index.html

---
title: Resume of Maxim Chernyak
layout: default
---

<div class="vcard">

  <h1 id="title" class="fn">Maxim Chernyak</h1>
  <span class="fn nickname" style="display: none;">hakunin</span>

  <span class="adr" style="display: none;">
    <span class="street-address">2955 Shell Road, Apt 12F</span>
    <span class="locality">Brooklyn</span>, <span class="region">New York</span> <span class="postal-code">11224</span>
  </span>

  <ul id="quick-links">
    <li>
      <span class="label">updated</span>
      <span>{{site.time | date_to_string }}</span>
    </li>
    <li>
      <span class="label">github</span>
      <a href="http://github.com/maxim" class="url">github.com/maxim</a>
    </li>
    <li>
      <span class="label">blog</span>
      <a href="http://hakunin.com" class="url">hakunin.com</a>
    </li>
    <li>
      <span class="label">twitter</span>
      <a href="http://twitter.com/hakunin" class="url">twitter.com/hakunin</a>
    </li>
    <li>
      <span class="label">stackoverflow</span>
      <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/users/155351/hakunin" class="url">stackoverflow.com/users/155351/hakunin</a>
    </li>
    <li>
      <span class="label">linkedin</span>
      <a href="http://linkedin.com/in/mchernyak" class="url">linkedin.com/in/mchernyak</a>
    </li>
    <li>
      <span class="label">e-mail</span>
      <a href="mailto:max@bitsonnet.com" class="email">max@bitsonnet.com</a>
    </li>
    <li>
      <span class="label">phone</span>
      <span class="tel">
        <span class="type" style="display:none;">Home</span>
        +1.347.729.2045
      </span>
    </li>
  </ul>
</div>

<h2>In Short</h2>

<p class="intro">
  I come with over <em>10 years of web engineering</em> experience, during which I've been pushing the limits of my knowledge and developing the <em>eye and taste for doing the right thing</em>. I've built a business from the ground up as a <em>founder and CTO at <a href="http://printio.ru">Printio.ru</a></em>, <em>contributed to and started <a href="http://github.com/maxim">numerous open source projects</a></em>, built and maintained various Ruby on Rails apps, <a href="http://hakunin.com/cms-trap"> architected</a> applications of various sizes and ages, <em>built infrastructures</em> in Chef and subsequently Ansible as a <em>devops engineer</em>, discovered efficient ways of dealing with technical and organization pains of growing startups, and ensuring their <em>smooth progress under budget constraints</em>.
</p>

<h2 class="tags-header">Expertise</h2>

<ul id="expertise" class="tags">
  <li class="skill prefer strong">Ruby</li>
  <li class="skill prefer strong">Rails</li>
  <li class="skill prefer strong">Architecture</li>
  <li class="skill prefer strong">git</li>
  <li class="skill prefer strong">Ansible</li>
  <li class="skill prefer strong">DevOps</li>
  <li class="skill prefer strong">PostgreSQL</li>
  <li class="skill prefer strong">Redis</li>
  <li class="skill prefer strong">Teaching</li>
  <li class="skill prefer">ElasticSearch</li>

  <li class="skill prefer">Docker</li>

  <li class="skill strong">Chef</li>
  <li class="skill strong">Pairing</li>
  <li class="skill strong">Writing</li>
  <li class="skill strong">MySQL</li>
  <li class="skill strong"><a href="http://github.com/maxim/skeptick">ImageMagick</a></li>

  <li class="skill"><abbr title="HyperText Markup Language">HTML</abbr></li>
  <li class="skill"><abbr title="Cascading Style Sheets">CSS</abbr></li>
  <li class="skill">jQuery</li>
  <li class="skill">Sass</li>

  <li class="skill weak">Javascript</li>

  <li class="skill dislike weak"><abbr title="Microsoft SQL Server">MSSQL</abbr></li>
  <li class="skill dislike weak">Oracle</li>
</ul>

<div class="column-wrapper">
  <div class="column">
    <h2>Philosophy</h2>
    <p>
      I've been strongly <em>inspired by</em> the people behind some of my favorite books, like <em>Robert Martin</em> of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Clean-Code-Handbook-Software-Craftsmanship/dp/0132350882">Clean Code</a>, <em>Sandi Metz</em> of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Object-Oriented-Design-Ruby-Addison-Wesley/dp/0321721330">POODR</a>, and quite a few others. These books help us <em>build flexible, decoupled software</em>, yet there is a serious problem. Despite proper OOP, many well-meaning teams still end up facing <em>friction stemming from premature architecture</em>. This is something that I found hardly ever addressed in our community, and I am trying to ignite the convesation with this <em><a href="http://hakunin.com/cms-trap">blog post titled "CMS trap"</a></em>.
    </p>
  </div>

