Rafał Wokacz
Rafał Wokacz

Solution Architect · Tech Lead

I've been building software for over 20 years, and I still enjoy the craft. My career has taken me from the structured days of waterfall to the fast-paced world of agile and high-pressure "release trains" — driving delivery across the entire lifecycle.

These days that mostly means architecture and leadership — turning complex business requirements into scalable, production-ready system designs, and partnering with CTOs and CIOs to keep engineering strategy pointed at business value. But I still get my hands dirty building the CI/CD pipelines to make sure it actually ships.

My toolkit is deeply rooted in the Java and Kotlin ecosystem (Spring Boot, Ktor, Kotest, JUnit), but extended by whatever the job demands — from Python to AWS.

I'm a Linux/macOS and IntelliJ enthusiast who lives in the Atlassian stack (Jira, Confluence) to keep projects organized, documented, and moving forward.

I believe that test automation, continuous deployments, operational observability, and clear communication are the foundations to build the right software right — and that servant leadership and mentoring are what turn a group of engineers into a team.

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Core Expertise

  • System Architecture
  • CI/CD Design & Implementation
  • Servant Leadership
  • Technical Mentoring
  • Agile / Scrum Ceremonies
  • ADR Writing
  • Business & Requirements Analysis

Experience

SoftwareMill — Software Engineer, Team Lead, Software Architect

January 2023 – Present · Remote

Partnering with CTO and CIO to align engineering roadmaps with business objectives for a major insurance market platform, while leading and mentoring a cross-functional engineering team.

  • Architectural strategy: author comprehensive ADRs to guarantee long-term system maintainability
  • Team leadership: mentor a cross-functional engineering team using servant leadership principles
  • Delivery management: deconstruct complex product requirements into actionable technical specifications, managing the backlog and facilitating agile ceremonies
  • Technical thought leadership: author of publications on virtual threads on the JVM, software quality attributes, and forming high-performing teams

Kotlin, Spring Boot, Postgres, Kotest, Docker, Kubernetes, GitLab CI

DNA Poland — Software Engineer

August 2020 – February 2022 · Łódź, Poland

Architected the migration of a legacy monolithic system into a self-service SaaS platform from scratch, designing REST APIs and Java SDKs to expose core functionality via an intuitive web dashboard.

  • SaaS transformation: legacy monolith rebuilt as a self-service platform
  • REST API and Java SDK design
  • Self-service web dashboard (React.js)
  • Cloud infrastructure on AWS for high availability, scalability, and robust deployment metrics

Spring Boot, React.js, AWS, Postgres, MySQL, Elasticsearch, Docker

ProData Consult — Senior IT Consultant, Solution Architect

August 2017 – January 2019 · Łódź

Adapted core system components to meet complex country-specific business requirements for international client onboarding.

  • System localization for international client onboarding
  • Agile evangelism: introduced Scrum methodologies to optimize engineering workflows
  • Designed automated continuous deployment pipelines

Java, Spring, TeamCity, Docker, Postgres

Cybercom Group — Solution Architect & Senior Consultant

April 2007 – July 2017 · Łódź, Poland

Selected highlights across a decade of consulting: microservices migration, big data transformation, and CI/CD advocacy.

  • Microservices migration: directed a PoC transition from a legacy monolith, setting up Kubernetes clusters, service pods, and dockerized applications via Apache Camel orchestration
  • Big data transformation: designed Jenkins deployment pipelines using Groovy scripts for massive data transformations with Scala, Spark, and Hadoop
  • Technical leadership: led technical solutions and decisions to accommodate business value
  • Continuous integration advocate: designed and implemented CI/CD processes to boost delivery and mitigate integration issues

J2EE, Java 5, Java 8, Scala, Apache Camel, Kubernetes, Docker, Jenkins, MongoDB, Postgres, Maven, Ant

UniCredit Global Information Services — Web Developer

June 2005 – March 2007 · Poland

Worked on the UniCredit internal portal: designed and implemented portlets, acted as portal technical administrator.

  • Designed and implemented portlets
  • Portal technical administration

J2EE, JSP, Plumtree CMS

Education

  • M.Sc. Computer Science — Politechnika Łódzka (2006 – 2008)
  • B.Sc. Computer Science — Uniwersytet Łódzki (2002 – 2005)

Certificates

Tools & Ecosystem

Kotlin, Java, Spring Boot, Ktor, Kubernetes, Docker, GitLab CI, Jenkins, AWS, Postgres, IntelliJ, Jira, Confluence