👋 Hi! I am Ilya
Software engineer obsessed with efficiency, infrastructure costs, and reliability. I enjoy working on distributed and/or decentralized systems. I have been working on production apps since 2010.
💼 Founder
RPC Router
November 2023 - Now
A Web3-specific load balancer that seamlessly consolidates multiple RPC endpoints into a singular, high-speed, and dependable super-endpoint.
- Team:
- Me, 1 employee developer, 1 business advisor
- Challenges:
- Minimizing latency, working with websockets, and handling a large number of concurrent requests.
- Outcome:
- Open-sourced, the project is being used in production by at least two crypto businesses.
💼 Founder
P2PCloud
September 2021 - January 2024
Decentralized cloud computing platform integrating AMD's Secure Encrypted Virtualization and blockchain. Greatest technical breakthrough - running a full TEE attestation completely in browser using WASM - that has never been done before.
- Team:
- Me, 2 developers, 1 developer advocate
- Challenges:
- Working with Trusted Execution Environment, storing sensitive data on untrusted machines, quality control, networking in a decentralized system, legal.
- Outcome:
- Due to a conflict between legal and decentralization and lack of a sustainable business model, I've decided to pause for now.
💼 Founder
Chat API
August 2017 - September 2022
An API for W****App (the green messenger from Meta) for businesses to integrate W****App into their CRM systems. At its peak, we had **k paid accounts and our API was larger than the official one. My most successful project to date.
- Team:
- Started solo in 2017; in 2019 acquired my friend's web agency to run the business.
- Challenges:
- High load, very high load. That project made me passionate about infrastructure. Also legal & technical fights with Meta.
- Outcome:
- Multiple Cease and Desist letters. I decided to settle with Facebook/Meta.
👨💻 Security engineer @ private ICO fund
Private ICO Fund
2017-2018
During the ICO era, I was a security engineer at a private ICO fund. I was responsible for the post-ICO ERC20 token distribution. Security of the fund relied on the fact that signers do not know each other and therefore can't collude. I created real-time interfaces for the signers to sign transactions.
- Team:
- In the technical team, only me
- Challenges:
- I used naive key splitting kind of multisig for the private key - worked well. I would do MPC now for sure. Back then anything related to crypto was a challenge lol.
- Outcome:
- On the security side - zero breaches. I made a lot of money, but lost every single wei in the end. That's karma.
👨💻 Infrastructure engineer @ mschf.xyz
HOTCHAT3000
August 2023
Hot Chat 3000 uses an AI model to rank your attractiveness on a scale of one (not hot) to 10 (hot!). Your score will then determine who you're eligible to chat with.
- Team:
- I did the AI scaling part; a large team was involved.
- Challenges:
- To scale the AI model grading faces on GPUs to handle 24k inferences per second and not go over budget.
- Coverage:
- Business Insider Daily Mail Highsnobiety
👨💻 Security engineer @ mschf.xyz
The One Million Dollar Puzzle
2020 - 2024 (few editions)
It's a 500-piece puzzle with a QR code that, once scanned, reveals a prize between $1 and $1,000,000!
- Team:
- I did the security part; a large team was involved.
- Challenges:
- The hardest part was to make sure that even in case a potential attacker owns the whole dataset, they still can't cheat the system. Legal compliance was a challenge too.
- Coverage:
- New York Post Mashable Entrepreneur Wired ZDNet
👨💻 Developer @ mschf.xyz
ClickSwipe
January 2020
ClickSwipe is a desktop app that swipes on Tinder every time you click your mouse.
- Team:
- A few people; I did the desktop app.
- Challenges:
- MacOS security settings to handle the mouse click events.
👨💻 Developer @ mschf.xyz
The Persistence of Chaos
May 2019
A work of art consisting of a laptop that contains six computer viruses, worms, and pieces of malware that have caused major damage. The artwork was created in 2019 by artist Guo O Dong (guess who it is, lol) and the collective MSCHF, and sold at auction for $1,345,000 in May 2019.
- Team:
- I did the technical part, but many people were involved.
- Challenges:
- Finding an optimal OS to run the viruses.
👨💻 Developer @ a secret Brooklyn-based agency
Nope button
June 2017
A browser extension that simulates an important call to help you escape from boring colleague encounters. The client was Breather - a coworking space company.
- Team:
- Me, PM and a designer
- Challenges:
- No challenges, pure fun!
👨💻 Java developer @ Panasonic Russia via ADV
Panasonic eForms
2012-2014
Supported a business for Panasonic Russia. It was an XSLT/Java based web app for filling and processing forms.
- Team:
- Me and a junior developer
- Challenges:
- IE support 🤯