  <div class="column">
    <h2>Background</h2>
    <p>
      Before encountering the bliss of Ruby I have been programming in PHP, Python, .NET, C#, VB.net, C++, and even QBasic. Some of these endeavors go way back. My <em>first program was a QBasic tool</em> to help me solve math problems in school back in Russia. I was 9. My first C++ program was a phone number pronounciation utility, which combined snippets of my recorded voice to produce spoken compound numbers. I was 10. I'm a casual gym goer, hiker, and a PC gamer.
    </p>
  </div>

  <div class="column vevent education">
    <h2>Education</h2>
    <p>For more than <abbr class="duration">2 years</abbr> I <em>studied at <a href="http://poly.edu" class="url summary">Polytechnic University</a></em> (Brooklyn) pursuing a degree in Computer Science. I abandoned this pursuit a bit past half-way in. However, the courses in Algorithms, Data Structures, Discrete Math, and other <em>fundamental computing-related subjects have taught me a lot</em>.
    </p>
  </div>
</div>

<div class="jobs-list-section">
  <h2 class="jobs-list-title vevent">
    Founder, CTO at Printio.ru
    <span class="dtrange">
      <span class="dtstart" title="2008-06-25">June 2008</span>
      -
      <span class="dtend" title="{{site.time | date: "%Y-%m-%d"}}">Present</span>
    </span>
  </h2>

  <p id="printio-experience-intro">
    <a href="http://printio.ru">Printio.ru</a> (registered in Russia) is an interactive online store for self-designed garments and stationery.
  </p>

  <ul class="jobs-list vcalendar">
    <li class="vevent experience">
      <h3>
        <span class="summary">Rails and DevOps engineer</span>
        at
        <span class="location"><a href="http://printio.ru">Printio.ru</a></span>
        <span class="dtrange">
          <span class="dtsart" title="2008-06-25">June 2008</span>
          -
          <span class="dtend" title="{{site.time | date: "%Y-%m-%d"}}">Present</span>
        </span>
      </h3>
      <p class="job-description">
        Develop an e-commerce Rails app from the ground up.<br>
        Manage and teach junior developers.<br>
        Build various tools for rendering realistic product previews, such as <a href="https://github.com/maxim/skeptick">Skeptick</a> — an improved ImageMagick client for ruby.<br>
        Build integration with various APIs, such as <a href="https://github.com/maxim/checkout_ru">Checkout.ru</a>.<br>
        Build and maintain 20-server infrastructure using Chef and Ansible.<br>
        Setup and tune backend services: PostgreSQL, ElasticSearch, Redis, Node.js, Memcached, Sidekiq, various services and load balancers.
      </p>
    </li>
  </ul>

  <h2 class="jobs-list-title vevent">
    Consultant at Bitsonnet
    <span class="dtrange">
      <span class="dtstart" title="2005-07-01">July 2005</span>
      -
      <span class="dtend" title="{{site.time | date: "%Y-%m-%d"}}">Present</span>
    </span>
  </h2>

  <p id="bitsonnet-experience-intro">
    Bitsonnet is a web development consulting company I founded with a
    <a href="http://perfectionkills.com" rel="friend colleague met">colleague</a> of mine (a front-end developer), where we built diverse client projects.
  </p>

  <ul class="jobs-list vcalendar">

    <li class="vevent experience">
      <h3>
        <span class="summary">Rails Developer</span>
        at
        <span class="location"><a href="http://madmimi.com">MadMimi</a></span>
        <span class="dtrange">
          <span class="dtstart" title="2011-06-01">June 2011</span>
          -
          <span class="dtend" title="2012-05-01">Present</span>
        </span>
      </h3>
      <p class="job-description">
        Developed various client-facing features, with a particular focus on working with timezones.
      </p>
    </li>

    <li class="vevent experience">
      <h3>
        <span class="summary">Rails Developer</span>
        at
        <span class="location"><a href="http://turing.com">Turing</a></span>
        <span class="dtrange">
          <span class="dtstart" title="2010-10-12">October 2010</span>
          -
          <span class="dtend" title="2011-07-09">June 2011</span>
        </span>
      </h3>
      <p class="job-description">
        Worked on refactoring and optimizing a large legacy Rails application.
      </p>
    </li>

