Karol Danko

Karol Danko

Tech geek with a passion for building inspiring products and leading productive engineering teams.

Steffeln, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany
karol@karoldanko.comwww.karoldanko.comLinkedIn

About

With nearly 20 years of experience in technology, I've worked both hands-on and in leadership roles, managing teams and guiding leaders. My experience spans across startups and public companies, allowing me to adapt to diverse business environments. I focus on what drives the most impact. Whether it's working closely with people, being hands-on with technology, or breaking down silos to improve communication with internal and external stakeholders—my approach is always driven by what will deliver the greatest value.

Experience

scaleup

Technical team lead - Marketplace

Jan 2024 - Present

Following the company's pivot to SaaS, I built a lead marketplace product from scratch in stealth mode and later onboarded the rest of the team to scale it further.

30%
Management
5
Led Team Size
50
Company Size
SaaS
Marketplace
Product Development
Stealth Mode
Team Onboarding
💬 Ask me about:
  • How we leverage AI to detect fake users
  • How we managed to build a full product in 4 months with single trello board.

Tech Lead

Jan 2024 - Present

I split my time evenly between coding and managing a talented team of engineers. Breaking down silos, creating development plans, improving legacy codebase, improved deployment frequency from twice a week to twice a day, improving lead time to change from 20 to 2 days.

50%
Management
6
Led Team Size
200
Company Size
Team Leadership
AWS
Process Improvement
Legacy Systems
Deployment Optimization
Development Plans
💬 Ask me about:
  • How we improved deployment frequency
startup

Strategy Consultant & Implementor

Nov 2023 - May 2024

Allspring is an AI-skills tool that tells you or your team where you stand and what to do next. Initially consulting, I later developed an MVP leveraging OpenAI APIs to bring the concept to life.

50%
Management
20
Led Team Size
2
Company Size
AI
OpenAI API
MVP Development
💬 Ask me about:
  • How we used multi-staged approach to combine AI and pre-defined path to get the best results
enterprise

Engineering Manager

Mar 2023 - Jan 2024

Signa Sports United (SSU) is a global specialist sports e-commerce company with 80 online sites serving over 6.7 million customers. I am in charge of a team of engineers and engineering leads at Tennis-Point. Leading a team of 20+ engineers, establishing communication channels, setting technological strategies, and overseeing technological development.

75%
Management
20
Led Team Size
2000
Company Size
E-commerce
Team Management
Communication
Technology Strategy
Azure
💬 Ask me about:
  • How we failed to break the silos

Sabbatical

Sabbatical

Mar 2022 - Mar 2023

Taking a break from work to focus on my family.

0%
Management
1
Led Team Size
0
Company Size

OAK'S LAB

startup

CTO

Feb 2018 - Mar 2022

OAK'S LAB is a creative incubator-like digital agency specializing in early-stage startups. Built 34 startups with combined valuation of $1.5B, scaled team from 1 to 40, managed 5-7 teams, designed and introduced all necessary processes, acted as temporary CTO for all incoming startups.

100%
Management
40
Led Team Size
70
Company Size
CTO
Startups
Team Scaling
Process Design
GCP
💬 Ask me about:
  • Why we chose Google Cloud Platform as our go-to cloud provider
  • How we failed, then succeeded to set career levels
  • How we built 40+ startups in 4 years
market-leader

Team Lead for Internal APIs

Oct 2009 - Jan 2018

Livesport is a global leader in real-time sports coverage, serving over 100 million users. Led team of 5-6 engineers, developed and maintained critical APIs, created new-joiner program, created internal developer experience tools, shaped tech strategy in VP-level group directly with CTO. Helped scale from thousands to 80 million users.

50%
Management
5
Led Team Size
200
Company Size
Node.js
PHP
MySQL
MongoDB
High-performance APIs
Team Leadership
DX
Internal Tooling
DevOps
💬 Ask me about:
  • How we deployed to 100+ on-premise servers with a custom deployment tool
  • How we used multi-layered caching to survive weekend traffic with live-data changing every few seconds
  • How we fought scraping bots with a custom solution

Education

Czech Technical University in Prague

Graduate in Software engineering

2009 - 2013

Czech Technical University in Prague

Undergraduate in Cybernetics and Measurement (Electrical engineering)

2004 - 2009

Speaking Engagements

HR Transformation In The Age Of DeepMind

DisruptHR Prague 2020

2020
English
HR
AI
DeepMind
Transformation

Why JavaScript is the best language for your MVP

WebExpo

2019
English
JavaScript
MVP
Startups

JavaScript - najlepší jazyk pre váš startup

JavaScript Startup Talk

2019
Slovak
JavaScript
Startup
Slovak

Scaling Node.js

Livesport Talks

2018
Slovak
Node.js
Scaling
Performance

Scaling data scrapers

Livesport Talks

2018
Slovak
Data Scraping
Scaling
Performance

IoT at home

Linux Days 2017

2017
Slovak
IoT
Home Automation
Linux

IoT Button

Devel.cz 2017

2017
Slovak
IoT
Hardware
Button

IoT at home

Pehapkari.cz

2017
Slovak
IoT
Home Automation
PHP

Community Involvement

Eifel Web Development Group

Organizer

Mar 2023 - Mar 2024

I am organizing meetups for like-minded web development professionals and enthusiasts in the area of Eifel, Germany.

Community
Germany

NodeSchool Prague

Organizer

Sep 2019 - Sep 2021

I organised first ever Prague NodeSchool event focusing on teaching Node.js skills.

Education
Node.js
Community
Prague

ReactGirls Prague

Mentor

Aug 2019 - Aug 2021

I participated in workshops as a mentor to help women at the start of their React careers.

Education
React
Mentorship
Diversity

Languages

English
Full Professional
Slovak
Native
German
Working proficiency
Hungarian
Basic
Swedish
Elementary

Want to know more about me?

  • 💡How I manage my smart home with Home Assistant