https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/ IT leadership, architecture, AI and teams.en https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/talk-data-risks-bani/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/talk-data-risks-bani/A reconstruction of my Analyst Days 14 talk on data quality and ownership: distinguishing a working control from attractive reporting.Wed, 21 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMTmanagementdevelopment https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/talk-synergy-communities/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/talk-synergy-communities/How Tech Guilds helped me connect teams and knowledge. Reuse across a company, the structure of a Tech Hub, the economics of shared solutions and the conditions that make people want to participate.Tue, 20 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMTmanagement https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/talk-techlead-challenge/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/talk-techlead-challenge/Moving from analyst to project IT lead: building a team, establishing delivery practices, and discussing constraints with the business.Tue, 20 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMTcareermanagement https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/rag-for-business/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/rag-for-business/RAG explained from the ground up: indexing, retrieval, small-team and enterprise architectures, published implementations, evaluation, and the path from answers to useful actions.Wed, 30 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMTaiarchitecturedata https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/ai-accelerates-development/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/ai-accelerates-development/A practical model-selection guide: 19 October 2026 API prices, self-hosting, task acceptance and the full cost of AI-assisted delivery.Sun, 15 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTaidevelopmenttoolsproductivity https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/red-flags-hiring/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/red-flags-hiring/Behavioural patterns, an interview radar and the manager’s own blind spots: assess working risks without pretending to diagnose a personality.Mon, 20 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTmanagementcareer https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/cv-redesign-consultant/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/cv-redesign-consultant/How I removed technical noise from an executive CV, made the career trajectory visible, and established a clear CTO direction.Fri, 17 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTcareerhiring https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/dpupp-weekend-kremlin/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/dpupp-weekend-kremlin/A Sunday walk through central Moscow with my family, seen through the eyes of an engineer who still notices alerts and load tests away from the screen.Tue, 14 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTcareer https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/copy-cheap-exploit-expensive/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/copy-cheap-exploit-expensive/Compare a product, fork, compatible implementation, and bespoke build through total cost of ownership: upgrades, operations, skills, risk, and exit.Thu, 09 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTimport substitutionarchitecture https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/faang-architecture-antipatterns/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/faang-architecture-antipatterns/Architecture practices cannot be separated from scale, team structure, and operational maturity. Here is how to spot accidental complexity before adopting them.Mon, 06 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTarchitecturemanagement https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/t-toxicity-in-it/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/t-toxicity-in-it/Observable signs of an unsafe working environment and practical actions for an individual contributor or manager, without diagnoses or labels.Fri, 03 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMTcareerteam https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/event-storming-pros-cons/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/event-storming-pros-cons/A practical guide to EventStorming: what the method helps a team discover, where it falls short, and how to prepare a session that produces useful outcomes.Thu, 10 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMTsystems analysisarchitecture https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/retrospective-not-useless/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/retrospective-not-useless/When a retro becomes a ritual, how to restore its purpose, and why a change without an owner rarely improves anything.Tue, 08 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMTmanagementteam https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/realtime-banking/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/realtime-banking/Lessons from an early real-time product built in 2023–2024: streaming architecture, production testing, and delivery decisions.Tue, 04 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMTdevelopmentmanagement https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/detailed-specs-kill-expertise/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/detailed-specs-kill-expertise/A working hypothesis about the relationship between requirement detail, delivery predictability, and team autonomy.Tue, 28 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMTsystems analysismanagementhiring https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/classic-it-project-mistakes/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/classic-it-project-mistakes/Common systems analysis mistakes on large banking and fintech projects: vague requirements, legacy integrations, regulation, failure scenarios, and late validation.Tue, 10 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMTmanagementsystems analysis https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/it-higher-education/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/it-higher-education/What university can genuinely offer an engineer or analyst, what that route costs, and when another form of education may be a better choice.Tue, 19 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMTcareer https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/data-exchange-formats/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/data-exchange-formats/Choose a format through contract evolution, backward and forward compatibility, tooling, and measured processing