8 years making
teams ship.
Started as a developer in Seoul. Grew into engineering leadership. Ran a 45-person org as COO of a US IT consultancy. Now I run carawon.tech — the same engineering rigor, available directly, powered by AI.
Ilya Kim
Founder & Lead Engineer
“I don't build software to impress other developers. I build it to make your business work. If it doesn't ship, it doesn't count.”
Full-stack engineer and engineering manager with 8+ years of experience. Former COO at a US-based IT consultancy where I scaled the organization from zero to 45 people across Kazakhstan, India, Korea, and the USA. Delivered IoT systems, WebRTC platforms, mobile apps, and CRMs for US corporate clients.
Born in Kazakhstan, educated in South Korea (SolBridge International School of Business). I speak English, Russian, and Korean — a rare combination that lets me bridge markets most tech companies can't reach. Every project I've touched has shipped to production.
Built over 8 years,
not overnight.
Software developer — Seoul
Started building and shipping mobile applications as a contract engineer. Full release cycles, builds, and deployments.
Team lead — Sovereign Wallet
Led 15 engineers across two public mobile app launches. Sprint planning, code reviews, deployment governance. Distributed team across Singapore and Korea.
Engineering Manager — DamoGO
Hired and managed the full engineering team for a food marketplace. Built funnel dashboards, managed a payment provider migration, introduced feature flags and A/A testing.
Co-founded Nehanguki
Idea to live product in under 4 months. Owned architecture, technical decisions, and delivery milestones.
COO — Interspark (US IT Consultancy)
Scaled from 0 to 45 people across 5 countries. Delivered IoT, WebRTC, AR, and payment systems for US corporate clients. Rescued failing engagements. Grew customer base 100%.
Founded carawon.tech
Everything I learned — now available directly. AI-powered development with senior engineering oversight. No agency markup.
My edge.
Engineering leadership
Not just code — architecture, process, team health. I've managed 45 engineers. I know what makes teams ship and what makes them stall.
AI-powered execution
I build 10x faster using AI, with the same quality standards I enforced at enterprise scale. Speed without the mess.
Multilingual reach
English, Russian, Korean. I've built products across all three markets — a combination almost nobody in tech can offer.
Production mindset
Every project ships. Every project runs in production. No prototypes disguised as products, no demos that never go live.
Want to see if
I'm the right fit?
15-minute call — no pitch, just a conversation about your project.