Work Notes

52 Entries

Professional2025-12-26 · 25 min

Event-Driven Architecture: From Theory to Production

When synchronous calls strangle your system, how to implement events painlessly, Kafka vs RabbitMQ in practice, and why eventual consistency is a conscious choice. Typical production cases with metrics and a breakdown of all EDA pitfalls.

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2025-12-24·22 min

ty from Astral: The Type Checker That Rewrites the Rules

Deep dive into ty — the new type checker from creators of uv and Ruff. Intersection types, intelligent narrowing, 10-100x faster than mypy. Revolution or just hype?

#Python
#Type Checking
#Tools

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2025-12-22·42 min

Code Review: From Formality to Team Growth Engine

Code Review in 80% of teams is theater. 'LGTM' in 30 seconds, a checkbox before merge, wasted time. I've watched for 12 years how reviews kill productivity instead of boosting it. Here's a system that transforms CR from bureaucracy into your team's primary growth tool.

#Code Review
#Software Engineering
#Team Culture

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2025-12-21·55 min

PostgreSQL for Backend Developers: 7 Patterns I Use Every Day

Deep dive into practical PostgreSQL patterns: JSONB, partial indexes, generated columns, row-level security, advisory locks, materialized views, and partitioning. Real production cases, pitfalls, and solutions.

#PostgreSQL
#SQL
#Backend

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2025-12-20·22 min

Docker Compose → Kubernetes: When It's Time to Make the Jump (And Whether You Should)

An honest breakdown of migrating from Docker Compose to Kubernetes: real reasons to switch, Helm charts in practice, local development with kind/minikube, and alternatives like Nomad and Fly.io. No hype, just experience.

#kubernetes
#docker
#devops

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2025-12-20·38 min

1-on-1 Meetings: A Tech Lead's Guide

For the first month, I ran 1-on-1s like status meetings and lost a valuable developer. His exit interview phrase 'There was nothing to talk to you about' changed my approach. Here's my systematized 2-year experience on turning formality into the #1 tool for team growth and retention.

#leadership
#management
#tech lead

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2025-12-20·25 min

WebSocket vs SSE vs Long Polling: Choosing Real-time in 2025

Honest comparison of three real-time communication approaches: WebSocket, Server-Sent Events, and Long Polling. When to use each, production pitfalls, and production-ready FastAPI examples.

#Python
#FastAPI
#WebSocket

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2025-12-17·18 min

The Math Behind Hiring Juniors: When It Pays Off and When You're Burning Money

Last year I refused to hire a junior for a 6-month project. Client was upset: 'Why not? Saving money?' I showed the math: junior breaks even at month 5, project ends at month 6 — negative ROI. Here's the complete financial analysis.

#management
#team building
#hiring

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2025-12-16·20 min

FastAPI vs Django 5: An Honest Choice After 8 Months of Pain

Honest comparison of FastAPI and Django 5 after 8 months of migrations both ways. Real stories, Django async pitfalls, cases of saving $50k/year and returning to Django in a week. No marketing—only practice.

#Python
#FastAPI
#Django

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2025-12-15·14 min

Load Balancers: The Next Step After Mastering Docker

You've learned to package apps in containers, now it's time to learn how to distribute load between them. A practical guide to load balancers without magic or complexity.

#docker
#devops
#production

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2025-12-12·35 min

C4 Model: Practical Software Architecture Design Principles

Deep dive into C4 model — a framework for architecture visualization that actually works. From context to code, with real examples, diagrams, and mistakes I made. How to document architecture so people read and understand it.

#architecture
#design
#documentation

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2025-12-12·30 min

pandas for Backend Developers: Logs, Excel/ERP, ETL, and Reports — Why I Didn't Use It Earlier

Complete guide to using pandas in backend development: log analysis, Excel/ERP integration, ETL pipelines, data validation, and report generation. Practical use cases with code and real-world stories.

