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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.
Developing QGIS Extensions in Python: From Zero to Your First Plugin

Developing QGIS Extensions in Python: From Zero to Your First Plugin

If you’ve ever looked at QGIS and thought, “This is great, but it would be perfect if it just did X,” congratulations—you’ve just identified your next plugin project. QGIS plugins are the gateway drug to geospatial development, and unlike building entire GIS applications from scratch, creating a plugin is surprisingly accessible. Let’s dive into the surprisingly civilized world of QGIS plugin development. Why Build a QGIS Plugin? Before we get our hands dirty, let’s be honest about what we’re doing here....

November 11, 2025 · 9 min · 1810 words · Maxim Zhirnov
Why Most Startups Don't Need Kubernetes (And What They Should Do Instead)

Why Most Startups Don't Need Kubernetes (And What They Should Do Instead)

There’s a moment every founder experiences. You’ve just closed your first funding round, your product is gaining traction, and someone in a Slack channel mentions that you should “probably start thinking about Kubernetes.” Your CTO nods thoughtfully. Everyone starts Googling Kubernetes tutorials at midnight. By the next morning, you’ve convinced yourself that Kubernetes is an inevitable part of your journey to billion-dollar unicorn status. Here’s the uncomfortable truth: you’re probably making a terrible mistake....

November 11, 2025 · 13 min · 2719 words · Maxim Zhirnov
Building Production-Ready Serverless Applications with AWS Lambda and API Gateway

Building Production-Ready Serverless Applications with AWS Lambda and API Gateway

The Serverless Dream (And Why It’s Actually Real) Remember when deploying an application meant renting a physical server, worrying about disk space, and praying that your infrastructure wouldn’t combust at 3 AM on a Sunday? Yeah, those days are mercifully behind us. Serverless computing—particularly AWS Lambda—has transformed how we think about building and deploying applications. But here’s the thing that nobody tells you at the conference talks: serverless doesn’t mean “no servers....

November 10, 2025 · 9 min · 1740 words · Maxim Zhirnov
Why Most Developers Shouldn't Write Their Own CI/CD Tools

Why Most Developers Shouldn't Write Their Own CI/CD Tools

Building a CI/CD pipeline from scratch sounds like a rite of passage for ambitious engineers. That thrilling moment when someone says, “We could just build our own tool—it can’t be that complex!” Usually follows a demo of some enterprise CI/CD platform with a price tag that makes everyone’s eyes water. But here’s the thing: that gut feeling that tells you to build it yourself? It’s your imposter syndrome talking, not your engineering instinct....

November 10, 2025 · 11 min · 2234 words · Maxim Zhirnov
Crafting Blender Extensions with Python: From Zero to Hero

Crafting Blender Extensions with Python: From Zero to Hero

If you’ve ever sat in front of Blender thinking “I wish this workflow was different” or “wouldn’t it be cool if…”, then I’ve got news for you—you don’t need to wait for the Blender team to read your mind. You can build it yourself. Yes, right now. With Python. And I’m not talking about the snake; I’m talking about the programming language that’s been quietly running the show behind Blender’s beautiful UI curtain....

November 9, 2025 · 9 min · 1712 words · Maxim Zhirnov