    <li class="vevent experience">
      <h3>
        <span class="summary">Rails Developer</span>
        at
        unpublik.com (shut down)
        <span class="dtrange">
          <span class="dtsart" title="2010-03-01">April 2010</span>
          -
          <span class="dtend" title="2011-05-29">May 2011</span>
        </span>
      </h3>
      <p class="job-description">
        Developed the back-end for a private file sharing system with media playback capabilities.
      </p>
    </li>

    <li class="vevent experience">
      <h3>
        <span class="summary">PHP/Python Developer</span>
        at
        <span class="location">ARTstor, Inc</span>
        <span class="dtrange">
          <span class="dtsart" title="2008-03-01">March 2008</span>
          -
          <span class="dtend" title="2010-04-01">April 2010</span>
        </span>
      </h3>
      <p class="job-description">
        Developed SPOT (Python/Pylons) - a social network for society of historians/archaeologists.
        <br>
        Developed internal administration tools on top of large XML-driven databases (PHP5, Zend Framework, Oracle).
      </p>
    </li>

    <li class="vevent experience">
      <h3>
        <span class="summary">Drupal Consultant</span>
        at
        <span class="location">Aptana, Inc</span>
        <span class="dtrange">
          <span class="dtstart" title="2008-08-01">August 2008</span>
          -
          <span class="dtend" title="2008-11-01">November 2008</span>
        </span>
      </h3>
      <p class="job-description">Developed Drupal modules and themes for <a href="http://aptana.com">aptana.com</a>.</p>
    </li>

    <li class="vevent experience">
      <h3>
        <span class="summary">Full-stack Developer</span>
        at
        <span class="location"><a href="http://wehike.net">wehike.net</a></span>
        <span class="dtrange">
          <span class="dtstart" title="2007-01-01">January 2007</span>
          -
          <span class="dtend" title="{{site.time | date: "%Y-%m-%d"}}">Present</span>
        </span>
      </h3>

      <p class="job-description">Develop and maintain a Rails app for a hiking club social network.</p>
    </li>

    <li class="vevent experience">
      <h3>
        <span class="summary">Drupal Developer</span>
        at
        scripteka.com (shut down)
        <span class="dtrange">
          <span class="dtstart">2006</span>
          <span class="dtend" style="display:none;">2006</span>
        </span>
      </h3>
      <p class="job-description">
        Developed a Prototype.js extensions tracker in Drupal as a contribution to Prototype.js community.
      </p>
    </li>
  </ul>
</div>

<div class="jobs-list-section">
  <h2>Employee/Freelancer</h2>

  <ul class="jobs-list">
    <li class="vevent experience">
      <h3>
        <span class="summary">PHP Software Engineer</span>
        at
        <span class="location">Oddcast, Inc.</span>
        <span class="dtrange">
          <span class="dtstart" title="2007-07-01">July 2007</span>
          -
          <span class="dtend" title="2008-02-01">February 2008</span>
        </span>
      </h3>
      <p class="job-description">
        Co-developed Voki Playgrounds <a href="http://voki.com">voki.com</a>.
        <br>
        Developed PHP/MySQL tools for data gathering and statistical analysis.
        <br>
        Created internal administration interfaces.
      </p>
    </li>

    <li class="vevent experience">
      <h3>
        <span class="summary">Drupal Developer</span>
        at
        <span class="location">Stromberg Consulting</span>
        <span class="dtrange">
          <span class="dtstart" title="2007-03-01">March 2007</span>
          -
          <span class="dtend" title="2007-07-01">July 2007</span>
        </span>
      </h3>
      <p class="job-description">Developed Drupal modules and themes for intranets of companies undergoing merging processes.</p>
    </li>

    <li class="vevent experience">
      <h3>
        <span class="summary">VB.net Consultant</span>
        at
        <span class="location">Marc S. Lemchen, D.M.D., PC.</span>
        <span class="dtrange">
          <span class="dtstart" title="2006-12-01">December 2006</span>
          -
          <span class="dtend" title="2007-03-01">March 2007</span>
        </span>
      </h3>
    </li>

    <li class="vevent experience">
      <h3>
        <span class="summary">C# Software Engineer</span>
        at
        <span class="location">NYMIS</span>
        <span class="dtrange">
          <span class="dtstart" title="2006-09-01">September 2006</span>
          -
          <span class="dtend" title="2006-12-01">December 2006</span>
        </span>
      </h3>
    </li>
  </ul>
</div>