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August 8, 2023
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19:00
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Online
From Founding Engineer to Director: A Journey with a Unicorn Company
2025
Ukraine
🎯 What does it mean not just to be the first engineer at a startup — but to grow into a director role at a company valued at over $1 billion?
This meetup was an open conversation about real-life experiences at People.ai:
- How it all started: the first lines of code written the day before a vacation, and sleepless nights in a three-story house in San Francisco
- Why a startup isn’t a role but a mindset: rapid changes, tech debt, no QA, and total autonomy
- How processes evolved: from chaos to CI/CD, certifications, and stable development
- How the team scaled: new structure, emergence of managers, tech leads, and company culture
💡 We also talked about how to recognize a company with unicorn potential, how to find strong leaders, spot large markets — and not lose yourself along the way.
Meetup speakers
Director of Engineering @ People.ai
In 2016, Vova joined People.ai as the first engineer and helped build the business from its first steps to a billion-dollar company. People.ai helps customers win more revenue by making decisions based on data and AI insights.
Director of Engineering @ Turnitin
The moderator is Yana Mykhailenko, CTO of Turnitin, an international company that ensures the integrity of education and is a leader in anti-plagiarism solutions. She is a judge and mentor at international competitions and hackathons.
Upcoming events
Business Security Strategies
In the first summer evenings, the 19th meetup of the series will take place, where technical leaders will discuss cybersecurity in business and product development.
CEO and Founder @AmonSul
Coordinator of the Cyber Security Program at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy
AI Implementation
Over the May holidays, tech leaders will meet to talk about how they are implementing AI in development and business processes.
Founder @ Stealth AI Startup, @ XSight
Director of Engineering @ Turnitin
Conference | How to Become Great CTO
In the last days of July, DEV Challenge, in collaboration with UNIT.City, will bring together Ukraine’s tech leaders, entrepreneurs, company and startup founders, CTOs and managers to discuss the most pressing and essential topics in technology, business, and leadership.
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