Maxim Vechkitov
Saint Petersburg · father of two · puts the car sideways on weekends
On how I'm built — and what put me together.
Where it began
At five I had a Dendy console with a keyboard. I knew where every letter was and retyped text from paper before I could read. My own computer came late, so I went to a Kasparov chess school — beat the other kids faster, and you reach the school computer first. At seven I took machines apart to see how they worked. At eight I reinstalled Windows for the neighbours for pocket money. At eleven I was selling websites to Counter-Strike and Dota teams. It was never a hobby. From the start it was the same move: first understand how a thing is built, then make it better.
The code that became a question
The turning point was ordinary: I was sorting someone else's PSDs into layers and renaming them — and realized I no longer wanted to assemble another person's vision. I wanted my own.
That's how I moved from code into design. Not a pivot, a continuation: I was always more interested in “why exactly this way” than in “how to build it.”
I never fell out of love with taking things apart — it's just products now, not desktop towers.
The more tangled and unclear the domain, the more interesting it gets. When everything turns simple and predictable, I start to get bored.
Early on, a task had me build an accessible version of some sites for visually impaired users — and I couldn't stop at a checklist. I went with the manager to a place where visually impaired people are taught to use a computer: talked to them, watched how they actually work with an interface. Ever since, “why exactly this way” starts, for me, with whoever is on the other side of the screen.
How my head is wired
In my first year at uni I wrote my own Paint in Delphi — with almost all of the original's tools — and then a Tower Defense game; I drew the creatures myself. The teachers didn't believe I'd made it and interrogated me for a long time. I think that's when it all fused: code, image, and the question “why does this even need to exist” stopped being separate activities for me. I still can't hold them apart.
By the same habit I now tinker with AI — not as a trendy layer, but out of plain curiosity: it's interesting how it changes the very way you think about things. Exactly the same itch as with music.
«I don't need another tool. I need the right architecture.»
Off the clock
On weekends I put a BMW E36 sideways on regional tracks. Drift is the same story as everything else: understand the mechanics, tune the system, find the limit and walk right up to it. The difference is that here the limit answers instantly — sometimes with a wall.
CrossFit. I read a lot. Father of two. And one children's book — about a cat named Motik — my daughter Eva and I wrote together; for now it lives digitally, for our own circle, and we want to make a second, better version. That's probably my favourite joint project.
I also make music — ambient, lo-fi, sleep soundscapes. Nobody's waiting for it or grading it. That's exactly why I make it: for the process, not for a result I have to show someone.
If you read this far — thank you. You probably know me a little better now than my metrics do. If you feel like continuing the conversation, just write. I usually reply.
Write on Telegram→