I'm Katherine Ananeva. For 10+ years I've helped startups and growing companies choose the right architecture, connect the messy parts, and launch on schedule. A transit ticketing MVP in 4 months. Insurance workflows with 80% less manual work.
Katherine Ananeva
Principal Solutions Architect
10+
years in IT, from startups to enterprise
60+
projects delivered across transit, insurance, SaaS and e-commerce
18K+
professionals in my tech community
4 mo
from kickoff to MVP for a ticketing platform with 15,000 riders a day
Most teams I meet aren't short on effort. They're short on someone who owns the technical big picture.
Your developers ship features, but payments, CRMs and partner systems don't talk to each other. Every integration turns into a fire drill.
You're building an MVP or scaling past it, and you need senior judgment on architecture, vendors and hiring without adding a C-suite salary.
Requirements live in chat threads, documentation is out of date, and onboarding a new engineer takes weeks instead of days.
Hands-on leadership for the moments that decide whether a product scales or stalls.
Turn business goals into a prioritized technical plan that your team and your investors can follow.
Clear blueprints for APIs, data and event-driven flows, so the system can grow with the business.
Connect payments, banks, government and partner systems, then put AI to work on the manual steps that slow your team down.
Run discovery, write requirements engineers can actually build from, and steer dev teams and vendors all the way to launch.
A few results from real projects. The full story, with scope and stack, is in the portfolio.
4 months
NFC cards, offline mode and Face ID payments, delivered with a team of 18. The platform serves 15,000 passengers a day and integrates 7 third-party ticketing systems.
−80%
Bank and government integrations with 100% accurate regulatory reporting and 10,000+ transactions a day.
+30%
A Webflow, Shopify and Calendly build for a beverage brand. E-commerce conversion rose 15%, and content updates got twice as fast.
Simple, direct, and built around your calendar and budget. Choose a part-time fractional CTO role, a project-based architecture engagement, or a one-off technical audit.
30 minutes. You describe the goal, the stack and where it hurts. I tell you honestly whether I'm the right fit.
I review your architecture, team and roadmap, then hand you a clear plan with priorities, risks and next steps.
I work alongside your team as a part-time CTO, or run a defined project, until the product ships.
I'm Katherine, a systems analyst turned solutions architect and founder. I started as an analyst intern while still at university and learned on real systems for transit, insurance, e-commerce and SaaS.
Today I run two companies: The Digital Unicorn, a software and AI agency, and GetAnalyst, an international school for systems analysts and architects.
Principal Solutions Architect and Founder, The Digital Unicorn
My software and AI agency. We build web and mobile apps, bring AI into businesses and design high-load architecture.
Founder and CEO, GetAnalyst
An international school for systems analysts and architects that I founded. Practical programs on REST APIs, integrations, databases and architecture, plus free webinars and a podcast.
Lead Systems Analyst, Kladana
A cloud ERP for small and medium businesses: inventory, sales, purchasing and manufacturing. I designed its move from a monolith to microservices.
CTO and Founder, Get IT Group
An IT company I founded. Its work included bank and government integrations and automation for an insurance platform.
Senior Systems Analyst, then Technical Project Lead, LANIT
One of Russia's largest IT groups and system integrators, founded in 1989. There I designed the architecture and integrations of a public-transit ticketing platform.
Katherine Ananeva
Principal Solutions Architect
Request a 30-minute intro call. Bring the idea, the roadmap or the problem. You'll leave with a clear next step, whether or not we end up working together.
Two lines are enough: what you are building and where it hurts. I will reply personally with a clear next step.
The Digital Unicorn is a senior engineering team led by a hands-on CTO. We build apps, bring AI into your business and design systems that scale.
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