Operations · Product · Engineering

Péter Pál
Bohács

Operations and product leader, Budapest

Also written Peter Pal Bohacs

Budapest engineering centre, grown from 3 people
60+
Edison Award for the substation product
2024
Regrettable attrition as Managing Director
<10%
Shorter commissioning at Organica Water
30%

About

I build and run organisations that make technical software. At Transcend, a venture-backed company that automates the design of water and power infrastructure, I grew the Budapest engineering centre from 3 people to more than 60, ran the European legal entity as Managing Director, and later owned product strategy across the water and power verticals. Before that I led global engineering services at Organica Water, with teams in Hungary, India, China and Indonesia. I started as an automation engineer on dairy and pharmaceutical plants.

I am looking for opportunities to apply my diverse organizational, product, and engineering skills and experience in AI-native or AI-enabled organizations.

What I built

The Budapest engineering centre, 2019 to 2026

I took over a software team of 3 and built it into a centre of more than 60 people: engineers, QA, DevOps, product owners and domain engineers. I introduced code review, automated testing, sprint metrics and a definition of done. I co-led the three-year move from a Python monolith to services on .NET and AWS, which halved the time to integrate a feature.

The European company, 2021 to 2026

As Managing Director of the Hungarian entity I owned the operating budget, the GDPR programme, the cybersecurity policy and the customer security audits. Regrettable attrition stayed under 10%.

A new product line

I led the substation product from concept to market. It opened the grid vertical for the company and won a 2024 Edison Award. I also led the assessment of data centre substations and recommended against it. The reasons were a few very large buyers, little variation between designs, and an investment above what the market would return. The team moved to the core verticals.

Engineering services at Organica Water, 2013 to 2020

I rose from instrumentation engineer to director in under four years and led about 50 people across four countries. My automation work cut proposal turnaround from days to hours. Bringing work across several disciplines into the early project phase shortened commissioning by 30%.

Recommendations

Péter is the person I handed the hard organizational problems to. He is honest to a fault, and people follow him through change.

Ari RaivetzFounder and CEO, Organica Water and Transcend · LinkedIn recommendation

He builds decisions on customer research and product data, not opinion. He also aligns engineers, sales, and executives around one clear roadmap.

Lénárd SzűcsProduct manager at Transcend, reported to Péter · LinkedIn recommendation

Writing and talks

Questions and answers

What roles are you looking for?
Operating roles at technical companies: COO, chief of staff, or head of operations next to a founder who wants to hand off the daily running of the company. I also lead engineering and product organisations where the company is building something complex. I am based in Budapest and work remotely or hybrid.
What kind of company suits you?
Technical companies from the founding team up to about 100 people, in engineering-heavy fields. Early on the founders cover three or four jobs each, and nobody yet owns hiring, planning and delivery. Water, energy and industrial technology are the fields I know best, and I learn new domains quickly when they rest on real engineering.
What do you bring to a founding team besides operations?
Product management discipline and a focus on the people who actually use the product. In B2B the buyer and the user are often different people. A feature the buyer likes still fails if the engineers who use it every day do not adopt it. I test ideas with real users early, with prototypes where I can, and I recommend against a market everyone wants when the numbers do not support it.
What is your AI exposure?
I work AI-native. I build working prototypes with Claude Code, including a task management app for my own use, and I automate my research and document work. I see this as a golden age for product management, and for leadership in general. AI is the force multiplier: it collects feedback and data faster, puts ideas in front of users within days, and leads to better grounded, better informed decisions. A person stays accountable for every outcome.
What did you build at Transcend?
The Budapest engineering centre, the European company around it, and later a product portfolio across the water and power verticals. The team grew from 3 to more than 60 people. I reported to the founder-CEO throughout.
How do you run a team that is growing past 20 people?
At about 20 to 25 people nobody knows what everyone else is doing. That is the point to write down how hiring works, who decides what, and how work moves from idea to release. I did this in Budapest while the team grew from 3 to more than 60.
What is your technical background?
I hold an MSc in Control Engineering from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. I started as an automation engineer on Siemens systems in Riyadh and Hungary, in dairy and pharmaceutical plants, then moved into instrumentation and control design for wastewater projects. My last hands-on engineering role ended in 2015.
Where do you work, and in which languages?
I live in Budapest and do not plan to relocate. Remote and hybrid work suit me, and I travel within Europe. I work in Hungarian, English and German. German is at professional working level.
How do people work with you?
I like systems that run well, and I like making them run better. I am at my best building an organisation from an empty page and hiring people who know more than I do in their own area.

Contact

peter.pal.bohacs@gmail.com