Technology Executive & Engineering Leader

Board-level technology leader with 25+ years guiding engineering organizations through scale, transformation, and operational resilience across Europe, Israel, and the U.S.

25+ years Leading engineering, quality, and platform organizations across multiple industries.
200+ engineers Direct leadership of multi-country teams with complex stakeholder landscapes.
Elite DORA Drove continuous delivery and operational excellence to Elite performance levels.
45% infra savings Delivered material cost optimizations without sacrificing reliability or quality.
Ilya Sakharov

Focus Areas

Technology strategy, platform engineering, quality transformation, incident management, and sustainable delivery practices.

Engineering Strategy
Platform & SRE
Quality & Reliability
Cost Efficiency
Executive Leadership
Hybrid Workforce Models

Experience

Executive leadership across scale-ups and global enterprises, translating business ambition into measurable engineering outcomes.

Executive Director of Engineering — Redcare Pharmacy
Berlin · 2025–Present
  • Leading 200+ engineers across eRX, WebShop, Apps, Payments, and multi-country operations.
  • Introduced platform engineering, observability, and incident management to improve resilience.
  • Defined engineering excellence standards and shifted quality ownership to product teams.
Chief Technology Officer — Codility
Berlin / Warsaw · 2022–2025 (promoted from VP Engineering)
  • Raised CSAT above 95% and achieved Elite DORA performance.
  • Increased release throughput dramatically while navigating refinancing and reorganization.
  • Reduced AWS costs by 45% in four months without compromising stability.
Director of Engineering, Infrastructure Alliance — Getir
Berlin · 2021–2022
  • Led platform, core engineering, QA, corporate IT, and standards for 140+ engineers.
  • Shifted to self-service platform model; optimized infrastructure spend by $300K+ per month.
  • Chaired technical standards and supported PCI-DSS readiness.
Senior Director of Platform Engineering — HelloFresh SE
Berlin · 2018–2021
  • Built and scaled SRE, release engineering, and platform capabilities globally.
  • Brought MTTD below 30s and MTTR below 40m; improved developer NPS from 30 to 70.
  • Earlier as Director of QA: established modern automation frameworks and lean quality practices.
Director of Engineering in Test — RSA Security (Dell)
Israel · 2012–2018
  • Led quality engineering for Fraud & Risk Intelligence across on-prem, private cloud, and Azure products.
  • Operated in high-trust, security-critical environments where reliability was central to customer value.
QA Architect — CA Technologies
2011–2012
SDET / Test Architect — Microsoft
2007–2011
Earlier Engineering & Test Leadership Roles
Since 1997

Companies

I have partnered with industry leaders and high-growth scale-ups across e-commerce, developer tools, security, and enterprise software.

Redcare Pharmacy
Redcare Pharmacy
A European online pharmacy that sells prescription and over-the-counter medicines, health products, and related pharmacy services — a digital-first business focused on making medication and healthcare easier to access across Europe.
Codility
Codility
A software platform for technical hiring and engineering skills assessment. Helps companies evaluate developers through coding tests, interviews, and skills-based assessments, with the mission of unlocking engineering potential.
Getir
Getir
An app-based rapid grocery delivery company. Its core offer is convenience — customers order everyday groceries on their phone and Getir delivers them quickly, built around fast, on-demand fulfillment.
HelloFresh SE
HelloFresh SE
A global meal-kit company that delivers boxes containing pre-portioned ingredients and recipes for home cooking, built around making meal planning and cooking easier by shipping ready-to-cook meals directly to customers.
RSA Security (Dell)
RSA Security (Dell)
A cybersecurity company known for identity security, authentication, and risk products for enterprises and regulated industries. Within Dell Technologies, it served as Dell's security business covering secure access, fraud prevention, and cyber-risk management.
CA Technologies
CA Technologies
An enterprise software company focused on mainframe software, IT operations, security, and infrastructure management. Its portfolio now lives inside Broadcom Software, supporting large organizations in building, securing, and managing enterprise digital services.
Microsoft
Microsoft
A multinational technology company that builds software, cloud platforms, AI services, business applications, devices, and developer tools — spanning everything from Windows and Microsoft 365 to Azure, security, enterprise software, and AI products.

Education & Languages

B.Sc. Information Systems & Software Development
Champlain College, VT · Summa Cum Laude
Languages

Hebrew (native), Russian (native), English (full professional), German (conversational).

Writing

I write about engineering leadership, technology strategy, and building resilient organizations at scale.

Latest Post

Contact

Open to board-level and senior technology leadership roles, advisory work, and transformation mandates.