About Me
Who is Maxim Glaezer?
While my nearly 20-year career in software development anchors my professional life, my passions extend far beyond code.
- Way before LeetCode, HackerRank, and Codility, I created the first platform for testing programming skills right in-browser.
- When faced with new challenges, I step out of my "comfort zone" naturally. For one of my projects I taught myself electronics and microcontroller programming to make light-animated garments.
- When it was necessary for one of my projects, I learned how to compose music and lyrics, took some vocal lessons, and transformed my ideas into song form.
- I capture life through portrait photography, compete in backgammon, and stay active through yoga.
- My current passion is exploring AI to revolutionize how we learn foreign languages.
Software
Development
As a Software Professional
From processing millions of financial transactions to orchestrating city-wide vehicle logistics, I've spent two decades building systems that directly impact business success. My solutions have helped companies scale their operations, enter new markets, and achieve significant cost savings.
I combine deep technical expertise with practical business sense. Whether it's high-throughput trading platforms or complex SaaS applications, I build systems that remain reliable, maintainable, and adaptable to changing business needs.
Having worked across banking, trading, retail, and machine learning, I bring valuable cross-industry insights to every project. This diverse experience has shown me how to consistently deliver successful software projects, regardless of the industry or technical challenges.
Real Results
I've seen what even small teams can achieve when they work optimally within a given context.
For example, at AutoReturn, my team created a logistics platform that outperformed solutions built by teams several times our size, contributing directly to the company's successful acquisition by a private equity firm.
Earlier, with just six developers, we built and deployed a nationwide payment system that processed millions of transactions - a project typically requiring much larger teams.
This wasn't luck - it came from understanding exactly what we needed to do and how to best use everyone's skills. By focusing on what matters for each specific project, we consistently delivered results that surprised both users and stakeholders.
My Approach to Software Development
I've learned that following generic, standard approaches in software development usually leads to average results. Every developer is different, and every project brings its own challenges and opportunities.
The best outcomes happen when you understand and work with these differences, adjusting how you work to match the specific needs of the project and the team.
Context is everything. When you understand the project details and the people involved, you can help the team achieve much better results than just following some standard playbook.
How I Work with Teams
I enjoy both writing code and helping teams work better together. When I'm working with a team, I focus on understanding how everyone works best and what the project needs. I don't believe in forcing one way of doing things. Instead, I keep checking what's working and what isn't, and adjust as we go.
Sometimes we work within SCRUM, sometimes within other methodologies - but it's what you do within these frameworks that makes the difference.
I spend most of the time coding and solving technical problems alongside my teammates. This helps me stay connected to the real challenges we face and means I can contribute directly while helping the team work better together. Whether I'm focused on writing code or helping coordinate the team's efforts, I adapt to whatever the project needs at that moment.
Testimonials
From My Colleagues
John Pendleton AutoReturn, Founder, CTO
Maxim is a very skilled and experienced software engineer with the capabilities to not only code himself, but also lead teams and guide the software engineering process.
By 2010, Maxim had taken on the role of leading our software engineering team as a working engineer and leading teams that ranged from 3 to a dozens engineers and QA specialists (both in-house and outsourced).
Maxim guided our team in building a very thoughtful process, leveraging the strengths of his core team members that resulted in our ARIES technology platform being very well architected, reliable, and resilient. Time and time again, the code base has proven to be very well-structured, well-organized, and adaptable to an evolution of change over many years.
We are very thankful for all of Maxim's contributions as an engineer, leader, and trusted colleague. I could not have been successful as AutoReturn's CTO without the contributions of Maxim and the solid team that we built together.
I would recommend Maxim to any technology leader who is looking for a proven combination of coding expertise, solid understanding of proper applications architecture, best engineering practices, and leadership skills. I look forward to following Maxim's path as he pivots into new opportunities. I wish him all the best as a trusted colleague of many years and good friend.
Jacob Golder Director of Engineering, NextCard, Inc.
Maxim was responsible for developing an enterprise object model, which would become a reference model for all new development.
This work was extremely challenging because it had to provide design for future integration of many disparate internal and external systems.
Maxim exhibited thorough knowledge of object technology and calmly rationalized and socialized many difficult decisions that he had to make. This work became cornerstone of enterprise blueprint for better business systems integration.
Vlad Eroshin Sr Software Engineer, Eltegra, Inc
Maxim is a creative and idea driven professional. Knowing him professionally as an architect and a great developer, I am astonished with his ideas and approaches he comes up with to solve problems. I irreversibly recommend him as an IT professional.
Alex Gitelman Sr Software Engineer, Pay By Touch, Inc
Maxim is one of very few highest level software architects and professionals that I had a pleasure to work with. Products and components he designed and built work flawlessly.
Suhas Joshi Sr Software Engineer, Zultys, Inc
Maxim is a person you can trust to get the job done right. He is a very fast problem solver and a great person to work with.
Oleg Bityutskiy Sr Software Engineer, Zultys, Inc
Maxim is a strong software engineer with wide experience. He is very good and friendly coworker, open for discussion, cooperative, very responsible for his part and entire project. I was happy to work with him.
Beyond Code
After Hours
Here are some of my personal projects and hobbies.
While some websites are no longer active as new projects took priority,
I'm happy to share details about any of them.
LazyGift.com
One of the first smart gift recommendation engines, ranking #3 on Google. It helped users find unique presents by learning about the gift recipient through interactive questions.
BetterProgrammer.com (archive)
The first platform for testing programming skills right in the browser, developed in 2007 way before HackerRank, LeetCode and Codility. Despite numerous partnership offers, I kept it free for everyone. The site was retired with the advent of LLMs, which made solving coding challenges easier, and as I moved on to new projects. At some point, James Gosling (the creator of Java) passed my test.
Light Animated Dresses
A project that pushed me into entirely new territories. Starting from zero, I learned electronics, microcontroller programming, and various wireless protocols to create innovative illuminated fashion.
A picture is worth a thousand words. See them in action on YouTube.
MindGamesCenter.com and FishBust.com (archive)
Being a serious backgammon player myself, I created this platform with world-class players to connect them with students seeking expert tutoring.
Quant Trading Platform
I partnered with quantitative traders to build a platform that used Machine Learning and Neural Networks to identify trading opportunities in US stock options around earnings announcements.
Portrait Photography
Strangely enough, I'm a multiple times published photographer, known in the photography world as Max Allison.
An ongoing passion where I've developed professional-level expertise.
Using LLM in language learning
My current passion is exploring AI to revolutionize how we learn foreign languages.
Contact
Please email me at:
FirstName DOT LastName AT gmail.com