Alex Krupnov

My last, ninth talk this year is coming up. This time, I have the pleasure of presenting at the Kielce JUG meetup with my talk, "Exploring the Relevance of Unix Philosophy in Modern Architectural Solutions." See you there! #SoftwareArchitecture #UnixPhilosophy #JUG

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Quick engineering salary comparison based on the #DEVBG stats from 2023 and 2024 in the Bulgarian IT industry. Dev.bg publish yearly a summary of the Bulgarian IT engineering salaries based on the job openings offers on their platform. https://lnkd.in/dNU5MD8D (2023 stats) https://lnkd.in/dX_dxvP7 (2024 stats) Based on the population data (let's assume it's a proper representation of the real world) we can determine the following: 1. PHP should be dead but it isn't (unfortunately) as it's one of the two categories with growing salaries in all job positions and ranges. 2. The second is the full stack development with a minimum drop of 65 levas in the first MID range(2-5 years) 3. All ranges except the Senior level(5+ years of experience) have a drop in salary compared to 2023 but for some seem negligible compared to the notion in the industry that "it's going down and AI will take over the world" :) 4. We can see that seniority still counts and there is now a shift towards growth of salaries of more senior people compared to others as the market tries to regulate. 5. There is still a lot of green for a "dying" and "shrinking" industry. P.S To anyone interested I can share the excel if needed but it's quite straightforward to generate it. *Legend: Diff min Mid - difference in the minimum ranges for a category between 2023 and 2024 Diff max Mid - difference in the maximum ranges for a category between 2023 and 2024 Diff min Sen - difference in the minimum ranges for a category between 2023 and 2024 Diff max Sen - difference in the maximum ranges for a category between 2023 and 2024 Diff min Sen Median - difference in the minimum ranges based on the provided median from dev.bg for a category between 2023 and 2024 Diff max Sen Median - difference in the maximum ranges based on the provided median from dev.bg for a category between 2023 and 2024

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There’s a reason why only two of the top hundred software companies are in the European Union. Ambition is much more natural in the States than in the EU. Where I grew up in Hungary, ambition is not something you're proud of. You're being taught that you should stay a simple man. You should work 9 to 5. And that's generally accepted. This is the ideal life. Stay the simple man. Success & money is associated with shady dealings. After visiting the US, it’s hard to remain in the mindset of staying small when you see so many people rushing to fulfill their potential and achieve success. As social creatures, we tend to converge towards the behaviors of people who we spend the most time with. You know … “you are the average of the five people you hang out with the most” … So if you surround yourself with people who are ambitious and always thinking about solving a big problem, you will find yourself solving big problems as well. It’s inevitable.

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#NewArchitecture Explained We turned to our New Arch experts, Jakub and Wojciech, to uncover the essence of Turbo Modules! 🚀 Watch the short clip below to find out more and stay tuned ⬇ #ReactNative #reactnativeappdevelopment #TurboModules

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Another meeting and another book 😊 ... this time together with Marek Strachacki, Rafal Krzysztoforski, Pawel Sklarow, Konrad Leniec and Marek Spichalski we talked about "50 sentences that will make your life easier" by Karin Kaschik. At first, the concept of the book seemed very interesting. However, as I read, I changed my mind. These sentences, although they seem insightful at first, are of course not magic spells. They are a certain set of tools that can be useful if used properly by someone with high self-awareness, but they can also be harmful if use automaticly. We need to work on setting boundaries and self-confidence in a different way than just learning formulas. While some of these sentences could still be defended, the descriptions proposed by the author are completely indigestible. As for me, I do not recommend the book however the book wasn't totaly unuseful as we had great and deep discussion and I found two sentences which rezonated with me - let's agree to disagree - I do my best, but it only makes sense if you do it too. I believe that my colleagues also found something for themselves. #book #management #leadership #disagreement #bookclub

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🐎 In Bulgaria, we say, “Да не слагаме каруцата пред коня”—don’t put the cart before the horse. We get it. Planning can be hard when you’re eager to build something great. But even the best architecture can crack if business logic gets ahead of proper alignment. At No Limit we have a golden rule: Horses first, carts second. That’s how we avoid turning architecture into a rodeo! 🐎 It’s like building an app to track my goldfish’s blinks—a fun idea, but wouldn’t it help to know if anyone actually needs it first? P.S. Photo Credit: Monkey User⁣ #FridayFun #TechHumor #SoftwareArchitecture #BusinessLogic #BuildSmarter #Collaboration #TechLeadership #ProjectPlanning #Innovation #LetsBuildTogether

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📢 Quality is a feature. Whether web views or native elements, the goal is clear: deliver quality at every step - no excuses. Veronika Takmazyan shares a real-world example below.

