I am Teodor Zhechev

Latest Essays

• CI/CD: Flagging Productivity

  CI/CD only works when unfinished work can exist safely in production. Feature flags are the mechanism that makes that possible.

  February 1, 2026

• CI/CD and the Snake Oil of Isolation

  How 'team autonomy' quietly turns into pipeline sprawl, integration roulette, and a CI/CD system held together with YAML and hope.

  January 30, 2026

• CI: The Devils In The Details

  How small, tolerated problems quietly turn a fast, trusted CI system into a slow, unpredictable monster.

  January 29, 2026

• CI/CD Is a Dirty Word

  Why most developers hate their pipeline, why that’s not an accident, and why the alternative is worse.

  January 28, 2026

• CI/CD Is Not What You Think

  A short introduction to what CI/CD actually is, as opposed to what it's usually sold as.

  January 27, 2026

About Me

A fully remote generalist-turned-manager with 18 years across desktop, web, 3D, cloud, and ops development and 8+ years in engineering leadership. My strength lies in people management — hiring for and shaping high-performing distributed teams — and driving engineering excellence through modern practices including LLM-assisted coding, CI/CD, and security & compliance programs.

• Remote-first; hired for and shaped successful distributed teams across three continents.
• Prolific AI code assist tool user — integrating LLM-assisted coding into daily professional and personal workflows.
• Security & compliance owner: 3rd-party license scanning/reporting, CVE management, code health reporting; assisted ISO 27001, TISAX and SOC 2 certification efforts.
• Optimized software processes, introduced modern practices across positions.
• Led the construction of state-of-the-art CI/CD with matrix testing and time to prod of 20 minutes.
• Wielder of metrics, engineering organization health and mentorship.