Data professional.
Strategic thinker.

I build data departments from scratch, and rebuild ones that need to scale. Five years across iGaming, B2B SaaS, and affiliate marketing. Pipelines, dashboards, teams of up to twenty, and the answers that come out the other end.

The Background

My path into data wasn't a straight line. I started as a self-employed marketing specialist running social media campaigns for clients, and got obsessed with the performance numbers behind them. That obsession pushed me into SQL and Python on my own time, which turned into talking my way into a data analyst role at a retail company, which turned into everything that followed.

Five years later I've gone from individual analyst to Head of Data, building teams from zero in iGaming and affiliate marketing. The work spans ClickHouse warehouses, real-time ELT in dbt and Airflow, product analytics through PostHog and Superset, traffic payback models, and running cross-functional teams of up to twenty across engineering, analytics, and BI.

These days I take on whatever a company needs from its data. That means building departments, designing pipelines and BI, running analyses and research, leading teams, or sitting in as a strategic advisor. Whether you're starting your first data function or trying to fix one that's already running, I work the whole stack: technical depth, the leadership side, and the bit most people skip: turning raw numbers into decisions the business will actually act on.

Location
Belgrade, Serbia
Available remotely
Availability
Open to Projects
Focus Areas
iGaming · B2B SaaS · Affiliate
Languages
English · Russian
Nikolay Baakhoff

How I approach the work

Start with the question
I don't open a dataset before I know which decision it has to support. Get the question right and the analysis usually writes itself. Get it wrong, and you've burned a quarter.
Build for trust
A model no one trusts is worthless. I spend serious time on explainability, documentation, and stakeholder buy-in. Adoption is half the ROI.
Iterate fast, document well
The best analytical work ships in weeks, not quarters. I keep feedback loops tight and leave behind systems your team can run after I'm gone.

Career Timeline

Sep 2025 — Apr 2026
Head of Data Department
Confidential B2B iGaming Tech Provider · Lisbon
Led a 10-person data team. Built ClickHouse warehouse, PostHog tracking, Superset dashboards, and real-time B2B CLV analytics.
Jan 2025 — Sep 2025
Head of Data Department
Confidential iGaming Affiliate Company · Netherlands
Built data department from zero. Architected ELT pipeline (Python + dbt + Airflow → ClickHouse) and deployed Holistic for company-wide BI.
Aug 2023 — Jan 2025
Team Lead → Product CAO
01tech · Belgrade, Serbia
Launched Marketing Analytics team from scratch (6 analysts), then coordinated 3 full-cycle analytics teams across Data, BI, and Engineering as CAO.
Oct 2022 — Aug 2023
Data Analyst → Lead Data Analyst
ПРО ДИЗАЙН · Ocean Digital
Self-initiated data role within a retail chain; then Lead Analyst at Ocean Digital building Looker dashboards and data extraction pipelines.
Jan 2020 — Oct 2022
Marketing Specialist (Self-employed)
Entrepreneur · Russia
Ran social media campaigns for multiple clients. Data analysis of campaign performance sparked a self-directed transition into data as a career.

Technical Skills

SQL (ClickHouse, PostgreSQL, MySQL)95%
Python (Pandas, APIs, Automation)90%
BI & Visualisation (Superset, Looker, Tableau)90%
ELT Pipelines (dbt + Airflow)88%
Analytics Strategy & KPI Frameworks92%
Team Building & Leadership85%
Traffic Payback & Attribution Models88%
ClickHouse Python SQL dbt Apache Airflow Apache Superset PostHog Holistic Looker Tableau PostgreSQL REST APIs

Academic Background

Oct 2022 — Apr 2023
Data Analyst from Zero to Middle
Netology (Нетология)
Sep 2014 — Jun 2017
Biotechnical Systems and Technologies
Tomsk Polytechnic University · Unfinished Bachelor's
Want to work together?

Let's turn your data into decisions.