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.
Building Slack Bots on Node.js with Bolt API: From Zero to Production

Building Slack Bots on Node.js with Bolt API: From Zero to Production

If you’ve ever wondered what happens when a developer’s procrastination meets a company’s communication platform, you get a Slack bot. And let me tell you—building one is far more fun than it should be. In this guide, we’re going to dive deep into the art and science of creating powerful Slack bots using Node.js and the Slack Bolt API. Whether you’re automating mundane tasks, querying databases, or just making your team’s life easier (and slightly more entertaining), this comprehensive walkthrough will get you there....

November 14, 2025 · 10 min · 2017 words · Maxim Zhirnov
Surveillance Capitalism in IoT: Your Smart Home is Listening, and Yes, It's as Bad as It Sounds

Surveillance Capitalism in IoT: Your Smart Home is Listening, and Yes, It's as Bad as It Sounds

You know that moment when you’re talking to your partner about needing new shoes, and then suddenly you’re seeing shoe ads everywhere? Funny coincidence, right? Wrong. That’s not a coincidence—that’s infrastructure. Sophisticated, invisible infrastructure designed to harvest every whisper in your home and convert it into behavioral predictions worth billions. Welcome to the age of surveillance capitalism in your living room. The Uncomfortable Truth About Smart Homes Let’s start with the uncomfortable admission: your smart home isn’t really yours....

November 14, 2025 · 13 min · 2728 words · Maxim Zhirnov
Implementing Database Sharding in Go: Scaling Your Database When it Breaks

Implementing Database Sharding in Go: Scaling Your Database When it Breaks

Let me be honest with you: at some point in every developer’s journey, they’ll find themselves staring at their database monitoring dashboard, watching the load spike, and thinking “This seemed like a good idea at the time.” If your database is becoming your bottleneck, congratulations—it means your application is actually working. Unfortunately, it also means we need to talk about sharding. What is Database Sharding, and Why Should You Care? Database sharding is essentially the art of breaking your monolithic database into bite-sized pieces and spreading them across multiple servers....

November 13, 2025 · 15 min · 3101 words · Maxim Zhirnov
Keeping Your Software Architecture Fluid and Undefined

Keeping Your Software Architecture Fluid and Undefined

Remember that awkward moment when you tried to add a simple feature to your three-year-old codebase and ended up touching seventeen files? Yeah, that’s what happens when your architecture gets too rigid. It’s like building a house with all the walls welded together—sure, it looks impressive at first, but good luck adding a bathroom. The irony is that we’ve been so obsessed with making things “stable” and “defined” that we’ve created architectures that snap like icicles the moment someone tries to bend them even slightly....

November 13, 2025 · 10 min · 2066 words · Maxim Zhirnov
Strategies for Continuous Learning: How to Stay in Demand as a Developer

Strategies for Continuous Learning: How to Stay in Demand as a Developer

Let’s be honest: the tech landscape changes faster than your favorite IDE releases a new update. One day you’re the expert in REST APIs, the next day everyone’s talking about GraphQL, microservices, and quantum computing (okay, maybe not that last one yet). If you’re not learning continuously, you’re essentially watching your market value depreciate like a three-year-old smartphone. The good news? You don’t have to become a learning machine to stay relevant....

November 12, 2025 · 11 min · 2240 words · Maxim Zhirnov