34 years old, married Privacy Policy
In the fall of 2004, fourteen years old me, was out of school because of the flue. Visual C++ 6.0 by Steven Holzner, the book I got from my older friend, was on my desk. I installed Visual Studio 6.0 and started learning about a wonderful world of classes, objects, inheritance, encapsulation, polymorphism, and MFC components. While reading the book, I was creating my first application - classmates database.
When I finished reading, I asked my older sister to order another one: C\C++ - Practical Course. After playing around with C\C++ and writing a few simple console applications, I decided to learn how everything works on the level below. I was lucky enough that my other friend had a book about Assembly language and CPU architecture.
When I was sixteen, I wanted to create something that other people can see and use. Website development was the best choice for me. Learning PHP and MySQL was a piece of cake after deep dive into Assembly language. That year I earned my first money by creating an e-commerce shop for a local electronics store in Kyiv.
The summer before I got into university, I read a book about Java SE and EE and learned a lot about managed code. Then I switched back to C++ and dived into cross-platform application development with Qt framework.
Studying at the university was an easy thing, so I decided to combine theoretical classes with some practical work. For the next two years, I was working in the university's IT laboratory where I took care of the network, leaded few engineers and developed software for internal use. During my third year, I joined a software development company, where I was creating a cloud-based solution using C#, JavaScript, and MSSQL Server. Around that time I started learning more about how to structure your programs, write a clean, readable, and maintainable code. After a few years working with other people on different projects: SOLID, GRASP, DDD, TDD, Agile, Waterfall, and other practices, patterns, and methodologies didn’t sound scary and unfamiliar anymore.
Two years after graduating from university and getting my Master’s Degree in Computer Science, I’ve decided to move to the Netherlands. I joined a Dutch startup where I was involved in the development of all parts of the product. Using Unity 3d to implement client-facing features, helping with the event sourcing and CQRS implementation on the backend, working on Angular frontend application and internal React admin panel, configuring CI\CD pipelines and monitoring tools, and finally, leading the development team. That was one hell of a ride.
At the moment I am working for a Seattle based company with an amazing team in Amsterdam. We are developing software that helps our partners bring and manage customers in the cloud. Here I've extended my knowledge about Azure, distributed computing, microservice architecture, and high load systems.
It's not only about programming. Since I was a kid, I loved technology and was curious about how things work. My first railroad, RC car, radio, all was taken apart. My father taught me how to solder when I was 8 years old and I made a wired phone to talk to my neighbor. With my other friend, we made a radio out of a potato.
When I was fifteen, I have asked my friend to help me install FreeBSD on my old Pentium I, so I can learn about this interesting operating system with a little daemon on the logo. After rebooting my computer for a few times and finally, calling my friend to ask how to exit vi editor, I have ordered "FreeBSD 6 Unleashed" by Brian Tiemann and learned about daemons, ports, x system, and terminals. For a full four years, I had a small home server hanging on the wall (in custom made case), operating 24/7, hosting Apache HTTP server, MySQL database, FTP server and our phpBB forum - 148.in.ua.
Around the same age, I joined FidoNet, a free, worldwide computer network. I still remember my address by heart: 2:463/148.256. There I met a lot of computer enthusiasts and geeks. We shared programs, books, stories, and drunk a lot of beer.
When Arduino was released, I have immediately ordered one for myself, so I can play around with it and make some simple home automation. The next step was ordering the first Raspberry Pi, overclocking it and configuring small media center. Now I have a collection of Raspberry Pi boards.
Sharing my knowledge and experience with community is my way of saying thank you to everyone who did the same thing. I have started my blog in 2009 without a clear goal. I just wanted to give something back to the community. I was experimenting with FreeBSD, Linux, and other open-source project and this encouraged me to start writing.
While studying at the university I participated in a few conferences, published research articles, and sometimes helped teachers with classes.
In 2010 I started dating my future wife, and since then, she is the only editor of all my articles and blog posts.
Working in outsourcing companies brought another task - sharing the knowledge within a team or a company. After learning something new, I was giving internal presentations on different topics (mainly programming or architecture). I am extending the audience by speaking at local meetups and user groups, going to conferences and using social media to share what I write in the blog.
Business for me is not about making money it's about people I work with, challenges I face, and things I deliver to customers. And if you do it all well, you do not have to think about money.
When I became a bit bored with small pet projects, I decided to put my extra time, experience and courage into something valuable for others.