About the founder
Vladislav (Vlad) Petoukhov
Software engineer since 1993. Trading systems on Wall Street, a 900-store pharmacy rollout, three businesses run as a founder, and now AI and automation systems for companies that depend on them.
I have written software for a living for more than thirty years, and for the last twenty of them I have also run the businesses the software was for. That combination is the whole point of RealAICollective: I architect every project and lead the developers who build it, and I have sat on the owner's side of the table long enough to know which systems actually move a business and which ones only look good in a demo.
My career started in New York in 1993 writing C++ for financial firms, ending with three years inside SG Cowen's trading infrastructure, on site with the desks. In Toronto I was on the team that deployed the pharmacy and point-of-sale system to more than 900 Shoppers Drug Mart stores. The engineering never stopped after that. For eight years I was managing director of a mineral exploration supply company and wrote its quoting, order-tracking, and telephony systems myself. For ten years I was co-founder and CTO of a real estate business and built its lead routing, follow-up automation, CRM integrations, and the first AI-driven lead qualification, while running sales and operations alongside. Through both of those periods I also kept building independent SaaS products and shipping software for a number of external clients. RealAICollective is where all of that lands: production-grade automation, voice AI, and data systems for operators who need them to work on Monday morning.
Career timeline
- 2025 to present
Founder and lead engineerRealAICollective, Toronto
Software consulting practice building AI phone systems, multi-agent workflows, data pipelines, and full-stack applications for operations-heavy businesses. I scope and architect every project, build it with a small team of developers, and answer for it in production.
- 2022 to 2025
FounderRolePlayTribe, Toronto
SaaS product for real estate agents plus an automation practice for brokerages. The engineering lessons from this product, multi-tenant data, voice, and CRM integration, became the core of RealAICollective.
- 2015 to 2024
Co-founder and CTOPurple Tree Group, Toronto
Co-founded a real estate sales business and served as its CTO while also running sales and operations. Hands-on developer throughout: lead routing, appointment flows, follow-up automation, several full-stack internal apps, CRM integrations, and early AI-driven lead qualification. The first business I scaled with software rather than headcount.
- 2005 to 2014
Managing Director and CTOGlobal Drilling Products (GDP), Toronto
Ran a mineral exploration supply company across multiple offices, owning P&L, sales, and operations, and kept writing code the whole time: quoting and order-tracking web apps, the company sites, and a multi-office VoIP telephony setup, all built and maintained personally.
- 2004 to 2005
Software consultant and project leadElectric Mind, for Shoppers Drug Mart
Follow-on project for the same pharmacy chain after the 900-store rollout: organizing the corporate back-end data on SQL Server and Java.
- 2004
Software consultant and project leadTD, Toronto
Business banking software modules in Java.
- 2003 to 2004
Software consultantElectric Mind, for Shoppers Drug Mart
Design, installation, and deployment of the pharmacy RX and point-of-sale system rolled out to more than 900 Shoppers Drug Mart stores, pair programming inside a 40-person team.
- 2001 to 2003
Programmer-analyst and project leadCompany DNA Inc., Richmond Hill
Loyalty program software solutions for several industries including healthcare, in Java and C++.
- 1998 to 2001
Senior software engineer and applications architectSG Cowen (Societe Generale), New York
On site with the trading desks and traders, writing C++ modules for the Fidessa trading system.
- 1995 to 1998
Senior software engineerDynalog Technologies, Westchester County, New York
Distributed financial software installation application for Wall Street clients, C++.
- 1993 to 1995
Software engineerComputer Technology Inc., New York and Philadelphia
Financial systems in C++. First professional engineering role.