Марія БровінськаWork
18 December 2024, 10:00
2024-12-18
"Will keep our internal IT systems up to date." Uklon is looking for a Head of Information Systems and an Information Security Lead. How to apply, what you'll need to do, and what are the requirements
Oleksandr Chumak headed the Uklon IT team a year ago, when all four co-founders left the operational management of the business. Now Oleksandr is looking for a Head of Information Systems to join his team. dev.ua asked the Uklon CTO about his year of work in the position — about the challenges, changes and priorities of the team. As well as who he is looking for, what are the requirements and selection stages.
Oleksandr Chumak headed the Uklon IT team a year ago, when all four co-founders left the operational management of the business. Now Oleksandr is looking for a Head of Information Systems to join his team. dev.ua asked the Uklon CTO about his year of work in the position — about the challenges, changes and priorities of the team. As well as who he is looking for, what are the requirements and selection stages.
— Oleksandr, how was your first year in your new position? Tell us about the team structure and what it did?
It’s worth starting with the fact that my team has three departments, each of which has its own key objectives (OKRs) that contribute to the overall company strategy.
Engineering/Development — nine cross-functional product teams that develop the ride-hailing and delivery product lines. This is the largest team, with over 130 specialists.
The Data and Research team focuses on leadership and innovation in data analytics and research. It is responsible for managing all aspects of R&D, including Data Science, Data Analytics, Data Platforms, fraud prevention, and product innovation.
Information Systems — ensuring stable and effective operation of internal IT services and the company’s internal infrastructure and optimizing processes in accordance with the company’s development strategy.
If we talk about results, we have achieved a lot.
Improved reliability: ride-hailing uptime reached 99,99%.One of the main priorities of the team was to ensure high product reliability (SLO) — as the number of orders increases and attracting new riders and drivers becomes significantly more expensive, every minute of service downtime is very expensive for the business. We have been working towards this for a long time and this is the result of more than one year of efforts. By the way, this year we also had a record load on the application.
Improved the efficiency of development processes.Every year we implement hundreds of initiatives and improvements, which encourages us to constantly improve and build effective development processes. Therefore, we introduced the Continuous Delivery/Deployment approach, which allowed us to significantly improve key metrics, including Cycle Time. After successful testing in one of the teams, we scale this process to all teams. Thanks to this, we now have dozens of deployments and releases every day.
We released several interesting features. For example, a route with a walking part, integration with «Diya», and added functionality for drivers so that they can immediately take scheduled orders (which are created for a certain time).
We have improved algorithms and tools for analyzing text and voice data.Using the latest developments, we are actively automating the processes of interaction with our customers, namely contact center tools using AI-based services. We have developed and widely implemented the use of LLM models, and also launched new products for data digitization. For example, we use LLM to recognize the essence of all support requests. As a result, we received real-time analytics, interactive dashboards and valuable insights. In addition, this helps to automatically filter out irrelevant tickets created by mistake, which significantly optimizes workflows.
We have strengthened information and product security. We have done a tremendous job, thanks to which we have passed the audit and received ISO27001 (information security) and 22301 (business continuity) certifications. This is about the level of reliability and compliance with high standards. We are also constantly improving the confidentiality and security of users' personal data. Like many Ukrainian businesses, we have also encountered DDoS attacks. While they initially had some impact on some of our resources, this impact has now been completely eliminated. In addition to preventing DDoS attacks, we conducted comprehensive penetration tests, which included penetration tests for the external perimeter, internal perimeter, and social engineering. This allowed us to identify and eliminate vulnerabilities. We also organized a controlled DDoS test to check the resilience of all company resources. Currently, although attacks occur periodically, they do not affect the stability of our services.
— You are looking for a Head of Information Systems — what will be in this person’s area of responsibility?
Uklon is currently actively building its internal infrastructure to ensure that every process is not only secure, but also as efficient as possible for teams. We strive to achieve high performance in everything from integration to automation. And that is why we are looking for a Head of Information Systems .
Our focus on advanced solutions, such as Zero Trust Architecture, allows us to maintain a high level of security at every stage of interaction. For us, this is protection against real threats that can arise every day. Plus, ISO27001 and 22301 certifications confirm high standards of protection. And here we are not just talking about papers — these are living principles that we implement into processes so that Uklon can flexibly respond to market challenges.
It is important for us that the Head of Information Systems becomes part of this transformation. It is not only about managing the infrastructure, but also about the opportunity to bring your own vision to the development of IT services that ensure business stability. It is about improving internal processes, optimizing IT service costs and ensuring transparency in asset management. In addition, we will work to ensure that the IT strategy meets our ambitions and development goals as part of the expansion.
Working at the intersection of strategic decisions and daily interactions between departments and the Management Board, the Head of Information Systems will keep our internal IT systems in tip-top shape. He or she will be a key player in helping the company scale safely and sustainably.
— How many people are in the team, what is the structure?
This person will work directly with the service center, in a team of over 20+ people. These are the Business Process and Internal IT Infrastructure teams.
I would also like to add that the main focuses of the Information Systems teams this year were:
Launch of the HiBob HRMS system and its integration into all key processes of the company, ensuring convenience and efficiency of personnel data management.
Providing control and management of user endpoints, which increased the security and efficiency of the team’s work.
Optimization and increase in the efficiency of internal infrastructure resources, which allowed to reduce costs and improve system stability.
First of all, the person should be result-oriented, understand the needs of the business and know how to achieve them. Be able to identify bottlenecks and proactively implement solutions that will eliminate them.
By the way, we are currently looking for an Information Security Lead to join this team — a professional ready to lead the product security, infrastructure security, and access management teams. We have big plans for 2025, and this is a great chance to become a part of them. Details here .
