Tinatin Balavadze
Building Scalable Code, Careers, and Communities—One Bold Move at a Time.
Berlin, Germany
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I build mobile apps that scale, mentor career changers breaking into tech, and rethink how teams grow. But my path wasn’t a straight line—it was a curveball-filled adventure through learning design, leadership, and reinvention.
By day, I’m an engineer at Zalando, solving complex problems with clean solutions. By night (and sometimes in between commits), I mentor, speak, and brainstorm ways to make tech more inclusive and careers more adaptable.
Before I wrote software, I designed learning programs, led high-impact teams, and built systems that empowered people to think, create, and grow. Now, I bring that same mindset into tech—blending creativity with code to build products (and careers) that actually make a difference.
Talks, Mentorship, & More: If you’re into AI productivity, career growth, or scaling impact without burning out, let's talk. I’m always up for sharing hard-earned insights and helping others debug their next big leap.
Area of Expertise
Topics
AI Won’t Take Your Job—But Your Productivity Habits Might
AI isn’t the real threat to your job. Your outdated workflows, cognitive overload, and context-switching hell are.
This talk flips the fear-driven AI narrative on its head. Instead of worrying about AI replacing us, we’ll explore how to work smarter with AI—leveraging tools like GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT to free up brainpower, debug focus, and scale ourselves as engineers.
Key Takeaways:
Cognitive Load vs. Automation – Why bad workflows are a bigger problem than AI.
The 10x Engineer Myth – It's not about raw speed; it's about leveraging AI + habits.
AI as Your Pair Programmer – Practical AI-enhanced coding workflows.
Debugging Your Focus – Structuring work for deep focus and minimal context switching.
AI-Powered Workflows – Freeing up time for high-value engineering.
Refactor Your Career: Build It Like Your Best Codebase
Bad code is painful. So is a career that’s messy, stagnant, or riddled with tech debt. But as engineers, we don’t tolerate bad code—we refactor it. So why don’t we do the same with our careers?
This talk flips career growth into an engineering challenge. We’ll debug outdated skills, identify the “version control” mistakes holding you back, and apply CI/CD principles to continuous career development. Whether you’re stuck in "maintenance mode" or looking to scale your impact, you’ll leave with a structured roadmap to reinvent, iterate, and level up—without burning out.
Key Takeaways:
Career Tech Debt – Spot and refactor outdated skills, bad habits, and inefficiencies.
Branching vs. Merging – Know when to specialize deeply or broaden your skillset.
Version Control for Growth – Iterate, gather feedback, and pivot strategically.
CI/CD for Yourself – Build a system for continuous skill deployment.
Career Debugging Framework – A tactical approach to assessing and course-correcting your path.
Who It’s For: Engineers, tech leads, and anyone ready to upgrade their career like they would a messy codebase.
Format: Works as a complete presentation or lightning talk.
Designing Scalable Android Apps: Lessons from a Learning Architect
Great app architecture isn’t just about clean code—it’s about designing systems that scale, evolve, and solve real user problems. And surprisingly? The best architectural lessons don’t just come from code—they come from learning design.
As a learning architect turned Android developer, I’ll share how principles like modularity, feedback loops, and reusability can elevate your app from “functional” to “future-proof.” We’ll ditch cookie-cutter solutions and focus on how to craft Android apps that are intuitive, scalable, and built for real users.
No fluff. Just frameworks.
Key Takeaways:
The hidden power of modularity and reusability in Android development.
How learning design principles translate into better user-centric apps.
Debugging design bottlenecks before they scale into system-wide failures.
Who It’s For: Engineers, tech leads, and anyone ready to upgrade their career like they would a messy codebase.
Format: Works as a complete presentation or lightning talk.
Listen Deeply, Build with Purpose: Transforming Tech Teams
Great teams don’t just ship code—they innovate, adapt, and thrive. But high-performing teams aren’t born. They’re built.
This session is a no-BS, real-talk exploration of what it takes to foster trust, collaboration, and innovation in tech teams. Drawing from my experience leading diverse teams (and pivoting into tech myself), I’ll share practical shifts that turn good teams into game-changers.
This isn’t a talk about buzzwordy leadership theories. It’s about what actually works.
Key Takeaways:
The Trust Factor – How to create an environment where real collaboration happens.
Deep Listening as a Leadership Tool – The power of shutting up and actually hearing your team.
Building Teams That Innovate – Fostering an experimental mindset without fear of failure.
If you’re leading, joining, or dreaming of building a better team, this is your starting point.
Who It’s For: Engineers, tech leads, and anyone ready to upgrade their career like they would a messy codebase.
Format: Works as a complete presentation or lightning talk.
AI Won’t Take Your Job—But Your Productivity Habits Might
AI isn’t the real threat to your job. Your outdated workflows, cognitive overload, and context-switching hell are.
This talk flips the fear-driven AI narrative on its head. Instead of worrying about AI replacing us, we’ll explore how to work smarter with AI—leveraging tools like GitHub Copilot and ChatGPT to free up brainpower, debug focus, and scale ourselves as engineers.
Key Takeaways:
Cognitive Load vs. Automation – Why bad workflows are a bigger problem than AI.
The 10x Engineer Myth – It's not about raw speed; it's about leveraging AI + habits.
AI as Your Pair Programmer – Practical AI-enhanced coding workflows.
Debugging Your Focus – Structuring work for deep focus and minimal context switching.
AI-Powered Workflows – Freeing up time for high-value engineering.
Who It’s For: Engineers, tech leads, and anyone ready to upgrade their career like they would a messy codebase.
Format: Works as a complete presentation or lightning talk.
Scaling Yourself: Engineering Growth Without Burnout
We optimize software for performance, efficiency, and resilience—but we rarely do the same for ourselves. The result? Burnout, inefficiency, and careers that don’t scale.
This session applies system design principles to personal effectiveness, leadership, and career growth. We’ll explore how to work smarter, not just harder, so you can sustain peak performance without crashing.
Key Takeaways:
Throughput vs. Latency in Your Career – Are you optimizing for speed or long-term impact?
Cognitive Load Management – How to reduce mental overhead and work friction.
Asynchronous Workflows for Your Brain – Event-driven thinking applied to personal productivity.
Feature Flags for Your Life – Experimenting with new skills and iterating on feedback.
Preventing Burnout with Circuit Breakers – How high-performing engineers sustain long-term success.
You optimize code. Now, it’s time to optimize yourself.
Who It’s For: Engineers, tech leads, and anyone ready to upgrade their career like they would a messy codebase.
Format: Works as a complete presentation or lightning talk.
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