It all startedwith a message.

At eleven, I was already using Mail.ru Agent on my phone. One day, I saw the same app on a computer.

There was so much more to it: the other person’s avatar, graphical smileys and a button to nudge them. On my phone, smileys were just text characters. A familiar chat looked and worked very differently.

I wanted to understand how people made software like that. I looked for answers in books, asked my computer science teachers and kept asking my father for a computer.

When it arrived, I learnt that owning a computer did not mean having an internet connection. That took a few more months. Then I could finally open a browser and start searching.

I wanted to build a social network: posts, short videos, conversations. My friends could not picture it. I needed a way to show them.

I made my first layouts in Word, then tried Paint. Without layers, one mistake could ruin the whole image. Next I found uCoz, a website builder with pages, forums and directories I could assemble myself.

Then I came across a site built with the same tool that looked completely different. I wanted that freedom. I just did not know how to get it.

People from Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia answered my questions on forums. Some called me on Skype and showed me how Photoshop worked. I took templates apart, changed images and experimented with styles. Gradually, HTML and CSS began to make sense.

One day, a page I had designed was running in a browser.

While I was still at school, I entered VKontakte redesign competitions. I did not win, but I had proposed my own interface for a major social network.

We translated and dubbed anime. The portal had videos, a forum, rewards, reputation scores and profile pages where people could leave messages. Its audience grew to over 15,000 users. I kept adding features and redesigning the interface.

To cover the domain and hosting, I took on page and forum design jobs. Working on my own site led me to my first clients.

I had moved to Pavlodar and was studying programming at college. I started looking for work on a freelance platform.

I sent proposals and learnt how to explain why a client should choose me. About a week later, I landed a project: designing a point-of-sale interface for restaurant tablets.

Dozens of projects followed. I learnt to estimate the work, agree on the scope and deliver what I had promised.

Designing the website turned out to be only part of the job.

At a marketing agency in Pavlodar, I worked alongside marketers and salespeople. Freelancers handled development; I handled design. Landing pages, company websites, online stores. I took on my own clients too, sometimes working for two companies at once. I was sleeping very little. The two Red Bull cans by the monitor in that photo pretty much sum it up.

For one large project, I managed everything from the sale to the launch: designing the site, finding developers, writing requirements and keeping in touch with the client.

That project pushed me to learn about sales, marketing and project management.

I did not get there in one move.

At my next company, I worked alongside developers and another designer. I helped him with the work and we discussed our decisions together. I began taking on a leadership role before I had the title.

Then came a startup and a move to Astana. At Astana Hub, I met founders, joined hackathons and helped teams with design.

I helped one loyalty programme with its branding and first prototype. The founder named the product after me. I am no longer involved in its development.

After Astana, I returned to Pavlodar, then decided to move to Almaty. My first job there did not work out. At my next job, we launched Daryn.online.

Almaty is still home today.

The studio in Almaty built websites, CRM systems and apps. Its founder proposed launching three products of our own: two in education and one in media.

One of them was Daryn.online: an online school curriculum with video lessons, courses, tests and academic competitions. At first, I had doubts. Many pupils did not enjoy studying anyway. Would even those who did be able to learn properly online?

Before the pandemic, Daryn.online had around 20,000 users. In spring 2020, schools moved to remote learning and we opened free access to video lessons and tests. By May, the total number of registered users had reached 2.5 million.

Later, the team came up with competitions for teachers and pupils, and we launched them in a week. By May 2021, the platform had 3.5 million registered users. This was the whole team’s work.

I began leading design, hiring designers and organising the work. I spent almost four years at Bugin Holding.

We also organised hackathons for pupils from RFMSH, NIS and KTL. At one of those events, I joined the judging panel and reviewed the pupils’ projects.

I had followed red_mad_robot’s work for years. When they got in touch, I had just left my job and was trying to find my enthusiasm for design again. The invitation caught me by surprise.

At the studio, I worked on Jusan Business and Home Credit Business. The scale surprised me: a single product, such as online accounting, could have 15 to 30 people working on it.

We had access to participants for in-depth interviews. I prepared presentations to explain and defend design decisions to the bank’s senior leadership. That was exciting: we could talk to users, understand the problem and explain why we were proposing a particular solution.

The studio also arranged mentoring with a product analyst from red_mad_robot. Later, I joined presales work for an app for Pegasus Airlines. I enjoyed seeing how a large team put together a client proposal before a project even began.

After the company rebranded as tekmates, I moved from Senior UI/UX Designer to Head of Design. I took responsibility for the team’s work and helped other designers develop.

The next invitation came from a bank whose product I already knew.

I had worked on HCB Business at red_mad_robot. The team built a complete online banking service for small and medium-sized businesses in six months. After launch, we continued developing international trade services, cards, customer communications and other areas.

Between working at the studio and joining the bank, I studied the basics of AI and Python and experimented with Django. Gradually, I started applying AI to my everyday work.

At Home Credit Bank Kazakhstan, I returned to a familiar product, this time as part of the bank’s own team. I continue working on business services and the design system.

Alongside that, I’m building a multi-agent system for product work, connecting requirements, design and development through shared project context. The goal is simple: less routine work, better quality and faster delivery. I’ve already automated many routine tasks and taught two people to use AI to build products for their own needs.

Even after working with large teams and established products, I still want to build things of my own.

Anime portals, media sites, business tools, startups with friends: I have tried a lot of ideas. My team and I are preparing soilesu for launch. We’re developing two products: voice-based interview practice and employee assessments based on company materials. soilesu is a working name.

These days, I ask the practical questions earlier. Who needs this? What should we test first? Who can help turn the idea into a working product?

But one question has stayed with me since I was eleven: what if I tried making it myself?