I was born in the beautiful Black Sea-side city of Odessa (Ukraine), famous for it's hot summers and unusually high number of writers, poets, composers and scientists produced per capita. Also for its annual (1st of April) Humour festival called "Humarina" (I guess as a combination of "humour" and "marina"). That's why I try to retain a warm, positive outlook on life!
I graduated from the Odessa State University (BCS) after five years of studying mathematics and various programming disciplines, but the first real life work experience came in New Zealand, after I secured my first job as a Systems Analysts for the Inland Revenue Department 10 years ago. Since that I have worked in IT for a number of NZ government agencies (the Department of Social Welfare and the Ministry of Justice to name some) and also in the commercial sector (Toyota NZ).
My experience as a programmer reflected the evolution in the IT industry as I progressed from the mainframe analyst (LINC programming on Unisys A-series) to the Java rich client/web application developer, but the biggest job satisfaction always came from working closely with people : team members, support and the end users.
What I like about IT is its ever changing nature where new technologies are literally created on a daily basis. My goal is to keep up to date with the new developments and apply them to my work where they help to enrich application functionality, improve system performance and allow rapid development of the user-friendly interface.
My favorite programming language is Java which I believe to be the first choice in the enterprise web application development presently that allows to produce truly flexible and platform independent solutions.
On a personal note I'm married with two children (one of them nearly a teenager) which makes me appreciate my i-lign work environment as a place of peace and quiet where I can concentrate on application design without being regularly disturbed !
