Open to work · Portugal / Europe / Remote
8 years in proxy infrastructure

Yevhenii
Harba

8 years inside proxy infrastructure. Started in support, ended up building residential proxy products from scratch. I know this industry from the network layer to the pricing model.

Portugal · Europe · Remote · yevheniiharba@gmail.com · LinkedIn

What I've actually built

Not theory.
Real systems, running in production.

Everything below I built while working at a proxy company for 8 years. Most of it I figured out from scratch, without a team or a playbook.

02

BYOIP / ASN / GeoIP

Evaluating hosting partners for IP announcement, understanding what BGP vs static routing means for classification, working with GeoFeed to correct database records. Done across multiple setups.

  • Partner evaluation: BGP vs static routing
  • ASN setup and route object management
  • GeoFeed workflows and update cycles
  • POP alignment and classification stability
03

Compliance, abuse & throttling

Built the full compliance framework: AUP, DMCA handling, abuse intake and escalation, upstream communication. Also designed the throttling system controlling concurrent sessions and RPS per client, so one customer couldn't affect neighbors on the same server.

  • Abuse intake, classification, escalation
  • Concurrent session and RPS limits per client
  • Upstream compliance communication
  • AUP design and enforcement logic
04

Fair Usage Policy & pricing

Designed the FUP from scratch: traffic segmentation, thresholds, trigger logic, customer messaging. Then rebuilt the pricing model around it so the cost-per-GB economics worked at scale.

  • Traffic intensity segmentation
  • FUP thresholds and customer messaging
  • Cost-per-GB analysis and margin modeling
  • Competitor pricing benchmarking
05

Supplier procurement & partnerships

Finding proxy suppliers, running calls, negotiating GB-based pricing, technical due diligence before scaling. Built the full lifecycle: discovery, testing, production, rotation, exit.

  • Supplier discovery, calls, negotiation
  • Technical testing before production
  • Volume-based deal structuring
  • Supplier rotation without downtime
06

CRM & internal product specs

Wrote specs for internal tooling: usage and traffic reports, IP occupancy tracking per client, network and provider accounting in the CRM. Translated operational pain into requirements engineering could ship from.

  • Usage and IP occupancy tracking
  • Network and provider accounting logic
  • Spec writing from operational requirements
  • Internal QoL tooling for ops teams
07

Residential proxy architecture

Researched and designed residential proxy infrastructure from zero. Analyzed BrightData and Oxylabs patents to understand how they built it. Covered SDK supply, traffic routing, load balancer logic, throttling, compliance, and the full pricing model.

  • SDK supply model and DAU pool economics
  • Traffic routing and load balancer design
  • Compliance and consent framework
  • Full pricing model and cost structure
08

Scraper API & Web Unlocker

Researched scraper products from scratch: how JS rendering works, antibot handling, per-domain RPS constraints, compliance limits. Wrote the product spec, tier structure, and pricing before any code was written.

  • JS rendering, antibot, SERP, AI extraction
  • Domain-level RPS and compliance constraints
  • Core vs Advanced tier logic
  • Request-based pricing and margin structure

Expertise

Eight years in one industry.
A lot of ground covered.

I can talk to a network engineer about BGP and to a CFO about unit economics. Not many people in this space do both.

Proxy infrastructure

  • Residential, ISP, DCH architecture
  • Backconnect gateway and entry node logic
  • Sticky sessions and rotation behavior
  • HTTP(S) and SOCKS5 protocols
  • Enterprise use cases and access restrictions
  • Compliance, abuse handling, KYC workflows

IP routing & geolocation

  • LIRs, brokers, IP block acquisition
  • ASN setup, BGP vs static routing
  • ISP vs DCH classification and preservation
  • MaxMind, IP2Location, DB-IP, IPinfo
  • GeoFeed and database correction workflows
  • POP alignment and route propagation

Supplier & procurement

  • SDK-based residential supply and DAU economics
  • Supplier discovery, qualification, lifecycle
  • Technical and commercial due diligence
  • GB-based volume negotiation
  • SLA design and escalation process
  • Supplier diversification and risk management

Product & commercial

  • Scraper API architecture and product spec
  • Throttling: concurrent sessions, RPS isolation
  • Fair Usage Policy design and enforcement
  • Pricing models: per-GB and per-request
  • Competitor analysis: BrightData, Oxylabs, Decodo
  • Spec writing and engineering handoff

How I work

Started in support. Ended up building products. That path matters.

The first years I understood the product from the customer side: what breaks, what confuses people, what they need. That lens stuck, even when the job became infrastructure and procurement.

When I build something I start from the problem, not the solution. For a throttling system or a pricing model, I want to understand the economics and failure modes before writing a spec.

01
Start from what the infrastructure can actually do

Before designing a product or signing a supplier deal, I check whether the infrastructure actually supports it. Routing, classification, GeoIP, cost per GB. Most product problems trace back to assumptions that weren't tested here.

02
Test suppliers against specific product thresholds

A supplier that works for one product tier often doesn't work for another. I test against the actual quality bar, not a generic benchmark, and document gaps before scaling any traffic.

03
Work out unit economics before building

Pricing and cost structure need to be figured out before features. I've seen products that couldn't be priced sustainably because the infrastructure assumptions were wrong from day one.

04
Write specs that don't need a meeting to explain

Coming from support and ops, I know what happens when a requirement is vague. The specs I write cover edge cases and failure modes, not just the happy path.

Looking for

A company with something real to build.

Looking for a proxy, data infrastructure, or IP services company where someone with this background can step in at a senior or leadership level and move things forward.

I've built most of this before. Fewer mistakes, faster ramp-up, less time explaining why something is harder than it looks.

Positions I'm targeting

  • Head of ProductProxy / Data Infrastructure
  • Director of ProductIP / Scraping / Data Products
  • VP of ProductSeries A-B proxy or data company
  • Head of Infrastructure & ProcurementProxy / IP Networks
  • Principal PM or Fractional CPOProxy / Data / Network Infrastructure