About

Before I got into design, I spent almost eight years in China: I worked in logistics and sourcing, inspected equipment at factories, and even taught English at a kindergarten. Before that, I studied linguistics. None of it looks much like product design, but it left me with one thing that still drives me: I love digging into things I don’t understand yet. I taught myself design, with no formal background in it.

I’ve been working in design for more than six years, the last four of them at Kuper, one of Russia’s largest grocery delivery services, handling 65 million orders a year. I grew there from Product Designer to Product Design Lead: I owned the entire customer-facing product, B2C and B2B, and managed a team of seven designers.

For two years, I was also a mentor at Yandex Practicum: around 200 students went through my groups, and I ran webinars for them. Helping people switch into design, the way I once did myself, taught me how differently everyone learns, and that shaped how I lead.

The best ideas in a product don’t always come top-down. My job as a lead is to build an environment where the team doesn’t wait for tasks, but spots what could be better in the product and in our processes, and comes forward with ideas.

I lead by example. When the home screen wasn’t yet part of my scope, I designed a concept for it with a new ad format. It made it to production and became the second-biggest ad revenue driver in the product.

Each person on the team needs something different. So what matters most to me is understanding what drives them and giving them the missing piece of the puzzle that leads to great results, both for the product and for their own growth.

In my free time, I try not to sit still. I’ve been living in Bali for the past three years, and most weekends my girlfriend and I try to explore somewhere new on the island. I work out regularly, and I’m really into electronic music — learning to produce and DJing occasionally. I also love cooking, and right now I’m getting into Indonesian cuisine.