#python
#pandas
#backend

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2025-12-05·20 min

Pydantic v1→v2 Migration: Experience Upgrading 28 Models in a Test Project

Honest breakdown of migrating to Pydantic v2: 6 weeks of spare time, 3 production issues, -75% latency, and a bunch of gotchas discovered. No marketing, just practice.

#Python
#Pydantic
#Migration

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2025-12-04·40 min

Apache Cassandra: A System Architect's First Look

An expert Cassandra deep dive for Python/backend engineers: from the masterless architecture to a production-ready cluster with monitoring.

#cassandra
#databases
#architecture

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2025-12-03·35 min

Kafka + FastAPI: Introduction to Event-Driven Architecture

Expert guide to Apache Kafka for Python developers: from concepts to production-ready FastAPI integration. Practical examples, pitfalls, and testing.

#kafka
#python
#fastapi

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2025-12-02·22 min

Business Idea Validation: From Reconnaissance to First Users

Complete guide to testing business hypotheses in practice: how to gather feedback when you have no customers, why interviews lie, and how to properly launch an MVP using a mobile app example.

#startups
#mvp
#validation

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2025-12-1·18 min

How to Implement Husky in a Production Project: From Installation to Production-Ready Hooks

Step-by-step guide to implementing Husky and automating code quality through git hooks. Complete configs for JavaScript/TypeScript and Python projects.

#git
#automation
#code quality

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2025-11-30·25 min

Building a Motivational Quotes API with FastAPI

Step-by-step guide to creating a REST API for motivational quotes using FastAPI, SQLAlchemy, and Pydantic. From basic structure to production-ready solution with validation, migrations, and documentation.

#fastapi
#python
#api

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2025-11-29·15 min

Python Generators and yield: Deep Dive

Complete guide to Python generators: from basic concepts to advanced patterns. Understanding yield mechanics, iterator protocol, coroutines, and practical interview cases.

#Python
#Generators
#Interview

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2025-11-28·25 min

Python 3.14: Three Breakthroughs That Will Change Your Code

Deep dive into deferred annotations (PEP 649), template strings (PEP 750), and JIT compiler for architects and tech leads.

#python
#performance
#architecture

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2025-11-26·14 min

Developer Personal Brand: Stop Looking for Clients and Start Choosing Projects

Proven methodology for building a personal brand: from your first post to a steady flow of inbound requests. No fluff, no abstractions.

#career
#marketing
#personal brand

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2025-11-25·15 min

Weekend Experiment: Selling a Non-Existent Product as a Hypothesis Validation Method

You're selling a promise of a product that doesn't exist. It works, but carries legal, ethical, and methodological risks. Analysis of the method for those who will try it anyway.

#startups
#hypotheses
#product

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2025-11-24·7 min

Launched a Free Pytest Course for Juniors — and AI Said It's the Best in the World

Packed 20 years of experience into a practical testing course. 11 lessons without fluff, real bugs, ready-to-use templates, and measurable results — all free.

#education
#pytest
#testing

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2025-11-23·15 min

The Onboarding Mistake That's Costing You 42% of Your Team

Yesterday at an HR conference, I heard again: 'Young people don't want to work, everyone leaves after a month'. Here's a 2013 case study of how we reduced early attrition from 42% to 14%. Spoiler: it's not about 'young people', it's about the system.

#HR
#team building
#onboarding

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2025-11-22·8 min

Free Work Is Territory Grab. Here's the Strategy

Spent two days preparing educational materials and realized: nobody will pay for this. So I'm paying with my time. If you're paying — calculate ROI. There's none in a quarter horizon, but this is how you capture territory.

#business
#personal effectiveness
#marketing

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2025-11-21·12 min

Load Testing: Financial Audit of Your Architecture

Methodology and algorithm: how to calculate costs under load, choose tools, and turn results into decisions.

#testing
#devops
#performance

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2025-11-19·7 min

Launching an Education Center and Closed Developer Club

Building the core team for a new educational project — a closed club for developers and tech leads. First month is free. Inviting those ready to grow together.

