©2024

XXI season

Competition

Judges

We've rounded up the best of the best judges to support and inspire you this season.

Those are people who have serious achievements in the categories they judge. But that's not the main thing.

Each of them is here to give you the most comprehensive and high-quality analysis of your potential. To help you grow and become more aware of your strengths and weaknesses. Check out the full list. Maybe this season there will be someone you have been dreaming to meet for a long time.

Backend Judges  

Alex Kovalchuk
CTO @ Cargofy
Ukraine
Technology enthusiast who worked at the Space Research Institute, where he was involved in developing cutting-edge technology for space exploration. He also runs a YouTube "Алекс про IT" channel where he shares his experiences, tips, and tricks on technology and exploration.
Marek Miltner
Resident Research Fellow @ Stanford University
USA
Technology leader with focusing on AI applications in sustainability. Currently, he Researcher at Stanford University and Czech Technical University, however before that he has 8 years of technical and management role experience from startups and industry leading companies.
Volodya Sveredyuk
CTO @ DEV Challenge
Ukraine
Winner of the DEV Challenge XVII. Currently, he is CTO and Lead Backend Judge at DEV Challenge. Also, Volodya is Head of Product Engineering Managed Services Provider in SPsoft.
Ruslan Shevchenko
Researcher and System Architect @ ZAKA
Ukraine
Founder of UA Scala user group, Ph.D. in Computer Science, coauthor of the book “Methods of algebraic programming”, an active columnist for the Ukrainian developer’s community portal, regular Backend Judge at DEV Challenge.
Iana Mykhailenko
Director of Engineering @ Turnitin
Ukraine
Judge and mentor of international competitions and hackathons, and moderator of the “How to Become a Great CTO” meetup series. She works as Director Of Engineering at Turnitin – the most famous anti-plagiarism program in the world.

Testing Judges  

Arnika Hryszko
QA Chapter Lead @ Volvo Group
Poland
QA Chapter Lead at Volvo Group – world’s leading manufacturer of transport. She is an accredited ISTQB Trainer, and Vice President at Polish Testing Board.
Marcus Merrell
Vice President of Technology Strategy @ Sauce Labs
USA
Vice President of Technology Strategy at Sauce Labs. He is a leader in continuous test and error reporting solutions. He uses experience from 20+ years in tests to manage strategic technical alliances.
Victoriia Taraniuk
Engineering Manager @ GlobalLogic
Croatia
Engineering Manager with over 12 years of hands-on experience in testing. Author of an embedded system testing course and holds a lecturer position at NTUU "KPI". She achieved the IT Awards 2020 in the Quality category.
Oleksii Ostapov
Test Automation Sub-practice leader @ Infopulse
Ukraine
QA Test Lead with 15+ years of experience in SW testing. Author of manual, test automation and performance testing courses. Co-founder of Ukrainian testing blog – QA Mania and speaker of DOU QA podcast.
Nataliia Pyslar
Test Automation Engineer @ Global-e
Ukraine
Test Automation with .Net experience, popular Ukrainian YouTube tech blogger Popeliuha, author of 5 testing courses, on Udemy as well. Also, she teaches manual and auto-testing from scratch.

Frontend Judges  

Borys Mohyla
Co-organizer @ VinnytsiaJS
Ukraine
Regular Frontend Judge at DEV Challenge. Co-organizer and chairman of the VinnytsiaJS program committee – a conference of JavaScript, gathering Front-end developers across Ukraine.
Oleksii Kaliuzhnyi
Head Of Web Development @ Zgraya Digital
Ukraine
Multiple Winner of DEV Challenge 4 times, now he is a Judge in the Frontend nomination. Oleksiy is a Head Of Web Development with over 13 years of rich professional experience.
Roman Savitskyi
Web & Mobile Lead @ Infopulse
Ukraine
JS ideologue with 11+ years of experience in the IT industry. Roman is an active member of the Ukrainian JavaScript Community and helps to develop it. He is organizer and co-founder of BeerJS Zhytomyr.

Product Design Judges  

Natalia Filvarova
UX Researcher @ Google
Germany
UX & Product specialist driven by empathy and data, building products from scratch, leading young teams and driving communities. She is an active speaker and lecturer at events and companies such as HelloFresh, dev.pro, University of Oxford, iScientist.
Nik Page
Product & Account Manager @ Salsita Software
Czech Republic
Experience & Product guy who launched his first tech startup in 1979. He is an active speaker and participated in more than 25 conferences around the world.
Vadym Shcherbakov
Product Design Lead @ Nationwide Building Society
UK
Product Design Lead with 13+ years of experience in data-driven design, product analytics, and design leadership. Currently working in Digital Innovation team on Conversational Banking and Generative AI.
Yuri Ternytsky
Co-Founder @ Practical Product Design
Ukraine
Product Design leader with a problem-solving mindset and graphic design, user research, workshop facilitation, and program management expertise. Co-authored the first edition of a product design course.
Stan Govorukhin
Product Designer @ Djinni.co
Ukraine
Product Designer & Growth Enthusiast. He is working as a Product Designer at Djinni.co, and co-founded Projector Mentorship Platform. He is running a mobile interfaces course at Projector. Before that, He worked on product-led growth at Miro, and designed mobile apps for riders and drivers at Uklon.

UI Design Judges  

Katya Lavrenova
Senior Product Designer @ Meta
USA
Hybrid designer – interaction and visual – with a strong focus on rapid prototyping and passion for innovative technologies. She worked in cross-functional multidisciplinary teams for the past 10+ years. Her determination to learn the best practices in research and human-centred design led her to Nielsen Norman School and Cooper Design Leadership courses.
Mike Samovarov
Co-Founder, Design Director @ League Design Agency
Ukraine
Design Director with 15+ years of experience, who worked with UN, Cisco, Con-Edison, Inter TV channel, Silpo, Forbes Ukraine, Cornell University. Also, he is the best design teacher at "Dan-IT" school and has nurtured many juniors to the level of seniors and seniors to Team Leads.
Olha Uzhykova
Co-Founder & Design Director @ Netrix Digital
USA
Award-winning Design Director and UI/UX design expert with 10 years of experience in design and management. Her works are consistently featured by the best international and national design awards like Webby, Reddot, Awwwards, CSS Design Award, Ukrainian Design the very best of.

numbers

DEV Challenge in numbers

20

Championship Seasons

27K

Contest participants

320

Competition judges

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