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And today “Wieczne Opoznienie” by Marcin Dąbrowski , that describes approach to IT Projects and that I have an issue with it. Issue, as I cannot say it’s bad, absolutely not. This book, despite few flaws, is generally interesting and one enjoys reading it. However I am struggling to say who should be an audience of it. For senior Software Dev/Manager the IT aspect is quite obvious and shallow when book speaks about how to deliver software, use methodologies or agile principles and sometimes it can even refer to old practices (e.g. when to start UATs). For a experienced Project Manager, leading project is also described very briefly and most things are not revealing as well. And the topics are touched broadly, so maybe it’s a good introductory one for the juniors? I wouldn’t say that, as it touches deeply the nuances of financing, cash-flows, as well of negotiating, meeting with high level management and corporate games. I’d say maybe someone like key account manager from typical supplying company is a good audience? And appropriate counterparty from the client side? Or maybe very high level management, that managed to forget how the daily execution of the projects look like? It’s hard one. However, I enjoyed it, despite that several topics were repeated several times (e.g. conduct official project documentation in an objective/non-personal way or bad project financing will make good people flow out of this project) and I missed more depth in some others. Good things were e.g. details of financing of each solution for sake of client and deliverer, e g.: early payments vs late payments or SaaS/On-Premise Vs CAPEX/OPEX and how to structure cash flows. I appreciated also author depicting corporate games, when to be an idiot and when a liar, how important is to have access (e.g. via own team in client’s hq) to client’s management’s ear. It resembles me Mr Wolf from Pulp Fiction, that comes and in a very simple moves clean things up, that initially seems super complex. Hmm, and I ended up with a long post. So the book has to ignite the emotions :) that’s good. If I were you, I’d give a chance to it! And you, what are your best PM books? Perfectly in IT/Engineering world? https://lnkd.in/ghtRzkV8

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Build things that don't scale! Wait, why would anyone want that? I've been invited to a [CZ/SK] podcast with Tomáš Papež and Matúš Kocka where we explored the idea of leaders overestimating the need for scalability when product market fit has not yet been reached. As technical leaders, it's far easier to make systems scalable for thousands of customers than ever to talk to the first one. Because technology is our passion, we invest 10X with little impact. What would propel us forward would be investing 10X in our communication with potential customers. https://lnkd.in/ehHPmyfM

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I think we can call it our DevConf.CZ tradition that we always come up with some fun idea for a session with Tomáš Tomeček. 😊 This year, we run a meetup for open source project maintainers and as it was not recorded, we decided to share some best practices we heard during the meetup in this blog post. Any more tips for maintainers out here? Let us know! 💡

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Another expert in the DevOpsDays Warsaw team is Andrzej Grzesik. ags loves distributed systems in all shapes and forms. He has written software in many languages and continuously finds JVM his favourite platform. He believes „most software problems are people problems”, so he stirs communities (Polish JUG), organizes and speaks at conferences (proud to be a JavaOne Rockstar!). Call For Papers: 👉 https://lnkd.in/dAiXrquA #DevOpsDays #Warsaw #DODWarsaw #DevOps #DevOpsConference #Community #Organizers #CallForPapers

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Four years ago, I placed a top C#/.NET Engineer in Krakow - and lost my client in the process. At first, everything seemed ideal. The developer was perfect technically, Immediately Available And joined within 10 days of submission. The client was thrilled, and it felt like a win for everyone involved. But then their first day arrived, and everything began to unravel. The candidate clashed with the team's approach, Criticising the code quality, the tech stack, And even the team itself - demanding they were replaced. Within two months, the client dismissed the candidate and ended our partnership. This left the client frustrated and me reflecting on where it all went wrong. Looking back, I realised there were two clear red flags during the qualification process that I had chosen to ignore... The candidate admitted to getting frustrated when others disagreed with their views. They also mentioned frequent clashes with managers in previous roles. This wasn't qualified further at the time. These warnings were overlooked because the rest of their profile seemed perfect. That mistake cost the client valuable time and resources, and I lost their trust. Since then, I have made it a rule. Even if there is a one percent chance that something feels off it needs to be addressed. This principle has helped me build stronger partnerships and avoid mismatches entirely. Since then, I have contributed to €millions in billings and earned the trust of many clients. As agencies, we're paid well for our expertise and judgment it is our responsibility to get it right. The takeaway? Always qualify. Never overlook red flags. Have you ever overlooked a red flag during hiring? What did you learn from the experience? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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Take a chance and participate in one of my favorite workshops! Be careful: It is the one which received "workshop was too practical" feedback ;)