#education
#community
#mentoring

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2025-11-18·12 min

Wagtail CMS: A Beautiful Product from 2012 That No Longer Has a Place

I mastered Wagtail CMS — great architecture, convenient admin, Django under the hood. The problem is different: corporate websites are dead. The lower segment went to Tilda, the upper — to specialized tools. And developers are left with questions: what to offer clients now?

#development
#business
#honesty

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2025-11-17·12 min

RSS in 2025: How Telegram Displaced a 'Dead' Technology and Why It Matters for Business

RSS seemed like a dying technology, but the emergence of RSS-to-Telegram bridges opened new opportunities for business. We analyze how to use the RSS + Telegram combo for content marketing, analytics, and automation.

#analytics
#automation
#content

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2025-11-16·10 min

If You Have an Answer to 'Why', You'll Handle Any 'How'

When you know why you're alive, the technical part gets solved. That's why I ditched long-term job interviews and went to make money as an entrepreneur. My goal is a new level of vitality and impact on the world.

#life
#entrepreneurship
#honesty

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2025-11-15·10 min

MDX as headless CMS Alternative: When Code Beats Admin Panel

When MDX files in your repo work better than Contentful or Strapi. Exploring type-safe content, custom components, and content layer architecture — without unnecessary abstractions and monthly bills.

#architecture
#frontend
#content

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2025-11-14·12 min

Life Tetris on Nightmare: Work, Startups, People, and Job Hunting

Interview in a few hours. They'll ask about binary trees I've never used. But in my head — a different optimization problem: how to fit work, Godot startups, health, and people into 24 hours. The math doesn't add up.

#life
#work
#honesty

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2025-11-13·30 min

Next.js Deployment with GitLab CI/CD: From Server Setup to Automation

Complete guide to setting up automated Next.js deployment to your own server via GitLab CI/CD. PM2 for zero-downtime, Nginx Proxy Manager for domain management, secrets management, and multi-environment setup.

#Next.js
#DevOps
#CI/CD

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2025-11-12·9 min

Three Days in Solitary: The Price of a San Francisco Life Hack

How the advice 'why drink when you can smoke' turned into a detention cell, two years with a narcologist, and the understanding that problems need to be solved, not suppressed. No morals—just facts and consequences.

#life
#honesty
#mistakes

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2025-11-11·7 min

A Letter from Jack London: About Positivity When Your Wallet Is Empty

An imaginary conversation with my psychological archetype about how strength of spirit and positivity are not innate qualities but muscles that need training. Even when nerves are frayed and the wallet is empty.

#life
#psychology
#motivation

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2025-11-10·7 min

Conflict of Interest: When Two Clients Mean Double the Headache

A story from 2015 when two certification companies—Russian Register and ProffExpert—approached me simultaneously. A lesson about why working with clients who pinch pennies is a bad idea.

#business
#mistakes
#freelance

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2025-11-09·10 min

Code Therapy: How I Built Two Startups for 0 Users

An honest story about developer self-deception: 32,600 lines of code, 196 tests, 11 completed MVP stages, CI/CD, monitoring — and zero real users. Turns out, I was writing code not for business, but for self-validation.

#startups
#mvp
#self-development

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2025-11-08·8 min

Summer in Crimea: Remote Work, Museums, and GitHub Sanctions

Three months of remote work in Crimea: how I balanced projects with exploration, what I managed to see — from the submarine museum to paragliding, and why GitHub became an unexpected problem.

#life
#crimea
#travel

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2025-11-07·8 min

Translating My Personal Site to English: Navigation and Cultural Fit

How a simple translation turned into rethinking navigation. Why “I Make Projects The Right Way” doesn’t work in English, and how I arrived at “Me → Craft → Work → Way → Right.”

