Cloudways: Hello, Alexey! I am very excited to conduct this interview, thank you for taking out the time. Could you please tell our readers a bit about yourself and your career?
Alexey: Hello everyone. The story started almost 10 years ago. At that time, I was working in one of the Ukrainian banks as computer specialist (we installed OS on machines, provided support for users and drank a lot of coffee 🙂 ). One day my friend and colleague told me that he had created his own site. And wow, that was something like magic for me, and it became my love for the years to come. I built my first website on some free hosting and found that it can be pretty funny to breathe life into static content with some PHP.
After my first site, I took my first freelance job and if I remember correctly, I was paid $20 🙂 I thought this isn’t that bad and so I continued. After two years of freelance, I decided that it was enough and that I am good enough at programming to go into some local dev company. Here I met Magento first time.
I remember the moment as if it was just a few days ago. I had already some problematic tasks while freelancing and one guy asked me if I had ever worked with Magento. I answered that I did not, but I am pretty sure that it will not be a problem and I am pretty skilled 🙂 So he asked me to move a form from one page to another. It took me two days to get it done 🙂 And I thought that was the craziest system I had ever seen, and I need to win it. After that, I only took jobs that were related to Magento.
After switching between development outsourcing companies, I received an invitation from Brothers Solutions to join the team as the CTO. Here my dreams came true. I can build a team of my dream and manage it as I see fit. I am really proud of the guys that I work with!
Cloudways: One of the toughest decisions in ecommerce development is choosing a platform. How do you think Magento fits this requirement? What should be the criteria when selecting a platform?
Alexey: I think Magento fits perfectly as a platform for ecommerce. If you want to do some quick and simple solution, you can probably choose something else. But if you’re thinking about growth in the future and you want a scalable and flexible system that is customized and has good community support, then Magento is the best choice.
Cloudways: Both Magento 1 and Magento 2 saw the release of major and minor updates throughout the year. Do you think this hurts the adoption rate of the platform? Are these releases beneficial for the platform’s ecosystem?
Alexey: I think updates is the good sign and shows that the platform is alive and improving. For sure, there were problems with some upgrades for Magento 1 last year, but there are security and other good stuff, so generally, updates are a good thing.
Cloudways: Developers love to create automated workflows that facilitate continuous development and profiling issues. How would you describe your typical workflows for a Magento development?
Alexey: Normally, we only use GIT in our day to day routine. If a project grows and uses a couple of servers, then we use something like Jenkins or Bamboo.
Cloudways: How do you see the growth of Magento in coming years? Also, what is your future prediction for the growing Ukrainian Ecommerce Industry?
Alexey: As you know, Magento 1 is a pretty popular system nowadays. But the biggest problem it had (in my opinion) is performance as the number of products grow together with the number of stores, etc. Magento 2, however, has some pretty good features that are going to fix the problems. Along with many other good features that are offered out of the box. I think, in next couple of years, Magento will become more and more popular as new systems are becoming stronger and more devs become familiar with it.
As for the Ukrainian ecommerce industry, unfortunately, the economic condition of Ukraine is not the best right now. That’s why most of the Ukrainian software companies are “west oriented.” But I’m pretty sure that our local businesses will get more power in the future, and we’ll be ready to contribute to the development of a nice and robust ecommerce industry.
Cloudways: I always ask my interviewees to share some pictures of their workstation. I would appreciate if you could show us how you keep your workplace.
Alexey: Here you are: 🙂
Cloudways: Alexey, free time is rare but necessary! How do you invest your spare time? Do you like sports, traveling, entertainment or hanging out with friends and family? Please tell us something more about your work life balance.
Alexey: My hobby and “illness” (in the good sense of this word) is music. I started to play music when I was 9 years old, and I still do it. I play piano, accordion and a little bit of guitar. Music helped me fall in love with my wife, so yes, music is a big part of my life.
Also, I love traveling. I usually try to visit other countries 1-3 times in a year. I have already visited Greece, Montenegro, Turkey, Thailand and now planning to visit Germany, Poland, and Israel shortly.
Cloudways: Who are the people from the Magento community that genuinely inspired you in your professional career? Who would you like to be interviewed next on Cloudways?
Alexey: Fabio Ros. I met him some time ago, and he opened my eyes to the importance of community and the social aspect of our work. I would like to see his interview.
Cloudways: Here comes my favorite question! Let’s wrap this interview with a round of quick answers. 😀 Note: You should answer whatever comes to your mind first! 😉
1. Cats or Dogs?
Alexey: Cats
2. Android or iOS?
Alexey: Android
3. Movies or Games?
Alexey: Movies
4. Magento 1 or Magento 2? 😛
Alexey: Magento 2
5. Coffee or Beer?
Alexey: Beer 🙂
Cloudways: Cloudways provides 1-Click Magento installation with impressive speed & great cloud infrastructures embedded within the platform. Would you prefer shared hosting for Magento stores or a cloud hosting environment like Cloudways offers?
Alexey: I think cloud solutions are most preferable for Magento.
Abdur Rahman
Abdur Rahman is the Magento whizz at Cloudways. He is growth ambitious, and aims to learn & share information about Ecommerce & Magento Development through practice and experimentation. He loves to travel and explore new ideas whenever he finds time. Get in touch with him at [email protected]
