I’m Dmitry Kudryavtsev

I currently live in The Netherlands

I write code from the age of 14, and do it professionally for almost 14 years. In May 2023—I burnt out. Therefore, I quit my job, sold most of my belongings, and what’s left—I packed into a suitcase and a backpack—and bought a one-way ticket to Costa Rica together with my wife and our dog. After travelling for 6 months in Central America (Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Mexico), by the end of 2023, I have relocated to The Netherlands. I realized that the current tech industry is unsustainable, and instead I want to focus on building a sustainable business, as well as help people and companies in the tech industry.

Professional experience

I started my first development job in October 2009, where I’ve been a PHP developer. It took me 5 years to become a Tech Lead, and assume leadership of a crucial project. During that period I was a developer, a team lead of two people (one of them was remote), and a tech lead that was responsible for providing technical feedback to managers, as well as meeting with potential customers. Like any other junior, inexperienced developer—I had a tough journey to land my first development job. Through dedication, and perseverance—I was able to accomplish my dream of becoming a software engineer.

After more than 6 years, when I mainly stayed in one company, I decided to try my luck in a different field, and a different type of company. I switched to a small, hardware startup where I became the third backend engineer. I learned a lot in this company, including building a proper CI/CD pipeline, and working with modern cloud architecture, such as AWS. Unfortunately, after 6 months, the company ran out of money, and had to lay off 90% of their staff—including me. I negotiated some terms with the founders, and they agreed to leave me as consultant for a few days a week, due to my sheer knowledge in the system. For the next 3 months, I helped the company to transition their legacy system to a newer technology stack, as well as optimize for high load.

Being a self-employed, I decided to try my luck with a bigger company, and I landed a contractor job in an American corporate—Autodesk. I stayed there for 4 and a half years, made a career change from PHP to NodeJS, and had one of the best times. I had a chance to work with amazing people, in a very supportive environment. Likewise, I mentored, on-boarded, interviewed junior, and senior developers. I presented one of the best design-reviews to this day. I was a Tech Lead during a beginning of the pandemic in 2020—a challenging period where I had to mentor developers in remote, using Zoom, when remote work was not a thing yet. However, when came the need, I decided to step down from Tech Lead position to lead one of the most important projects at that time. And after completing my part in it, I decided to move on.

In February 2022, I found myself at Forter. Forter is one of the leading fraud detection, and payment optimization platforms out there. I had a chance to work with amazing people, on a green-field product which took Forter from being a fraud detection leader, to becoming a payment optimization leader as well. After one year and four months, I burnt out, and decided to pursue personal goals.

Throughout my 14 years of experience, I never stopped exploring and perfecting myself and my skills. I’ve touched nearly every programming language (except for the functional ones). Worked with every cloud solution.

I had a chance to work with the biggest companies out there: Booking.com, Amadeus, Visa, MasterCard, CapitalOne, Salesforce, T-Mobile, Adyen, and more. People who worked with me, describe me as: pedantic, accountable, talented and professional, having deep technical expertise, able to tackle complex problems. I had the chance, and pleasure, to go over more than two hundred CVs; interview more than 150 candidates; and I hold a very positive score in candidate experience (in terms of personal and professional communication).

I spoke at international conferences (Conf42 - Rustlang, JSNation 2022). I write a professional blog.

If you are interested in the boring, buzz-wordy, corporate-like experience—connect with me on LinkedIn.

Entrepreneurship

After quitting Forter, I decided to travel for indefinite time and pursue my entrepreneurship endeavors. Throughout the years, I’ve built multiple projects in an attempt to establish a successful business. To this day, I continue pursuing entrepreneurship and I share my knowledge in my blog: The Solopreneur Blog.

Personal touch

Programming is a big part of my life. But I believe that life should be more than just one thing. I’m very interested in psychology and philosophy. I started my self development journey after reading the book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini. This book kick-started my interest in psychology, and cognitive biases that we, humans, have. I embarked on a journey to find the best way to live life at its full potential.

I like to observe people (but not in a creepy way). Travelling is a part of my life, and I like to immerse myself in local culture. I enjoy nature, and especially green forests, mountains, and volcanoes. I practice, and preach minimalism and stoicism. Sport is an important part of my life, and I try to train regularly. I enjoy boxing in particular. I believe that life is a constant journey to perfection (which is unreachable), therefore my life philosophy is built upon constant self-improvement and self-development. Nietzsche once said: “Life without music, would be a mistake”, and I totally agree with him. When I have too much free time, I compose electronic music under the stage name of Cyber Ronin 89. I’m married to an amazing wife.

I write, occasionally, yet another blog about all life stuff - Jiko Kaizen.

Contact me

I’m old school, so I always prefer email. If you don’t like email, you can try your luck via LinkedIn, Twitter or Mastodon. Consider following me on all of them, as I share a lot about #solopreneurship, #softwareengineering, #softwaredevelopment, #remotework, #philosophy, #selfimprovement, and #selfdevelopment.