Portrait of Nikolai Kanaev

Nikolai Kanaev

Senior Architect & Team Lead

Contact me for availability.

About

I am a senior .NET architect and team lead focused on architecture leadership, agile process development, and building teams. I combine full-stack development experience with leadership training to create mature, self-organising teams.

I work in close dialogue with the business around requirements and solutions, and place a high value on understanding the domain. I am a certified Scrum Master and SAFe practitioner. To me, a team that collaborates well matters as much as the solutions it delivers.

I build my own agentic tooling — this site was produced by a multi-agent workflow governed by architecture decision records.

System view

The career as one engagement track over an employer track — non-uniform time axis, 2009 – 15 compressed. Roles link to the timeline below.

Skills

Architecture leadership

leading a group of Solution Architects on H&M's purchase flow
1 engagement · 2024 – present

Agentic engineering

multi-agent build workflows; this site is the artifact
practice · evidence below

Where this shows

Business process & information modelling

business processes and information models for H&M's purchase flow
1 engagement · 2024 – present

Integration & event-driven architecture

from purchase-flow integration architecture to monetary-transaction platforms
4 engagements · 2016 – present

Solution & system architecture

architect roles across H&M's planning and design landscape
3 engagements · 2018 – 2023

Monolith decomposition & microservices

rebuilding H&M's backend platform from monolith to microservices
1 engagement · 2016 – 2018

Team leadership & agile coaching

team lead at Betsson; UGL-trained, certified Scrum Master
3 engagements · 2016 – 2023

Continuous integration & delivery

end-to-end ownership of release pipelines at H&M and Interfleet
2 engagements · 2013 – 2018

Architecture & methods

Domain-Driven Design · BPMN 2.0 · DMN · C4 Model · MADR (ADRs) · System design · Database design · Requirements engineering · Stakeholder facilitation · Scrum · Kanban · TDD · SAFe

Platforms & languages

Backend development · Frontend & web development · Service layers · .NET · ASP.NET · .NET Core · MVC · WCF · Node.js · xUnit · Ruby · XML/XSD · SpecFlow (BDD) · TypeScript · JavaScript · HTML5/CSS3 · Responsive design · SPA · Angular · AngularJS · jQuery · Bootstrap/Material · Xamarin · Java for Android · SQLite3

Agentic & AI tooling

Claude Code · Model Context Protocol (MCP) · Multi-agent orchestration (claude-flow) · Agent-verified ADR workflow · SPARC · Spec-driven development

Modelling & analysis tools

Signavio · Miro · Visio · Mermaid · Azure API Management · Solace · Azure SQL · Power BI · Centric PLM · Confluence

DevOps

Git · SVN · Docker · Kubernetes · Azure · TeamCity · Octopus Deploy · PowerShell · Rake · Splunk · Grafana · RavenDB · CouchbaseDB · Windows Server · Linux · Windows Containers

Industries

Retail & Fashion · Railway technology · Collaboration & Unified Presence · iGaming

Spoken languages

Swedish · English · Russian · French

Experience

Client engagements delivered as a consultant: through Ciber (2013 – 2015), Squeed (2015 – 2025), and N1K0 AB (2025 – present).

H&M 8 roles · 2016 – 2019 & 2022 – present

H&M — Stream Lead Architect & Tech Lead, Assortment & Buying

2024 – present

Hired as tech lead for a product-planning team that owns its own roadmap; took on cross-team program leadership on top. Leads the group of Solution Architects on the area's target architecture, validated with Enterprise Architecture; runs joint business-and-technology modelling sessions; contributes to workforce planning and developer hiring.

Three concurrent programs:

  • Redesign of the purchase flow across assortment planning/buying and supplier-facing production processes — BPMN business processes, semantic information modelling, and a target architecture moving batch integrations to event-driven, near-real-time flows. Planning largely complete; implementation under way.
  • Decommissioning a legacy planning monolith into purpose-built systems: nine capability areas, eight-plus systems across six teams, with 35+ integrations and 70+ message consumers mapped for re-routing.
  • Aligning four teams across two value streams around an AI-driven sales-quantification system; problems identified across the system and its neighbours, solutions delivered within four months.

