Professional Summary
9+ years bridging technical solutions with client success. Proven track record managing stakeholder relationships across banking, healthcare, public sector, and energy industries. Expert at translating business requirements into tailored technical solutions, maintaining long-term collaboration, and driving satisfaction through strategic communication and implementation.
About
With experience spanning commercial banking platforms at KBC, climate-neutral city initiatives in Leuven, and critical infrastructure delivery for energy distribution, I bring a unique perspective on managing complex technical projects while maintaining strong stakeholder relationships.
My approach combines deep technical understanding with exceptional communication skills. I've successfully secured EU Horizon grants, led cross-functional initiatives, mentored software engineers, and consistently delivered enterprise-grade solutions that meet both technical excellence and business objectives.
Professional Experience
Technical Lead
Led technical development and cross-functional collaboration for KBC's business banking platform. Owned end-to-end delivery of frontend and mid-tier features, including shared libraries, deployment pipelines, monitoring infrastructure, security implementation, and code quality standards.
Relationship Building:
Collaborated with cross-functional stakeholders across product, design, backend, and infrastructure teams to ensure successful delivery of product increments. Facilitated alignment between technical and business requirements, proactively addressed dependencies, and maintained clear communication channels to drive coordinated implementation across core frontend and mid-tier applications of the KBC Business Dashboard.Team Leadership:
Developed and delivered technical training sessions that enhanced team expertise, increased autonomy, and eliminated delivery bottlenecks. Championed innovation by rotating to Surf Studio (KBC's innovation lab) to demonstrate mobile app experiments and foster an experimental, forward-thinking culture within the team.Production Excellence:
Enhanced production reliability by systematically addressing technical debt and implementing quality improvements that reduced incident frequency. Accelerated team productivity by reorganizing documentation to reduce onboarding time for new engineers. Maintained highest contribution volume across all KBC Business Dashboard core repositories.Lead Engineer
Managed technical delivery of a multi-project digital platform supporting Leuven's climate-neutral city initiative. Coordinated across diverse stakeholder groups including municipal government, educational institutions, urban planners, and community organizations to deliver tailored sustainability solutions from a shared technical foundation.
Grant Management & Strategic Planning:
Led technical proposal and architecture design that secured €437,000 EU Horizon FEAST grant. Managed technical deliverables, milestone reporting, and scope alignment with funding requirements while balancing multiple concurrent project timelines.Technical Acumen:
Architected and delivered serverless platform infrastructure (Vercel, GraphQL API gateway) enabling rapid deployment of new digital portals. Established reusable React component library, interactive mapping capabilities, headless CMS, and SSO authentication to maximize efficiency across projects and reduce time-to-market.Multi-Project Delivery:
Coordinated requirements and delivery for School 2030 (50+ schools tracking climate initiatives), Leuven.cool (urban heat island mapping with Python/EC2 processing and Mapbox visualization for infrastructure planning), Voeding Verbindt (sustainable food network connecting residents with local producers), and Vorm 3010 (urban planning portal for public space development in Kessel-lo). Managed stakeholder expectations across educational, municipal, and community partners while ensuring technical consistency and shared platform benefits.Technical Consultant
Managed end-to-end technical delivery for diverse clients across healthcare, utilities, and enterprise sectors. Coordinated project scoping, stakeholder requirements, and technical implementation, specializing in modern web architecture integration with legacy enterprise systems.
Imengine - Digital Applications Agency
contract
Technical delivery across multiple client projects in healthcare, enterprise talent acquisition, and social services. Delivered projects on schedule and within scope.
Key Deliveries:
Modernized Demonstr8 talent acquisition platform with candidate portal and analytics dashboard. Delivered Farma Status healthcare logistics platform connecting pharmacies with suppliers under tight timeline constraints. Managed development of Home Info elderly care matchmaking platform with comprehensive search and filtering capabilities.
Intrasoft International (Netcompany-Intrasoft)
contract
Delivered customer-facing digital platform for EDA Attikis, serving Greece's Attica region. Managed integration between modern web architecture and legacy SAP systems, coordinating stakeholder requirements across business operations, IT, and compliance teams to meet public utility standards.
Platform Delivery:
Led development of applications enabling gas meter switching workflows, customer self-service consumption data access, and real-time connection availability lookups. Bridged modern frontend architecture (Node.js, TypeScript, Angular) with legacy SAP backend systems through SAML and SOAP protocol integration. Coordinated AWS infrastructure deployment (EC2, CloudFront, S3, ELB) ensuring compliance with public utility security and availability requirements.
Core Competencies
Project Success
•Stakeholder communication
•Requirements gathering
•Project analysis
•Progress monitoring
•Delivery reports
•Expectation management
Leadership
•Team mentorship
•Cross-functional collaboration
•Agile/Scrum facilitation
•Innovation facilitation
•Performance coaching
•Process optimization
Technical Acumen
•Infrastructure
•System Integration
•Cloud Engineering
•AI-powered applications
•Data architecture
•Automation
Key Achievements & Recognition
European Grant Success
Secured €437,000 EU Horizon FEAST grant, demonstrating European-level innovation potential
Innovation Recognition
Invited to KBC's Surf Studio innovation lab after consistent success in company-wide innovation events
Top Technical Contributor
Highest-contributing engineer at KBC Business Dashboard, managing enterprise platform serving thousands of companies
Team Productivity Impact
Reduced development bottlenecks, decreased onboarding time through training and documentation
Production Excellence
Reduced production incidents through systematic technical debt reduction; improved test coverage
Critical Infrastructure Delivery
Delivered Greece's natural gas deregulation platform with AWS infrastructure, resulting zero-downtime and vulnerability-free production deployment
Education & Professional Development
Education
Software engineering and computer graphics with hands-on experience
Computer Science
Animation, Interactive Technology, Video Graphics and Special Effects
Communication and Media Studies
Professional Development
Background in Computer Graphics:
UI/UX design, prototyping, design systems (Figma, Adobe XD), 3D modeling and animation (Autodesk Maya, 3DS Max, Blender)
Constant learning:
Up to date with tools and methodologies used by large corporations and governments - focused on proven, enterprise-grade stack.
Training & Knowledge Transfer:
Extensive experience providing training sessions to junior and middle-level developers. Mentored technical leads.
Technical Proficiency:
Proficient in 8+ programming languages, 15+ frameworks, 20+ cloud/infrastructure technologies
References
"Rafail is modest, hard-working, analytical, organized, positive and always looking for the most efficient and cost-effective solution. Nothing less than a genius."
Ellen Vandenbroucke
Coordinator School 2030, City of Leuven
"The quality of his work and professionalism was what kept us assigning Rafail to our future projects."
Karel Verbert
Creative Director, Imengine BVBA
"Extremely fast and flexible with deliverables, while keeping with all appropriate quality and security standards."
Evangelia Zanni
SAP Business Unit Director, Intrasoft International
"Integrated technical approach, impressive structured content. Capable of managing large scale enterprise-level projects with in-depth knowledge of modern web technologies."
Antonios Mandilaris
IT Manager, Attiki Natural Gas Distribution
"He is a dedicated and hardworking person who showed great willingness and effectiveness for the task he was committed to carry out"
Christos Balaskas
General Manager, EPA Attiki
"Rafail managed to continue delivering even under challenging circumstances. He works in a highly structured way and is a particularly thoughtful communicator as a colleague."
Ewoud Monbaliu
Manager - Founding Partner, Levuur
References and portfolio available upon request