cost rather than fashion.Wed, 11 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMTdataarchitecturesystems analysis https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/architecture-made-easy/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/architecture-made-easy/A decision guide for modular monoliths and microservices, based on change cost, ownership boundaries, and a team’s ability to operate a distributed system.Thu, 29 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMTarchitecture https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/fintech-seven-circles/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/fintech-seven-circles/A delivery map for banking products: team capability, governance, changing needs, infrastructure, cross-team contracts, the delivery platform, and operations.Sun, 04 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMTdevelopmentmanagementcareer https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/uml-what-and-why/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/uml-what-and-why/Choosing a UML diagram for a specific question, defining how long it should live, and keeping modelling from becoming a project of its own.Fri, 02 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMTsystems analysisarchitecture https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/microservices-or-monolith/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/microservices-or-monolith/A concise decision guide based on domain boundaries, independent releases, scaling, data consistency, and the cost of operating a distributed system.Fri, 05 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMTarchitecturesystems analysis https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/user-story-underrated/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/user-story-underrated/How to frame a user story around who, what, and why, add testable acceptance criteria, and avoid turning it into a miniature specification.Wed, 03 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMTsystems analysismanagement https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/talk-highload-realtime-banking/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/talk-highload-realtime-banking/How Vladimir Avramov and I turned an early real-time product built with Flink, Kafka, and Tarantool into a focused technical talk.Mon, 24 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMTdevelopmentmanagement https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/idempotency-word-of-the-day/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/idempotency-word-of-the-day/What idempotency actually means in HTTP and distributed systems, why a UUID alone is not enough, and how to handle retries safely.Fri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 GMTarchitecturesystems analysis https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/fast-team-building/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/fast-team-building/How to speed up hiring without pretending speed is free: what to test before the offer and how to reduce early hiring risk.Sat, 04 May 2024 00:00:00 GMThiringteammanagement https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/it-conferences-analysts/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/it-conferences-analysts/How to choose an event, prepare useful questions, and turn a talk or visit into durable professional connections.Mon, 22 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMTcareermanagement https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/how-dev-team-works/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/how-dev-team-works/One practical model for software delivery from discovery to release: six overlapping stages, common roles, and the team’s shared responsibility for outcomes.Thu, 11 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMTmanagementteam https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/sql-postgres-practice/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/sql-postgres-practice/A self-contained SQL exercise for analysts: create two tables and practise SELECT, filtering, JOINs, aggregates, data changes, and transactions.Mon, 11 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMTdatasqlsystems analysis https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/message-brokers-nuances/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/message-brokers-nuances/A practical comparison of RabbitMQ, ActiveMQ Classic, and Kafka: messaging models, acknowledgements, partition ordering, and the real limits of at-least-once and exactly-once.Wed, 29 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMTarchitecturedata https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/career-in-it-thoughts/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/career-in-it-thoughts/Four questions for comparing a management step, deeper expertise, or a move into a different kind of project.Thu, 23 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMTcareer https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/api-theory-practice/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/api-theory-practice/How to choose between HTTP APIs, SOAP, GraphQL, JSON-RPC, and gRPC, then review methods, errors, compatibility, limits, and failure behaviour.Fri, 20 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMTdevelopmenttools https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/types-of-analysts/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/types-of-analysts/A practical, author-defined map of analysis roles based on the subject of the work, expected outcome, technical depth, and route into the field.Thu, 19 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMTsystems analysiscareer https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/client-interview-checklist/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/client-interview-checklist/A step-by-step algorithm for interviewing a client when there is no business analyst on the team: preparation, running the interview, analysis, and confirming requirements.Sun, 01 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMTsystems analysismanagement https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/ner-services-business/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/ner-services-business/What NER actually does, how it differs from intent classification, and how to build a testable hybrid pipeline for Russian text.Tue, 26 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMTaidevelopment https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/talk-data-path-padawan/https://lovtsov.dev/en/blog/talk-data-path-padawan/A reconstruction of the main ideas from my Analyst Days 16 talk: how data gains context, why roles see the same dataset differently, and what an analyst should verify.Sat, 22 Apr 2023 00:00:00 GMTdevelopmenttools