, a non-transparent proxy based on Jetty (version 8), offering several features that significantly enhance the development and testing of web applications, including JavaScript tracing and code coverage, network traffic profiling, generation of responses for arbitrary content types (e.g., mock resources), and simulation of real network behaviour for performance and reliability testing. 

• As a UI architect, designed and developed the foundation for the SAP Scouting Solution product for the San Francisco 49ers. The application's front-end was built using an in-house UI library based on jQuery and jQuery Mobile, with the UI design following the SAP Interaction Design Guide for Internet Application Components. 
• Successfully led the UI development of the SAP EPM OnDemand Expense Insight product across multiple sites (Dublin, Ireland, and Palo Alto, USA) for both mobile and desktop platforms. The front-end was developed using an in-house UI library based on jQuery and jQuery Mobile. 
• Developed data logger web server using Node.js and MongoDB to collect and analyse data from desktop and mobile applications, leading to enhanced debugging efficiency. 

• Designed and developed the Java Admin Tool, a standalone application for managing and monitoring the game system in both Production and QA environments. 
• Designed and developed the scripting feature for the Java Admin Tool, enabling the QA team to boost test efficiency by automating 90% of test cases. 
• Defined the Application Management Model (AMM), a unified interface for managing JMX and web-based services. Development based on AMM has significantly improved operational efficiency, reducing service outages and restoration times in both production and QA environments. 
• Designed and developed System Status, a web application built with Grails to generate live reports on system components based on collected metrics data. The data collection components (agents) were developed in Java and .NET, with the metrics stored in a Microsoft SQL database.

• Successfully led the design and development of the Nemo’s Aquarium mobile game for Disney Mobile, with the user interface built in accordance with Nokia's Games Usability Guidelines. 
• Ported and localized Japanese game titles for the US market, leading to a significant increase in sales. 
• Designed and developed a community website for mobile game players using jQuery, PHP, and MySQL, resulting in a growth in the user base.

• Led a successful UI/UX project with a team of 10 members across multiple sites (Hungary and Finland), resulting in an enhanced user experience for the application, aligned with Microsoft User Interface Guidelines. 
• Designed and developed a pixel-based rendering engine for Maestro NG, enabling support for a wide range of mobile LCD displays as a core feature. 
• Designed and developed a localization plug-in for Maestro NG, which involved working with XML-based resource files, conducting validation tests, generating detailed reports on resource strings, and previewing localized screens.

• Worked closely with the customer to gather data entry requirements, leading to an enhanced customer experience. 
• Acquired knowledge on Oracle for back-end (SQL and PL/SQL) and PowerBuilder for frontend development. 

• 1999 MSc Software Engineer – Mathematician, University of Szeged, Hungary
• 1997 BSc Computer Science, University of Szeged, Hungary