Writing
Blog
Notes on frontend engineering, SEO, AI, analytics, and shipping real products.
41 posts
Why TypeScript Is the Best Language for Codex for Real Software Delivery
When the goal is production software instead of demo code, TypeScript gives Codex the structure, feedback, and constraints that make AI-assisted development more reliable.
Jurfi.com: A Browser-Based Legal Document Studio Built for Clarity
Jurfi.com is my new browser-based legal document studio, built to turn messy drafting into clearer, more structured working drafts without pretending AI replaces a lawyer.
My First SaaS Revenue: Why the First $10 Meant So Much
My first online payment for a product I built myself was only $10, but it marked a much bigger shift: from building in theory to proving that a real user was willing to pay.
How Codex Helps Me Review 15 Projects at Once
Using Codex inside VS Code has dramatically reduced the repetitive part of reviewing bugs, SEO issues, translations, localization, and tests across multiple projects without replacing manual judgment.
Why I Save the Last 3–5% of Codex Plus for the Biggest Engineering Tasks
A small workflow shift changed how I use Codex Plus: when my limit is almost gone, I stop playing it safe and use the remaining budget on the heaviest technical work I can queue up.
How Technical SEO Mistakes Got My Site Removed From Google Search
My site did not just lose rankings. It disappeared from Google entirely, and fixing that forced me to learn how fast technical SEO mistakes can destroy trust.
Five Years Later, the Base M1 MacBook Still Feels Like One of My Best Tech Purchases
After five years of daily heavy use, my base M1 MacBook still feels like an unusually strong value: not because it is perfect, but because it never gave me a real reason to replace it.
How AI and Next.js Made My 4-Language Launch Much Easier Than Expected
A small content-structure change, AI-assisted translation, and Next.js turned a 4-language launch into a much more scalable workflow than I expected.
Launching qrviz: Why I Built a Free QR Code Generator With No Monetization Plan
I launched qrviz.com as a free QR code generator, not because it was the smartest business move, but because building useful products still gives me more energy than almost anything else.
Building a Character AI-Style Chatbot Solo: Why Making Characters Feel Real Is the Hard Part
Launching a Character AI-style chatbot in 13 languages taught me that the hardest work is not engineering, but creating characters that feel warm, believable, and worth talking to.
Why Getting Customers Is Harder Than Building a SaaS
For many developers, coding feels straightforward compared with the harder work of distribution, positioning, and retention after launch.
I Built My Own Character AI Solo, and Launch Made It Real
Building my Character AI alone was one challenge, but turning on payments changed it from a side project into a real product with real responsibility.
AI Hallucinations in Anime Character Generation Are Still Wild
Building anime characters with ChatGPT for rizae.com keeps reminding me of the same thing: AI can be brilliant one minute and absurdly confident about obvious mistakes the next.
Shorts Experiment: Vertical Video, Voiceover, and Subtitles
Early tests confirmed the obvious: vertical video with voice and captions gets meaningfully more reach than static or silent clips.
Russia's IT Job Market in 2026: What It Actually Feels Like
Competition is brutal: more applicants, flatter salaries, and far fewer roles that feel genuinely worth pursuing.
When AI Adds an Extra Hand and Insists It's Fine
Image models can be confidently wrong, and even correction prompts can fail in surprisingly stubborn ways.
Web Dev, Solo Projects, and a Quick Intro
A quick introduction: six years in web development, still building solo projects, and always open to thoughtful conversations about tech.
Back From Vacation and Straight Back Into Code
Four focused days of building reminded me how much I love deep technical work after time away.
Mint Tea, 3,500 Commits, and a Proper Break
A short reflection on a four-month sprint, a birthday in Morocco, and why real rest matters after a long stretch of sustained output.
Using DeepSeek and Node.js to Ship an AI SaaS Faster
How I used DeepSeek to break through the MVP barrier and go from a blank repo to a working platform.
My Viral Threads Post Was Removed Over a Friendly Comment
A reminder that rented platforms can turn on you fast: a brand-new dev account got traction, then was suddenly suspended.
Posting My First TikTok at 28
I tested short-form video by reviving an old MMORPG project and turning it into a small traffic experiment.
A YouTube Comment Brought My Old MMORPG Back to Life
One unexpected comment pushed me to reopen a forgotten game, fix it up, and fold it into a newer AI product.
How I Got Banned From Reddit in 15 Minutes
I took the slow, careful approach to joining Reddit and still ended up permanently banned almost immediately.
Aged Domains Come With Baggage
A 25-year-old domain brought legacy bot traffic, crawl waste, and an SEO mess that only targeted 410 responses could clean up.
Why My Site Got Zero Traffic From Russia
The issue was not demand. It was Cloudflare, Russian blocking, and the migration that finally restored access.
Why Static Sites Handle Bot Noise So Well
My logs are full of scanners and exploit probes, but the stack barely notices. That is the advantage of static delivery.
Yandex vs. Google on a New Project
Yandex started sending real traffic while Google barely budged, and the contrast says a lot about how differently the two engines treat new sites.
Yandex Indexed 4,000+ Pages Overnight
A useful programmatic SEO milestone: thousands of static pages were picked up in a single pass.
One Month of SEO Experiments: 632 Visitors and a Lot of Questions
A month of hands-on SEO work brought real traffic, a few surprises, and a much clearer sense of what actually moves the needle.
From Frontend Work to Hands-On SEO
I built a Next.js side project to learn SEO, and Yandex ended up outperforming Google by a wide margin.
Why I Chose Yandex Metrica Over Google Analytics
After a week of real-world use, Yandex Metrica gave me clearer behavior data and a much better view of how people actually move through the site.
How 308 Redirects Helped Me Contain a Sitemap Mess
Yandex misread thousands of URLs, and proactive 308 redirects helped steer crawlers away from broken paths.
The Google Launch Spike Is Not Real Growth
A big launch bump can feel exciting, but it often disappears fast. Here is why new sites should not trust the honeymoon period.
Losing 2,000 Pages Overnight in Yandex
A blunt reminder that SEO volatility is part of the game, even when a project seems to be growing steadily.
Winning Two Prizes at Moscow JS 66
An evening of talks on Telegram bots, TypeScript, and AI, plus the questions that helped me walk away with two prizes.
Notes From PiterJS
What stood out at PiterJS in St. Petersburg: FrontOps, performance, and the value of showing up prepared.
My Multilingual Next.js Blog Reached 500 Impressions in One Week
After just one week, the early search data was already showing why multilingual SEO can compound faster than launching in a single language.
18 Months, 30 Players, and Why the Game Still Mattered
My browser MMORPG never found a big audience, but the small group of players who stayed made the whole project feel meaningful.
Notes From MoscowJS 65
A quick recap of MoscowJS 65 at T Bank, the talks that stood out, and why local JavaScript meetups still matter.
New Site, New Direction
I launched a new portfolio site shaped by six years of experience and the next wave of AI-focused side projects.