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Probably I am not the only one that tries to find some spot here and there to do a bit of reading (specially if you have 80 tabs open with "Save for later" articles 😅 ). In the IT field, being able to "catch up quickly", "learn quickly" and "solve quickly" is seen as a must to stay in the sector for the long run. To be honest, it is overwhelming. The constant focus on "quickly" can make us forget that real learning and problem-solving takes time and effort. This has deeply bother me for quite sometime and even make me feel unproductive, blocked to finish writing / creating things I had in mind for a while because I am already late for it. But when I take a step back and look at everything I've actually done, I realise I have been doing way more than I give myself credit for (specially given the amounts of hours a day has). It's just hard to see that when you are struggling in the grind. And honestly? It’s exhausting and confusing 🫠 It was a good timing then that Today I ended up with this article from the Hacker Newsletter: https://lnkd.in/dBKG7v7K and something resonated there: "I want to know everything, immediately, quickly. Since this is not humanly possible, I end up doing nothing." "You find yourself in a quest for productivity, feeling productive because of the quest, but not really doing any productive work." "Difficulty concentrating, lack of focus, inability to understand what I read, stress, anxiety. I see these kinds of complaints from many people lately, and in my opinion, our biggest common ground is digital content consumption." And avoiding, like the author, to go against that article, I also do not have an advice, but just leaving the article there for your own reflection on this. Slowing down, taking a break, and letting yourself process what you already know can be more valuable than rushing to consume the next thing. 🌱 Give it a read if this resonates with you. Ask yourself what would slowing down look like for you? I'm trying to figure out for myself right now

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Still on the fence about project management tools? Consider Redmine! Redmine is a free, open-source project management software that offers a powerful feature set for teams of all sizes. Here's why you should give it a try: Cost-Effective: Free and open-source, Redmine saves you money on licensing fees compared to pricier options. Flexible & Customizable: Redmine adapts to your workflow, not the other way around. Customize workflows, add plugins, and tailor it to your specific needs. Agile-Friendly: Whether you use Scrum, Kanban, or a hybrid approach, Redmine's visual tools and issue tracking keep your agile projects on track. Open & Collaborative: The open-source community fosters collaboration and ongoing development. Lightweight & Easy to Use: Redmine's interface is user-friendly and doesn't require extensive training for your team to get started. Is Redmine the right fit for you? Let's discuss in the comments!💬 #Redmine #ProjectManagement #OpenSource #Agile #redmineflux Redmineflux

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🚀 Great news for the Redmine community: Redmine 6 is out! The latest version of Redmine introduces technical updates and improvements. 🔍 But keeping up with updates can be overwhelming. Why not simplify with Easy Redmine? Whether on cloud or on-premises, we’ve got solutions to streamline your upgrades. 👉 Read the blog: https://kntn.ly/4227be97 #Redmine #EasyRedmine #ProjectManagement #SoftwareUpdate

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In the last couple of weeks, I have had many conversations with Krzysztof Przekwas and Artemi Krauczanka about the critical values of Software craftsmanship. For me: - Code should be simple and readable for all seniors and newbies in the project. - When unnecessary, try to avoid complicated patterns; maybe Kafka or MediatR is an overkill for your project. - You may have a tiny domain, or you built a simple integration to connect two systems, so it is stateless, mainly integration via REST API on the left and right site. - Remember there is a development phase and maintenance - is your code ready to be maintained? Thank you, Isaac Abraham, for the slide on the presentation (and also for the presentation about Functional Programming on .NET - The Best of Both Worlds https://lnkd.in/eiwzFUZe) PS> As a side note, I'm also in the phase of my career to merge services to optimize cost or remove a lot of unused code from the projects, and you?

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