The Road to CTO: Catch the Window of Opportunity

Sergey Rogachev grew up in Omsk, became interested in mathematics and programming, and chose a technical university. The Central Bank was his first major school: over nine years he built business systems and industrial-robot integrations, translated regulation into working software, and learned end-to-end ownership.

Sergey joined SberTech as Sberbank Online was brought in-house from a vendor. The team grew from about ten people to three hundred engineers, and his role expanded from development into architecture and management. Rapid growth creates opportunity, but a title should not outrun engineering and leadership maturity.

After Sber, Sergey tested himself in a blockchain startup: instead of procedures he found a tiny team, direct accountability, and late releases. He then owned Raiffeisenbank's retail digital platform, addressing technical debt under tight constraints, and later worked between product and technology lines at Tinkoff.

Today Sergey leads technology for small and medium-sized business at Gazprombank. His work combines strategy, culture, planning, executive alignment, and growing people. To keep work from consuming every hour, he sets evening boundaries, protects weekends, and treats emergencies as exceptions.