Hi there 👋

My name is Maksim Zhirnov. I’m a Growth Marketing Expert & MarTech Engineer. I help tech companies scale through data-driven marketing strategies, powered by my engineering background. I love building marketing systems that drive growth and sharing insights on the intersection of technology and customer acquisition.
Creating Augmented Reality Applications with ARKit and Unity

Creating Augmented Reality Applications with ARKit and Unity

Building Your First AR Experience: From Zero to Pokemon Go Vibes Let me be honest with you: the first time I tried creating an AR app, I thought I’d need to understand quantum physics, sacrifice a small animal to the dev gods, and probably learn three new programming languages. Turns out, I was only right about one of those things, and it wasn’t the animal part. Fast forward to today, and building AR apps in Unity is actually enjoyable....

November 4, 2025 · 13 min · 2594 words · Maxim Zhirnov
Why You Should Occasionally Ignore Performance Metrics

Why You Should Occasionally Ignore Performance Metrics

There’s a peculiar phenomenon that happens in organizations when metrics arrive: everybody suddenly believes they’ve found the secret sauce. Charts appear on dashboards, targets get engraved on team room walls, and conversations become increasingly religious about hitting the numbers. It’s intoxicating—the promise that if we just measure the right things, everything will magically improve. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: sometimes the best decision you can make about your metrics is to throw them out the window....

November 4, 2025 · 9 min · 1864 words · Maxim Zhirnov
Building Production-Ready Slack Bots with Node.js: A Complete Guide from Hello Bot to Real-World Automation

Building Production-Ready Slack Bots with Node.js: A Complete Guide from Hello Bot to Real-World Automation

If you’ve ever found yourself wishing you could manage your entire infrastructure from the comfort of your Slack window (because who doesn’t want one less browser tab open?), then this guide is for you. Slack bots represent one of the most pragmatic ways to inject automation directly into your team’s communication hub. Let me walk you through everything you need to know to build sophisticated Slack bots with Node.js—no magic wands required, just JavaScript and determination....

November 3, 2025 · 11 min · 2226 words · Maxim Zhirnov
Should Programming Languages Have Built-in Ethical Constraints? A Practical Deep Dive

Should Programming Languages Have Built-in Ethical Constraints? A Practical Deep Dive

Ever tried to explain to a non-technical person why you can’t just “add ethics” to a programming language? It’s like trying to explain why you can’t just add sarcasm to calculus—technically possible, utterly confusing, and nobody asked for it anyway. Yet here we are, in 2025, and the conversation about embedding ethical constraints directly into programming languages is becoming increasingly impossible to ignore. Let me be upfront: this isn’t a question with a simple yes or no answer....

November 3, 2025 · 10 min · 1921 words · Maxim Zhirnov
Developing Communication Skills for Effective Teamwork: A Practical Guide

Developing Communication Skills for Effective Teamwork: A Practical Guide

If you’ve ever sent an email that was interpreted as hostile when you meant it to be helpful, or sat in a meeting wondering if everyone understood the actual assignment, or found yourself playing communication archaeologist trying to decode what your colleague really meant—congratulations, you’re human. Welcome to the club. The good news? Communication, unlike your grandmother’s secret recipes, is actually learnable. The intersection of great communication and high-performing teams isn’t luck....

November 2, 2025 · 11 min · 2144 words · Maxim Zhirnov