Mikita Hrybaleu

CTO @ Zendrop. 20+ years shipping platforms that scale. Advisory for seed‑to‑Series B founders.

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Driving growth through technology

I help founders choose the right path — invest in foundations or ship a lean MVP — and then lead the work: stable releases, predictable costs, and AI adoption that drives real results. At Zendrop I lead the ongoing scale-up; earlier I advised Talaka.by and built & sold Gratzbonus.

About

Originally from Eastern Europe, so I tend to appreciate directness. I started in gaming distribution and payment systems, moved through e-commerce, and ended up leading engineering at a platform serving 100K+ merchants in the US. Now based in West Palm Beach, FL.

20+ years of building and shipping. The common thread: take something that's breaking under growth, figure out what actually matters, fix that, skip the rest. I've done this across fintech, crowdfunding, procurement, and dropshipping — the domains change, the pattern doesn't.

Outside of Zendrop, I mentor founders through XMENTOR.PRO (EBRD-backed) and occasionally judge hackathons. I write about what I learn from real work — no theory, no marketing.

How I help founders

MVP in weeks

Scope the essentials, ship quickly, learn from real usage. No gold‑plating, no endless dev cycles.

Gratzbonus: end-to-end fintech MVP, shipped and exited. ETP GPB: MVP in weeks, dev speed +70%.

Scale without rewrites

Keep uptime high and latency low as traffic grows. Capacity planning and clean upgrade paths prevent "stop‑the‑world" refactors.

Zendrop: from struggling codebase to ~400K orders/mo, 99.9% uptime, <200ms API.

Team that executes

Hiring loop, calm on-call, QA baseline, and a release train you can trust. Teams empowered by AI-assisted coding and agentic workflows. Clear ownership, fewer outages.

Zendrop: team scaled 5→50, test coverage 65%+, time-to-market 3-4x faster with AI.

AI that drives results

I help integrate AI into operations, analytics, and product where it drives real value. Automations, internal tools, customer-facing features — adoption that actually ships.

Zendrop: 65-95% AI-generated code, StoreBuild.ai live, MCP integration for 100K+ merchants.

Work & proof

Zendrop — Chief Technology Officer (current)

Dropshipping platform serving 100K+ entrepreneurs. Leading platform scale-up and AI adoption.

  • Platform: 99.9% uptime, ~400K orders/mo, 200K+ connected stores, <200ms API at 1000+ concurrent requests. AWS migration, CI/CD, monitoring, test coverage 65%+, team scaled 5→50. TTM 3-4x faster, infra cost −30%.
  • AI adoption: Developers no longer write code — they supervise, orchestrate, and review while AI handles generation. 65-95% AI-generated code across the team. Top 20-25% AI adoption among similar-size companies, top 10% in AI code generation and CI/CD. Company-wide AI usage policy across CX, Dev, and Data teams.
  • AI products: StoreBuild.ai (live). Zendrop MCP — first e-commerce fulfillment platform with MCP integration (ChatGPT, Claude, OpenClaw). Agentic workflows: AI-powered QA system (Claude Code + Playwright MCP — reads Jira tickets, analyzes PRs, generates test plans, executes E2E tests on staging, validates via DB, and posts results back to Jira), AI in code review pipeline.
  • Platform & partnerships: Merchant Open API — rebuilt internal architecture for faster partner integrations, first external partner already live. Wix integration — integrated in 2 weeks, live in 4 total, zero incidents since launch. New sales channels beyond Shopify, TikTok Shop, and ClickFunnels.
99.9% uptime ~400K orders / mo 200K+ connected stores <200ms @ 1000+ concurrent 65-95% AI-generated code TTM 3-4x faster Cost −30%

ETP GPB "Reserve" — Head of Development

Procurement planning inside GPB's trading platform (manufacturing, aviation, energy).

  • Outcomes: MVP in weeks, dev speed +70%, cost −30%, stable in production.
  • What I led: architecture and delivery with a lean, partly outsourced team; faster path to MVP and stable production; secure‑by‑default and reliable under load.
MVP in weeks Dev speed +70% Cost −30% Stable in production

Talaka.by — Advisor / Fractional CTO

Community & crowdfunding platform. more...

  • Role: tightened delivery, set a monitoring baseline, guided smart use of outsourced teams.
  • Result: faster iteration and a clean path from MVP to stable releases.

Gratzbonus — Founder

Fintech loyalty for the gaming industry — bridging payments and player engagement.

  • Built: end‑to‑end MVP, payment integrations, deployment pipeline, quality baseline, initial hiring playbook.
  • Outcome: shipped quickly and exited with a clear scale path established.

Community & media

  • XMENTOR.PRO — active mentor on an EBRD-backed mentoring platform for founders and tech leaders.
  • Hackathon Raptors / Neuro Nostalgia — judge at "The Retro Christmas Arcade 2026" retro gaming hackathon (25 teams, 72 hours, Turbo engine).
  • TechSouls — published: "Zendrop CTO Mikita Hrybaleu on What Running a High-Growth E-Commerce Platform Teaches About Building Games That Don't Break Under Pressure."

Experience & roles

  • CTO — Zendrop (platform scale‑up; AI in product & ops)
  • Head of Development — ETP GPB "Reserve"
  • Advisor / Fractional CTO — Talaka.by
  • Founder — Gratzbonus (built & exited)
  • Mentor — XMENTOR.PRO (EBRD-backed)
Focus areas
Ship in weeks Scale without rewrites High uptime, low latency Predictable cloud costs AI adoption in org Hiring that scales MCP & agentic workflows

Advisory

I take on select advisory engagements with seed-to-Series B founders who need a technical partner — not a slide deck.

What I help with: shipping an MVP without over-building, scaling without rewrites, AI adoption that actually works in your org, engineering team design, observability and release processes, cost optimization.

Format: 1-on-1 advisory calls, fractional CTO engagements, async architecture review. Whatever gets you unstuck fastest.

Also active as a mentor on XMENTOR.PRO — an EBRD-backed mentoring platform for founders and tech leaders.

"Mikita helped us avoid a six-figure rewrite by showing exactly which parts of the stack would break at 10x. We scaled on the existing codebase for another 18 months."

— Founder, Series A e-commerce platform

"I came in with a 12-week integration roadmap. He cut it to 4 weeks by identifying what was actually blocking us vs. what was just process theater."

— CTO, seed-stage SaaS

Thinking

Short takes from real work. No theory, no marketing — just what happened and what I learned.

AI

AI agents hit a ceiling — and that's the most important thing to know

Knowing where the ceiling is matters more than celebrating speed.
AI · Engineering

65% to 95% AI-generated code — what the spread actually means

The spread is the signal. Pay attention to it.
Engineering · Scale

Wix integration in 4 weeks — the real conversation

Ask them how the first month in production went.
Observability · Cost

Datadog bill cut in half — without losing visibility

Cut the noise, keep the signal, the bill follows.

Let's talk

Building something ambitious? Reach out on LinkedIn — it's the best way to start a conversation.

Connect on LinkedIn