Methods: BPMN 2.0 · DMN · semantic information modelling · Domain-Driven Design · ADRs (MADR) · C4 · event-driven integration

H&M — Architect, Assortment Planning

2022 – 2023

Architect for a team of seven developers building Canvas, a React frontend application where users work with the assortment visually and creatively. Its key capability is that many users can collaborate at once and see each other's work in real time.

Beyond the technical responsibility, focused on helping the team improve — smoother planning processes, better communication, and a greater degree of psychological safety. Worked closely with the product owner and business experts to close the gap between development and the business.

H&M — System Architect

2018 – 2019

Architect in a team developing a WPF application for H&M designers working on assortments and upcoming products; the application is heavily focused on visual work and integrates with several planning systems. Handed over the entire technical solution to a new offshore team, trained them in the technologies and the agile process, and coached teams both in Sweden and internationally. Then continued as the team's architect, responsible for ongoing development, stakeholder collaboration, and integrations.

Tech: .NET, C#, WPF, WCF, SignalR, Git, TeamCity, Octopus Deploy, MS Azure, MSMQ · Specialist: Canto Cumulus DAM

H&M — Solution Architect

2018 – 2019

Proposed an idea for rebuilding an H&M system to streamline its users' workflow and eliminate flaws that often caused business-critical data to be lost or unavailable. The system is a Digital Asset Management solution centred on designer images, integrated across several planning systems. The solution consists of an Angular web client, two .NET Core backend services, and a third-party product for images, video, documents, and 3D formats. Drove the project from idea to delivery, owning the technical requirements specification, system design, and deployment design in MS Azure.

Tech: .NET Core, C#, JavaScript, Angular, MS Azure DevOps, MS Azure · Specialist: Canto Cumulus DAM

H&M — Developer, Purchase Planning

2018

Led the development of a new web application for planning product purchasing in upcoming seasons, setting its architecture and technology stack. The result was an Angular 5 application presenting large volumes of data with a strong focus on performance, developed in close collaboration with end users.

Tech: Angular 5, HTML5, CSS3, TypeScript, JavaScript, .NET MVC

H&M — Developer, Backend Platform

2016 – 2018

Helped transform a monolithic backend platform — receiving, processing, and serving large volumes of data through a range of APIs — into a microservices architecture. Involved from start to delivery, then maintained and extended the platform to serve other H&M development projects. Also took end-to-end ownership of the platform's continuous-delivery solution: a branching strategy, TeamCity builds, and Octopus Deploy pipelines releasing the system in separate parts to all environments.

Tech: .NET, NServiceBus, MSMQ, ASP.NET MVC, NUnit, TeamCity, Octopus Deploy, PowerShell, SSIS, SQL Server, Windows Server 2016

H&M — Scrum Master

2016 – 2017

Filled the team's need for an agile coach for just over six months, coaching the team in planning, estimation, and agile ways of working. The result was a hybrid Kanban/Scrum process focused on steady development flow, minimal bottlenecks, and close collaboration with business and test.

H&M — Frontend Developer

2016

Under tight deadline pressure, contributed to an AngularJS application that helps H&M plan products, purchasing, and sales for upcoming seasons. Got up to speed quickly and delivered code still in use today, collaborating closely with the product owner, testers, and other developers.

Tech: AngularJS, HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, TypeScript

Betsson 2019 – 2022

Betsson — Team Lead & Software Developer

2020 – 2022

Worked with the management group for Betsson's Gaming area to reorganise the teams and the processes for requirements and development, contributing agile knowledge and developer/architect experience to make the newly formed teams effective.

Continued as team lead for one of the teams, coaching it in both development and agile process with the aim of making it self-sufficient — able to grow on its own, improve its own processes, and mature in how it collaborated. Within the team, coached and led agile rituals such as retrospectives, sprint planning, and refinement.

