Inspired by the movie “Hackers”, I wrote my first computer program at the age of 12. This computer worm controlled my city`s traffic lights, my school`s sprinkler system, oh and also - local cable network`s movie play list. Well it didn`t really, but in my mind - it did. I wrote this program on a keyboard I had drawn on two sheets of paper stitched together, where I also kept practicing my fast typing skills for another two years until my parents could actually afford a real computer. And when they did, I broke it within first two days. Then again. And again, until I learned how to fix it myself (after secretly watching real men do it couple of times). That started my career as “The kid, who knows all about computers”. And for the first 7 years I`ve been spending time working as systems administrator and then performance engineer in a number of small companies, until I found my next love - MySQL. The 9 years at Percona In 2006, as I moved to Paris, I have joined founders Peter Zaitsev and Vadim Tkachenko (known as “The MySQL Performance Blog guys” back then) as their first full time performance consultant. And I`ve worked there for over 9 years: first as a consultant, then as a principal consultant and finally as an architect. I had an amazing opportunity to learn from the best experts in the field of MySQL Performance Optimization and boy did I make the best of it. Amongst the many technical things I learned (which are too many to mention), from Peter and Vadim I have also learned: how to think clearly - about systems, performance, and life in general how to write - after all, I was one of the MySQL Performance Blog guys now how to ask the right questions and listen - which, apparently, is the key to great consulting how to make data driven decisions - and get the right data to base them on how to put customer`s business goals first - customers don`t just want better systems performance, they want their business to run better how to step out of your comfort zone, and do what`s right, not what is easy (yes, public speaking, I`m looking at you) and to never ever stop learning Long story short, those were the best 3300 days of my life. But after those 9 years, I felt that it was time to move on. What now? Besides my other non-techie personal projects, I`m doing over at , and I`m developing a MySQL performance tuning training program as I feel I have a lot to give back from what I have learned while at Percona. So if you`re looking for MySQL performance consulting or if you`re interested to learn when the training will be available, visit and you`ll find everything there. Profile ©