#i18n
#ux
#product

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2025-11-06·5 min

Architecture as a Hypothesis

Reflections on the nature of software architecture, the cemetery of projects, and the cost of transitions. Written in 2017 — still relevant.

#architecture
#philosophy
#reflection

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2025-11-05·15 min

I Don’t Remember Half of What I Built: The Weird Reality of Filling a Portfolio

What happens when you try to assemble a portfolio after 20 years? Whole projects, periods, achievements vanish from memory. 20+ cases in 2 days — and half felt new to me. Honest notes on amnesia, mental health, and accepting my path.

#life
#psychology
#career

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2025-11-04·11 min

Changing Everything: From Corporate Developer to My Own Games and Products

An honest post about leaving a stable career for a childhood dream. Why after 20 years in web dev I’m moving to Godot and mobile games, past attempts, and why now is the time.

#life
#entrepreneurship
#gamedev

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2025-11-03·11 min

Proxmox: How I Turned a $300 Server into a Pocket Data Center

Own data center cheaper than cloud: with Proxmox VE and an old server I run 15+ VMs for development, save ~$500/month, and have full control over the stack.

#proxmox
#homelab
#devops

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2025-11-02·9 min

PassWave: Password Generator with Supabase Vault — from idea to PWA in 2 weeks

Building a safe password generator and lightweight vault with client‑side encryption, offline mode, and Supabase sync. Architecture choices, PWA, i18n, and Telegram integration notes. UPD: the service was hacked via an axios vulnerability and I shut it down.

#supabase
#pwa
#security

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2025-11-01·11 min

Self‑host Supabase: How I Moved Production to My Server (and Liked It)

Real‑world experience migrating production Supabase to my own server: why I did it, what went wrong, what I saved, and a pragmatic checklist.

#supabase
#postgres
#devops

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2025-10-23·22 min

Monolith → Microservices: How Not to Kill Your Team in the Process

When it's really time to split, Strangler Fig in practice, distributed tracing from day one, and what to do with shared code. Real-world migration case with metrics and honest talk about pitfalls.

#architecture
#microservices
#monolith

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2025-10-18·15 min

How to Become a Communication God: A Developer's Practical Guide

Practical techniques for developing soft skills for developers. From uncertain junior to confident communicator: proven strategies that actually work.

#career
#soft skills
#communication

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2025-10-17·22 min

Blameless Postmortems: How to Turn Incidents into Team Growth

Production crashed Friday night. Team fixed it by 3 AM. Monday meeting: CTO yells 'Who screwed up?!' Developers stay silent. Incident will repeat. I've seen this 40 times. Postmortem isn't an interrogation. It's a system that turns mistakes into growth. Breaking down blame-free culture, report structure, and what to do with results.

#DevOps
#SRE
#Incident Management

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2025-10-16·25 min

Envoy Gateway: How I Stopped Worrying About Annotations and Learned to Love Gateway API

The story of how 47 lines of Nginx Ingress YAML magic turned into 15 lines of clear configuration. Envoy Gateway isn't just a new tool—it's freedom from pain.

#kubernetes
#envoy
#api-gateway

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2025-10-15·18 min

Technical Debt: How to Measure and When to Pay

Technical debt isn't 'bad code.' It's a financial instrument of development. We break down metrics to measure debt, a framework for making refactoring decisions, and real cases where NOT refactoring was the right choice.

#Software Engineering
#Architecture
#Technical Debt

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2025-10-14·18 min

Monitoring Stack 2025: Prometheus + Grafana + Loki on a Budget

How to set up production-grade monitoring in one evening without a DevOps team. Metrics, logs, alerts, and dashboards for projects on a single server or small cluster.

#monitoring
#DevOps
#observability

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2025-10-13·8 min

Feature-Sliced Design: How FSD Saves Growing Projects from Chaos

My top favorite in frontend architecture. Explaining how FSD layers — from shared to pages — transform a mess into a structured system that scales painlessly. Speaking from experience after implementing it in a dozen projects.

#architecture
#frontend

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