Betsson — Software Developer

2019 – 2020

Part of a newly formed team that took over Betsson's core platform, which handles all integrations with game providers and every transaction made across all brands. Development centred on robust code in a substantial codebase handling monetary transactions, with a strong focus on test coverage, monitoring, and proactively preventing system failures. Also part of a small group responsible for support and on-call duty.

Tech: .NET, .NET Core, AngularJS, SignalR, Kafka, NServiceBus, RavenDB, CouchbaseDB, TeamCity, Octopus Deploy, Docker, Kubernetes, Splunk, Grafana, Consul, MSSQL

Earlier — Interfleet, CalcNet, Cisco, Android 2009 – 2015 · expand

CalcNet — Developer

2015

Carried out an extensive facelift of CalcNet, a web application for calculating construction and renovation costs. Made the application fully responsive — forms, reports, and price book usable on phones, tablets, and desktops alike — and gave the site a fresh, modern appearance.

Tech: HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, Bootstrap, AngularJS, ASP.NET MVC, Azure

Interfleet Technology — Developer, System Maintenance

2014 – 2015

Assumed responsibility for maintaining Interfleet's entire damage- and warranty-management system: several web and service projects with a message-queue architecture, depending on real-time communication with FORD, a mainframe holding up-to-date information on nearly every rail-bound vehicle in Sweden. Worked actively to maintain a good customer relationship and help them improve their systems.

Tech: IBM WebSphere MQ, RabbitMQ, RavenDB, Windows Services, MVC2, Windsor IoC, EventStore, WCF, SQL, NHibernate

Interfleet Technology — Developer, Vehicle Inspection System

2013 – 2014

Helped the customer define requirements for a digital system for rail-vehicle inspections, previously handled with Excel and a camera. Together with one other developer, built a system where inspectors use Windows 8 tablets on site, with offline and online modes and data synchronised through a service layer, plus an MVC4 web app for administering projects and train structures.

Tech: .NET 4.5, MVC4, WCF, JavaScript, jQuery, CSS, XAML, WPF, SQL, Xamarin

Interfleet Technology — Architect & Developer, CI/CD

2013 – 2014

Inherited Interfleet's TeamCity + Rake Continuous Integration foundation and developed it into a stable build process with automated deployment to all environments (test, acceptance test, and production), achieving zero downtime and rollback capability.

Tech: Ruby/Rake, YAML, NUnit, Git, Albacore, NuGet/NuSpec, TeamCity, IIS, GitHub

Cisco Systems — Researcher

2012

Worked at Cisco Systems' development office in Ireland alongside researchers from Waterford Institute of Technology on the FAME research project. Researched XMPP intra-domain federation for Cisco Unified Presence: identified the protocol's limitations, proposed improvements, and built a prototype to illustrate how it could work.

Tech: XMPP, JavaScript · Linux, Cisco Unified Presence, Jabber, Lync

Android Developer

2009 – 2011

Alongside studies at Stockholm University, developed Android applications: a personal-finance app released on Google Play for recording expenses and income, and an interactive guide to a computer game.

Tech: Java, SQLite, Android

Employment

Talks & Community

Docker & Windows Containers

Talk series · 2016 – 2017

Presented at SweTugg 2016 (main stage, audience of over a hundred), SweNug Stockholm 2017 (also organised the event), nForum Gothenburg 2017, H&M's inaugural Lunch 'n Learn, and as a full-day training for 30 developers at an internal consultancy conference.

Feature Toggling

SAST quarterly conference · 2019

Presentation at the Swedish Association for Software Testing's Q2 conference.

.NET Core 3.0 & C# 8.0

Internal consultancy conference · 2019

The new possibilities in the updated platform and how the new C# version improves code.

Education & Certifications

Courses

UGL — Utveckling av Grupp och Ledare (Development of Group and Leader)

A course in developing as both a leader and a team member — understanding how groups function and, in turn, leading better.

Certifications